Mozart’s 1787 opera Don Giovanni tells the story of the Spanish legend Don Juan, a man who sleeps with as many women as possible because he thinks he can repent before he dies.

In Mozart’s version, the Don seems at first like just like a generic sexual predator prick. When a woman accuses him of rape, he ices her old man and retreats to his palazzo. But we soon learn something weirder is going on. When one of his jilted lovers shows up, Don Giovanni’s servant Leporello explains to her that the Don keeps a catalogue of all the women he’s conquered: 640 in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey, and in Spain 1003.

This catalogue aria is what a boring white weirdo named Kierkegaard called the most epic moment of the opera. It’s the moment that we learn that Don Giovanni is not just a predator, but that he’s actually fucking insane. He doesn’t care whether the women are young or old, beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, he seduces them all the same, just to satisfy his manic urge to add them to the list.

In the 21st century there are men who are really like this. They’re called pick-up artists, and they want you to buy their erotic memoirs… ah man. Here we go.

A lot has been said about how pick-up artists are manipulative psychos who disregard women’s wishes, and use deception and coercion to have sex that’s borderline rapey and at best highly quote quote problematic unquote end italics. I’m not going to repeat those feminist objections in this video because I assume that my audience is familiar with them already.

What I want to talk about instead is why? Why do some men become obsessed with sleeping with a lot of women in the first place? I mean, even some pretty normal dudes tend to start this macho bragging when they get a few too many drinks in them. A napkin and pen are produced, lists are drawn up, advanced algebra is involved. There are scholastic debates about what counts as a lay.

But before I penetrate this topic too deeply, I wanna pull out to cockblock some premature objections.

First, I’m not arguing that male promiscuity is in itself a bad thing. I have no problem with mansluts. In fact, I’m a bit of a manslut myself.

Second, I’m not saying that “game” is inherently wrong, or that men shouldn’t work to improve their appearance and social skills. Hell, I do that myself. I mean, I don’t do 80 push-ups a day because I want to live longer. Fuck that shit. I do it because I want to look good with a backwards swastika bedazzled on my shaved and oiled chest.

So why would a man want to sleep with hundreds of women? Well, you might be thinking the answer is obvious, namely that sex feels good and so it’s natural that men would want to have a lot of it. Well, that’s what I thought too, at least until I probed a little deeper and discovered how fucking naïve that is.

A kinda famous pick-up artist called Roosh V wrote a book called Bang, which is a guide that purports to teach men to sleep with lots of women. Now the first thing I noticed about Bang is that the act of sex itself is not described at all until page 111 of a 140-page book, and the discussion lasts less than one page. That’s right, only four short paragraphs of this book are actually about banging. There’s one paragraph about how to put a penis in a vagina, one paragraph about the three sex positions Roosh knows, one paragraph about how being good at sex doesn’t matter, and one paragraph about how cunnilingus is a waste of time. Gentlewomen of the jury, it’s good stuff.

Roosh’s total lack of concern for sexual technique actually comes as a real surprise, since in the 111 pages leading up to it, he shows meticulous care for every other aspect of seduction, from the precise angle to approach a woman at the bar to the detailed flow-chart procedure for overcoming resistance at every stage leading up to sex. It turns out that rejection is just like dying in a video game: you start the level over and try again! [never take no for an answer]

The rapey stuff aside, some of the advice he gives is actually decent. Roosh knows how to single-handedly unclasp a bra in a second, and he’s scientifically discovered the least awkward way to get out a condom, which he actually practices putting on quickly. He’s probably a fucking virtuoso at putting the condom on. Make a video tutorial, Roosh. Stop fucking whining about feminism. Get the banana out and actually teach us something, you beautiful fool.

It’s honestly kind of a relief when you get to the page of Bang about sex, because it’s the only part of the book where Roosh relaxes. Until the moment the penis enters the vagina (congratulate yourself on the notch), Roosh has been trying to control everything with scientific precision. The fact that it’s just anything goes with regard to the sex itself is the tipoff that Bang is not really a book about Banging. It’s a guidebook on how to get a penis into a vagina by any means necessary.

The most absurd thing about Roosh is that he doesn’t really seem to like sex very much. He describes it as “an act whereby a man inserts a rod-shaped mass of engorged tissue into a woman’s lubricated cavity”—and where have we heard this before? [] It’s pretty clear that Roosh is not a hedonist. He is not pursuing pleasure. There’s an important distinction between a genuine voluptuary—someone like Casanova, who actually seems to like women and enjoy spending time with them—and a mere list-making maniac like Roosh or Don Giovanni.

