For a number of years I posted the Primer of Persuasion at my University website.  My students used it as a background reader or quick review source along with other texts in the persuasion courses I taught.  After the Primer had been online for a few years, people started linking to it from their own pages.  Most of these inbound links came from the Usual Gang of Suspects:  other persuasion websites, marketing and sales, and even some animal training websites (classical conditioning and reinforcement works not only on boyfriends, but also dogs).

The oddest link came from a BDSM website.  That I had not expected.  But, then, as I poked around that site, it made sense to me.  Persuasion means using words to change the way freely choosing people think, feel, and act.  You certainly think, feel, and act during sex, whether BDSM or plain vanilla, so why not use persuasion, too?

Thus, let me offer my insights into the proper uses of persuasion for sex.  Please bear in mind that I lack formal certification in any area of sex, bondage, or how to treat rope burns.  I am not a real Doctor of Love, but I’ll play one on this Blog just for our mutual benefit.  On with the orgy!

Let’s begin with the Crucial Observation:

Grab the head and the body will come!

Most people report that good fun sex is largely a function of how they think about it as much as what they do.  Persuasion usually aims at changing the mind to generate the behavior change.  Thus, good sex and good persuasion both aim at the head even though the ultimate target is the body.  Our first conclusion:  To please the body, manipulate the mind.  Consider the Persuasion Rules.

1.  It’s about the Other Guy, Stupid

Most people fail at persuasion because they approach changing the Other Guy through their own wants and needs.  We come up with persuasion plays that may persuade us, but, the Other Guy?  Usually not.  Successful sex and successful persuasion both start with a keen focus on the Other Guy, your partner.  It’s not what you want, but what your partner wants.  That means you have to observe, listen, question, and remember:  What does your partner think?

Now, real quickly, this Rule does not mean you have to engage in sexual behaviors you dislike simply because your partner likes them.  It does mean, however, that you need to think about those actions and work from there.

2.  All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere

Some people believe that you have to be authentic, spontaneous, and sincere when you persuade.  This Rule argues for the opposite.  To be effective at both persuasion and sex, you need to be planful, deliberate, and artificial.  This does not mean lying.  It simply means that you are saying or doing something with careful control and deliberation to achieve a goal.  You might actually prefer to be somewhere else and doing something else, but that’s not effective for the current situation.

3.  If You Can’t Succeed, Don’t Try.

Let me quickly point out I’m not saying don’t have sex!  Rather, if you are thinking about using persuasion to enhance sex, follow the Rule, If You Can’t Succeed, Don’t Try.  Where do you look more foolish, lame, or ridiculous than a failure in the bedroom?

And, finally for you BDSM aficionados . . .

4.  You Can Get Farther with a Kind Word and a Big Stick Than with Either Alone.

The Hirshhorn Museum on the National Mall In Washington DC currently features the classic 1977 performance video, Light/Dark, by Marina Abramović and Ulay.  Shot in black and white, the video features a male and female, kneeling opposite one another, taking turns slapping each other on the face.  The tempo of the event escalates until it concludes in a vigorous slapfest that tests the speed and coordination of each partner.  I am not sure that this is art, but it is persuasive.

While watching Light/Dark at distance, Melanie and I observed a small group of teen-agers watching the video, and, wouldn’t you know it, they were slapping each other on the face just like Abramović and Ulay.  Beavis and Butthead, avant garde!  Three Stooges, touché!  Regretfully I have no pictures since I would have been obligated to have gotten release signatures from the kids and they looked like they were having too much fun.

Many years ago the Hirshhorn offered another compelling performance art video entitled, Clown Torture, which featured a clown in whiteface, red nose, and fright wig, weeping and shouting like the last survivor of a Genghis Khan raid.  We observed no modeling effects from this performance.  Perhaps, the clown appears too dissimilar to teen (and perhaps adults – we didn’t stay that long) viewers and thus garners no imitators.   Abramović and Ulay appear without makeup and in normal dress.  While some of you may think I’m pulling your leg about these details, the modeling literature demonstrates that similarity between model and imitator is crucial for modeling effects.  Perhaps, if we ran Light/Dark with two slapping clowns, my teen exemplars would disappoint?

