Biology as consent: Problematizing the scientific approach to seducing women's bodies

SynopsisExploring the ways that scientific narratives are used to create scripts for heterosexual men to enact when performing the role of “seducer,” this paper details how evolutionary narratives and physiological research have been appropriated by the “pick-up artist” community in the text The Mystery Method: How To Get Beautiful Women Into Bed (Mystery, 2007). These problematic texts privilege biological responses as “truth” and position women's bodies against themselves by teaching men to arouse women and then to interpret this physical arousal as consent and ignore women's verbal communication. These texts are critiqued and their implications are discussed.