Season 3, Episode 2: The Pickup Artist

Straight white men’s sexuality is too often imagined as natural, timeless, and unchanging. In The Pickup Artist, we showcase the 1970 bestseller, How to Pick Up Girls, in order to explore the cultural forces that have shaped how white men experienced and publicly expressed their desire for women in increasingly casual and aggressive ways. How to Pick Up Girls by Eric Weber was a mass-marketed book that advised men on how to introduce themselves to and seduce women. The book spawned several sequels and countless imitators. But more importantly, How to Pick Up Girls represented the triumph of a male-dominated sexual revolution that allowed men to demand ever-greater access to any woman’s time, body, and attention. Hosts and Creators: Gillian Frank and Lauren Gutterman Senior Producer: Saniya Lee Ghanoui Producer and Story Editor: Rebecca Davis Assistant Producers: Chris Babits, Isabel Machado and Mallory Szymanski Interns: Katie Kenny, Hugh MacNeil, Ian McCabe, Emily Vaughn and Felix Yeung. Julia Zaksek provided research assistance on this episode. To learn more about our podcast, please visit us at www.sexinghistory.com If you enjoyed this episode, please review us on iTunes and share us on social media.