Disappointing too, if you search the Hirshhorn website they do not list Light/Dark as an asset in their search function!  You can find this excellent 140 character tweet on it, though.  And, here’s a Hirshhorn link to a lecture about Marina Abramović that mentions Light/Dark.  Finally, if you’d like to view a video fragment of the work, here’s your source.  Sadly, I cannot find the entire 20 minute feature, so you’ll just have to imagine it.

How ephemeral is performance art!

How eternal are the principles of persuasion!

Crying clowns weep alone, but slapping people starts a style!

P.S.  What’s wrong at the Hirshhorn?  In the past five years when we’ve visited there the place has had fewer pieces on display, provided abundant space for sparse exhibitions (Blinky Palermo needs an entire floor?), and shown visible signs of aging.  Other Smithsonian Museums, by contrast, continue to sparkle, shine, and innovate.  Did someone at the Hirshhorn offend every member of Congress?

People often pose interesting persuasion questions to me and just to be all things to all people at all times, I think about some fairly offbeat ideas.  Today, a regular correspondent asked me . . .

. . . whether it’s possible to pick up a girl over a game of Scrabble on Facebook.

As a happily married man, I have to confess this tactic never occurred to me.  So, I let the idea roll around in my mind for awhile and came up with a couple of possibilities.

Since Scrabble is a word game, consider priming.  As I’ve discussed in the Blog and Primer, it is easy to present words to people in ways that are quite harmless, but that serve to activate a set of beliefs or attitudes useful for more nefarious purposes.  Sometimes these priming tasks are run under very low awareness conditions as in those subliminal flashes that display a word for 3 milliseconds so that it is impossible for the viewer to have conscious awareness anything happened.  Sometimes the priming is done in the open as when people are given word completions that are presented in the guise of quick response intelligence test, thus diverting the Other Guy’s attention away from the word content.  The key point is that these semantic tasks will fire up cognitions that fly below the Other Guy’s radar, yet still can motivate action.

From this science we’ve got persuasion gravity and you should see how to use this to get the Other Guy, or in this application The Woman, to fall off the log while ostensibly playing a silly little word game like Scrabble.  And, whether you play this on Facebook or on a real live Scrabble board, the point is the same:  use the Scrabble words to prime her.

What words do you use?  Two admonitions.

1.  There Are No Laws of Persuasion and If There Were Why Would I Tell You.

2.  All Persuasion Is Local.

The first Rule tells you that there are no magic words guaranteed to get the girl.  Sure, you can find sources who offer Magic Words (which used to be called Magic Beans if you remember your Fairy Tale history), but the only one profiting from the Magic is the seller and never the buyer.

Therefore, go to Rule 2:  All Persuasion Is Local.

In other words, think about the girl.  You and I know what you are interested in, but to get what you are interested in, you must get the Other Guy, the Woman, to do what it is you are interested in.  If ever there was a case of It’s Not About You, It’s About Her, this is it.

Many horny men will seize upon words that refer directly to sexuality – kiss, lick, rub, strip, fondle, and then on and on with words that would make this Blog blush, but you know what I mean.  We can call this the Mr. Subliminal approach in honor of the comedy routine the actor Kevin Nealon developed during his days on Saturday Night Live.  Subliminal, yes, but much too direct and obvious.  If you are playing Scrabble as a drinking game, such plain priming might be effective, but generally the direct approach of the horny Mr. Subliminal will only get you laughter.

Good research has shown that many women are temporarily deranged in the presence of men with excessive resources and we’re not talking about big feet.  Wealth.  Money.  Moola.  Hey, Big Spender, spend a little time with me.  Women who would otherwise not be caught dead in a coffin with this guy will be singing Toujours L’Amour, Tonight For Sure in the face of a man with money.

One proven way for a man to demonstrate his wealth is through luxury brands.  An extremely cagey priming play would therefore be conspicuous consumption words.  Louis Vuitton.  Hermes.  Prada.  Blahnik.  Tiffany.  Gucci.  Rolex.  Cartier.  Fendi.  Rolls Royce.  Ferrari.  As a man, you will be drawn to those car names, but for the truly desperate desperado, focus on shoes, perfume, jewelry, and clothing.

Of course, you can also offer a different kind of resource:  Commitment.  Women also like men who offer stability, relationship, protection, loyalty, and all those elements of domesticity.  A man good for the long run can be attractive in the short term, like tonight.  Consider words like altar, vows, rings, children, family, love, honor, and if you want to take a chance, obey.

