Better Asian Man: Jaehwan’s Official Review
William, the Better Asian Man, surrounded by women
Many of you have probably seen my discussions of PUA, or Pick Up Artistry, for Asian American men. You may have heard my Fallout Central podcast where I spoke with the Asian Playboy, the first person to racialize PUA for Asian Americans, or you may have seen my pieces on Asian American Male-ism here and here. You may have also heard my interview with William from BetterAsianMan.com here. Dialectic the Stealth MC, one of the owners of the Fighting 44s, wrote a piece endorsing Betterasianman here. On the Fighting 44s, it has been a long battle, with lots of negativity and protest against William, even though one of the owners endorsed him. I myself never endorsed BAM or the Asian Playboy, though I do respect both of them for the proactive steps they are taking in Asian American society. Not only have I never endorsed them, but I’ve also recently been a bit quiet on the fallout that has taken place in the discussions over PUA, feminism, and sexism.
So let me give my appraisal on the situation, along with my official review of BAM.
First, I believe that some people are giving William far less credit than he deserves. After putting together Fallout Central, the most successful Asian American podcast to date, along with that awesome class at Wellesley on Asian American male sexuality, I believe he deserves respect. He puts so much time into activism, and he’s accomplished a lot. To sit there and bash the guy without challenging his logic (”Sexist! Objectifier!”) seems to me to be disrespectful and uncalled-for, especially when it comes from people who put far less effort into changing or engaging society than he does. It’s not easy being an activist–I can tell you that from experience, and if these people would engage him a bit more, I think they’d understand the logic of where he’s coming from, even if he doesn’t always do it in a polished manner.
Second, people are painting this as a male vs. female thing. As I’ve mentioned earlier, men and women see the world differently. On another level though, it’s not male vs. female but rather activist vs. internet participant. I have not once met a single female activist who opposes his activities. There are, for example, female activists on 8Asians.com who brush him off, but they don’t condemn him. There are female members of Thymos who think the concept is good. Even Reappropriate Jenn accepted his advertising, which I think is a pretty strong message of support. Plus, William has female activists who talk on his site as well; his podcast two Sundays ago featured two guests who are women. It really bothers me that some people use the internet to bash him, and I wish more people would just call in rather than taking the easy approach of using their fingers to do the “talking.” If they heard what it is that he’s trying to do, I really believe they would behave differently. His system is not perfect, but it isn’t going to get better unless people work together.
(And for those who say it’s different when you’re a woman, I KNOW it’s possible for women to sit in the same room as a PUA without losing their cool–check out the women on the View, or check out Reappopriate Jen’s site.)
Now let me be straight–I understand both men and women are sometimes at different stages. Many of his detractors may not be comfortable in real-time communication, and they may feel threatened by the possibility of being proven wrong. I also don’t mean this as a personal attack–most of these internet people are probably good people, and I know some of them personally. But hiding behind the internet simply doesn’t help anyone, and it hinders the changes that we so badly need. If you’re afraid of real-time communication, at the very least you need to realize that most life takes place off-line and to give some leeway or constructive criticism to people who are trying to make change.
So let me give my view of BetterAsianMan.com itself.
1. I think there are some serious problems with some of the endorsements on William’s site.
I have no problem with him mentioning Asian Playboy since that is where he learned his skills, but I don’t see why he can’t critique the problems on Asian Playboy’s site. If you’re an activist, you need to still take a stand for what is right. APB has people boasting about threesomes and other sexual acts on his site which is, in my opinion, disrespectful towards women. You can’t have it both ways–if you want to teach men to meet women, you’d better make sure they respect women, otherwise you can’t expect women or men who love women to support you when you endorse a guy who has videos of men bragging about blowjobs on his website.
He also links up to people like Johnny Wolf, who have as a goal in life nothing more than just sleeping with skanky women. That’s fine–it’s totally consensual and there’s nothing morally wrong with that–but let’s not call it empowerment. Such dalliances take place at the expense of women since society gives different treatment to promiscuous men and promiscuous women. I took a look at both Johnny and APB’s site, and both of them lack any kind of curiosity into improving society and respecting women. In activism, you need to choose your friends carefully, especially when those friends are only in it for self-gratification.
2. William is not an expert on relationships, nor is APB or Johnny Mouse. This needs to be put out there, front and center. If you read William’s blog, you’ll notice–he NEVER talks about his relationships; he only talks about his loneliness and his approach. It never goes beyond this. It would be like writing a book about running a marathon and only writing about the first mile.
Why is this important? It’s important because the basic unit of society is the family, and if Asian guys are acting like a bunch of gigolos (which he isn’t, but which some of his endorsees are), they’re not fulfilling their strongest activist roles as fathers and husbands. This isn’t a heterosexual thing either–all men need to be husbands and fathers for a society to be strong.
Now this is not to say that what he’s doing is bad, per se. You can’t become a husband or father without first having the ability to attract women. But attracting women is just a first step, not an end in itself. Making PUA an end in itself is to really stop short of what human beings can really achieve.
3. On a positive note, I think a LOT of good is coming from the fact that William is using his activist skills to challenge peoples’ beliefs. His postings and activities have generated much badly needed discussion on Asian American gender issues, and the fact that there is so much resistance and emotion on both sides tells me that it’s an important issue.
4. Social skills are an important part of empowerment. If he’s teaching Asian men to approach women in an honest manner, he’s doing at least one good thing.
5. It really does have to go beyond just picking up women. I’ve listened to some of the podcasts, and I usually only like listening to the ones in which he talks to cool people, like the one two Sundays ago in which he interviewed James, the guy who runs the Alpha Asian blog. Just talking about picking up women gets boring after a while. I can only imagine how boring it must get for women. The fact is that most men who have the ability to make change in society are not the kind of guys who need PUA lessons, and if you only cater to that wounded demographic, larger social change which pushes the envelope on human achievement will never take place.
Read “The Game” by Neil Strauss, and you’ll see how surprised the actor Tom Cruise gets when meeting Strauss. He says something along the lines of “Imagine what PUAs could achieve if they put their energy into doing something more constructive.”
So this is my long-winded appraisal of Better Asian Man. I support William in what he does, but I can’t yet give him a full endorsement because of #1 above. #2 and #5 need to be put front and center, and #3 and #4 need are items which his detractors need to take into account. Overall, I think that William will someday change the world of Asian American activism, if he moves past Pickup and cuts off his ties with guys who promote sexism. This BAM site is just one step in the right general direction.