Now, on the Don Giovannian scale of things, I’m not really a very prolific manslut myself, but there have been certain periods in my life of shall we say definite mansluttery, and one of the things I’ve learned from my experience is that jack-hammering a woman for five to ten minutes is usually not enough to get her off. If you actually care about female pleasure you’re gonna have to develop some other skills.

[oyster banquet] try the wine. This has been an expensive cunnilingus joke.

But I guess it’s not a big surprise that pick-up artists don’t care about female pleasure. The more interesting and surprising thing is that they don’t particularly care very much about their own pleasure either, or at least it’s not their primary focus. The point of sex for Roosh seems to be to prove again and again that he’s a real alpha male, and that he’s not a Warcraft-playing beta like he used to be. He wants to sleep with a lot of women because of the masculine prestige he thinks it brings him, and he wants the women he sleeps with to be conventionally beautiful for the same reason.

Bang is honestly one of the most depressing books I’ve ever read, and I’m a Kafka fan. It’s a window into Roosh’s soul, which is a void as blank as his stare and as dark as the cover of the book itself. To look at the world through Roosh’s eyes is to look at a world where no real companionship between men and women is possible, where sex is a solitary act of self-assertion that never leads to a connection between minds. There’s no pleasure, and no real eroticism in Bang, only the cold machinations of a man who hates women single-mindedly obsessing over his own sexual high score.

This is a miserable view of life and of sex. And I say this not as someone who believes sex is sacred and only good when you’re in love or anything fucking gay like that. Even a one night stand can allow you to have some kind of real connection with someone, but only if you’re honest and empathetic toward each other, and aren’t just using each others’ bodies so you can add another name to your fucking spreadsheet. Goddamn.

I always thought one of the benefits of sex is that it allows you to escape the walls of your own mind-prison and enjoy a less lonely existence, even if only for a couple hours. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way. I’m certainly not saying unrepentant fucksluttery doesn’t have some bad consequences. No matter how honest and careful you try to be, if you have enough bangs there’s gonna come a moment when the person you were just totally casually no-strings-attached banging turns you and says, “I have feelings for you that I’ve never felt for anyone before,” and you’re gonna think, “Oh shit. I fucked up. I fucked up bad.” And you did fuck up. But it’s gonna happen to you too, motherfucker.

You’re gonna wake up one morning, and the person you were just totally casually no-strings-attached not-a-big-deal banging is gonna walk out the door, and then suddenly, oh God, you’ll feel the fire burning in the depths of your chest, and you’ll wonder:

Why doesn’t she love me? What are these feelings that are happening to me? Am I dying? I hate this! It was supposed to be casual! Casual! I didn’t know my soul contained these depths. 

ContraPoints! Hearken to my voice!

Wh- What the fuck? Who are you?

Why, I’m the spirit of a little thing you may have forgotten about called love.

Well get out of here. If that’s your scene, fine, but I don’t do that shit anymore.

Well I’m afraid it’s already too late. You see, my child is already inside of you.

Well, I’m gonna drown that child. I will feel nothing! Get out! [Drinks, blues]

Oh goddamn it. Come on. Really? That’s just… that’s. It’s crass. Goddamn it. Goddamn you!

Try the wine motherfucker.

Alright. Gimme that. I’ll try the wine. I’ll suck your goddamn c*ck too.

Aw yeah.

[credits roll]

No, no. Stop. We’re not ending there. This video needs a lesson. Because I’m a moral person goddamn it. I’m a social justice feminist.

Well look. I’ll say two things:

First, people have this idea that feminism means that men can’t be men, and sex is over, and it’ll be like the matriarchal version of the Handmaid’s Tale. But no, that’s not what it is. I mean, there’s maybe like 1 or .1 percent of feminists who think all sex is rape and men are pigs and all that stupid shit, but those women are sad and pathetic and no one listens to them. Really, the sexual requirements of feminism are very minimal. Don’t rape people, don’t harass them, don’t abuse them, don’t shout at them in the streets. It’s really just not that hard.

Second, for your sake, stop counting how many people you’ve fucking slept with. Women all seem to mysteriously have no idea how many people they’ve fucked. This is charming and adorable and men should emulate it. 

Because in the real world a Don Giovanni is a pretty unhappy thing to be. Without Mozart’s intensely erotic music propping him up, the Don would come off as cold and sexless. If your goal is to live a voluptuous life, then sure, sleep with lots of women. Sleep with lots of dudes, or animals. Whatever you’re into. But only if they want to, and only if you want to. I mean you can embrace absolute pleasure with just one partner, or even by yourself. Human life isn’t very long, and we’re all stuck in this together. So forget about your fucking list and go spread some pleasure in the world.

But, to be clear, don’t go spraying your pleasure all over everyone unless they want you to. It’s just not that hard. Goddamn it.