From these two examples any man who thinks he might score through Scrabble should be able to complete this exercise with better words that directly appeal to the woman on the other side of the Scrabble board.  Figure her out, then prime her accordingly.

Persuasion Maven Bonus Tactic!  I believe that this pickup priming play would work better if she spelled the priming words.  If you can get her to spell what you’re thinking, she’s definitely falling off the log and in the throes of persuasion gravity.  You can influence that by the words you put on the board.  You would try to pick and arrange words that suggest the words you want to prime.  As she then scans the board, looking for possibilities, if you’ve done this properly, she can discover Hermes or Fendi for herself.  When she does this, you need to reply in kind on your next word.  Misspell Cartier as Karteea if you have to!

Let’s get out of here . . .

. . . on a word of caution.  Men, while skill and achievement differences between men and women are narrowing over time, women still hold a distinct advantage with verbal skills over men.  And, just in case this hadn’t occurred to you, women might read this post and realize that priming is a play anyone can make.  Thus, you are playing a game the Other Guy is better at and may be playing on you!

Stumbling through the Morning Papers I encountered this assertion about waitress tips.

What does make us tip better?  How about breasts?  A 2009 study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that larger self-reported breast size among waitresses correlated with bigger tips.

And, if you read further in that 2009 study, you find that blondes also report bigger tips.  Buxom blondes, bigger tips.

So, to my headline.  Why aren’t all waitresses buxom blondes?

This question questions both the internal and external validity of this 2009 Archives of Sexual Behavior study.  Does BB really produce BT?  And, if so, does that BB generalize to other BBs who will then earn BT?  The WSJ writer and the report writer seem to think that BB is proven as the Special Sauce and that if other people use BB then they too will enjoy the BT thus putting a check mark in the boxes beside Internal Validity and External Validity on their Reviewer Ballot.

It could be, however, that this study doesn’t prove what people think it proves.  Here’s the key result paragraphs for the BB-BT claim.

Breast Size:  Self-rated physical attractiveness, B = .29, t(361) = 4.74, p < .001, sexiness, B = .43, t(360) = 5.06, p < .001, and percent tip, B = .46, t(360) = 2.50, p < .01), all increased linearly with waitresses’ breast sizes (see Table 3).  The breast size effect on self-rated attractiveness was qualified by a significant interaction with BMI, B = .05, t(353) = 2.50, p < .02, indicating that the positive effect of breast size was greater for large women than for small women.
Hair Color: Self-rated attractiveness, B = .09, t(361) = .69, and sexiness, B = .08, t(360) = .46, were unaffected by hair color, but blonds reported receiving larger percentage tips, B = 1.08, t(360) = 2.70, p < .005, than did waitresses with other hair colors.

If the only thing you remember from your statistics training is p values, then these paragraphs look pretty good.  Bigger breasts and blonde hair are positively correlated with percent tip.  Just look for those “p < .0something” indicators and you know it’s true and good.

However, if you not only remember but also understood your statistics training, you know that p values are a function of sample size and that bigger samples produce better p values.  You might have picked up on sample size in that paragraph with that “t(361)” notation.  The numbers in the parentheses are degrees of freedom which is exactly and directly related to sample size.  Thus, these true and good p values come from samples of over 350 respondents.  That’s pretty big which means you’re going to have fairly large p values even for trivial effects.  What happens if we get serious about statistics and stop clowning around with those misleading p values and look instead at effect sizes that express the mathematically equivalent idea but in more practical terms?

If you translate those t or p values into Windowpane effects, you find that the crucial test of breast size and blonde hair on tip percentage is a Small Windowpane (d = .26), about a 44/56 difference.

As a practical illustration of the size of this effect, imagine that the waitresses who got bigger tips were on one side of the room and the ones who got smaller tips were on the other side.  Now, just looking at the two groups, tell me which side gets the bigger tips.  With a Small Windowpane effect, no one could merely look at the breast sizes in the two groups and correctly guess which side got the bigger tips.  Each group would have a wide range of bust sizes from small to large.  What would vary ever so slightly is the proportion.  The bigger percentage group would have just a few more women with larger breasts compared to the other group and against all that normal variation in size, you would be unable to see the difference even on something as obvious as women’s bust lines.

