"His book The Game made him a fortune, but left Neil Strauss in treatment for sex addiction. Ten years later, he’s a changed man"
"Strauss explained to his readers the tricks he’d been taught: intricate Sun Tzu-style manoeuvres that included negging (or feigning a lack of interest in order to reduce a woman’s self-esteem) and caveman-ing (which, as the book’s glossary had it, was “to directly and aggressively escalate physical contact” with someone). “As soon as you ask yourself whether you should or you shouldn’t,” one of The Game’s lessons reads, “that means you should.”"
Ten years on, it is difficult to read this without anxiety. In an age of consent lessons on campus and school education on the harmful effects of pornography, the conversation has changed. So has Strauss. He tells me that, without knowing it at the time, he was a pretty troubled man when he wrote The Game
Indeed, in the decade since the book’s publication, he has been through all manner of personal difficulties – periods of therapy, loneliness, heartbreak, depression