Now, further realize that this was a convenience sample of women responding to questions on a computer survey.  Any woman who said she was currently or had been a waitress in the past year could take it.  It was not a random sample.  Everything was self report.  There was no comparison in controlled conditions.  As we have seen in other instances, this kind of data collection is the easiest and most unreliable form of research anyone can do and still hope to get published.  And, remember that Small Windowpane effect size reported in results.

Isn’t it more reasonable to conclude that the BB effect is not proven with this study?

I would argue that the reason all waitresses are not buxom blondes is because the BB effect is trivial at best and that there are better ways for waitresses (indeed, anyone in any service setting) to earn better tips.  Many researchers are clearly clueless about the meaning of their own data and confidently report outcomes as if they are not only practical, but also scientific when they are neither.  Again, just consider the main elements of this peer review and published study.

Convenience sampling.  Entirely self report.  Retrospective responding on events subject to memory effects.  No control of any variable.  Confusion of statistical significance for practical value and scientific meaning.  Small effect sizes.

Hey.

You don’t need to take my word for it.  Just wear a padded bra and a blonde wig and see for yourself.  I did something like this on the one and only Caribbean cruise Melanie and I took.

After a long dinner that involved a considerable amount of drinking, we found ourselves in a Family Fun extravaganza with everyone on the ship playing a weird game that required people at the same table to perform stupid stunts to win points and prizes.  Quite late in the event the game required a man at the table to dress up like a woman and make a beauty pageant run in front of the audience.  I had ducked everything to that point and was the only man at the table who had yet to make a fool of himself, so I volunteered.

One woman with large feet shared her high heels.  Melanie was wearing a two piece outfit and peeled off her skirt for me to wear.  Somebody tied up my shirt in a halter and stuffed napkins for the padded bra effect while Melanie gave me a quick makeup job.  At the time I was wearing my hair extremely long, like a guitarist in a hair band.  After the women at the table got through with me I was one hot looking guy.

I have MC’ed beauty contests and dated models and pageant queens in my prior life, so I know how to handle a runway with some skill.  I did my star turn in front of the audience with the various dazzles, shimmies, and shakes I’d seen before and brought down the house.  And, I might have won the contest except that another table had dressed up a young boy as a woman.  Without shame or envy I can report that he was much better looking woman than I.  My legs were better, but they’d stuffed his bra bigger and he was a blonde.  Of course, the poor kid is scarred for life and suffers from Gender Confusion Syndrome, but with the BB he got the BT that night.

Sorry.  No pictures.

No way.

The New New Thing lives at the New York Times and here’s a parody that proves it.  Take a minute to read it.  I’ll wait.

Why does this parody work?  Stated another way, what is crazy about the New New Thing?  Turned the last time, what are the persuasion implications of the New New Thing?

Why does this reveal?  Look at all the persuasion tricks in this satire.  Most Emailed.  Dr. Experts.  Privileged brights doing everything but living well.  A mad pursuit for mashups:  Organic farming on the West Bank, sustainable ibex farming, Chinese language immersion on the farm, bocce ball on the Upper East Side, Ivy League education as a merit badge.  Endless fascination with easy intelligence; brilliant home farming, brilliant dog training, brilliant Yiddish musical coffee houses.  A thoughtless dogma of technology, education, and Cool Table as the Way of Truth.

What is crazy about this?  The Other Guy is in love with herself, justified past empirical or rational counter-proof, and ambling along the Peripheral Route, unaware of the persuasion possibilities.  She’s Truman before the reveal.  She’ll give her time, her money, her body, but not her mind to the New New Thing.  She hears that Siren song and runs to it.

And the persuasion implications?  As Butch Cassidy put it in the movie, they are easy, ripe, and luscious; you know we’re not talking about Bolivian banks.  The New New Thing is a mark for the taking.  Sure, Facebook and twitter, Apple and xbox, and the gang of Usual Suspects have plundered and pillaged first, but it’s a big world, persuasion mavens.  Just get an expert, an app, and Pantone pink, you’re in the hunt.

P.S.  Yes, you and I are In Group and they are Out Group.  Sure, we’re all swimming in someone else’s fish bowl, unaware of the ocean that determines and sustains us all.  Ponder that after you get the expert, the app, and the pink Pantone, okay?