I've dabbled in the PUA stuff since my separation, mostly as a way to improve my confidence when I was going out on dates - I thought it was a good way to engineer some casual sex (I ended up in a relationship instead - which actually has been pretty good all around).

On Reddit, there's two primary places where "pick up artistry" are discussed with any frequency by practicioners. Obviously, there's /r/seduction, and then there's /t/TheRedPill. The audiences for both subs overlap somewhat, but not completely.

I found that amongst the /r/seduction crowd, they tend to break down into two groups - "outer game" and "inner game" practicioners. Those who tend to primarily focus on "outer game" are the ones who tend to be focused on what kinds of words you need to say to women to get them in bed, canned lines and routines, and manipulation techniques. They tend to gravitate towards the "Mystery Method" and people like Ross Jeffries who purports to be able to essentially hypnotize women into bed. I've found that the people who are overly focused on the "outer game" stuff are often pretty angry at women, have a lot of personal issues, tend towards objectification in a big way, and often overlap pretty heavily with the RedPill crowd (more on that below).

Then there's the "inner game" camp of the so-called seduction community. These guys tend to be more focused on self-improvement, will tout things like psychotherapy, meditation, fitness, self-esteem, and self-confidence as a route to enhancing their attractiveness and success with women. The definitive text for those guys is Mark Manson's book, "Models," which I've read and I really like.

Then, there's /r/theredpill. This is a place where angry guys go. A lot of them seem to be recently divorced, with stories of bad marriages - these are "men scorned." So now, I guess, they come to /r/theredpill to get back at women, collectively. Have sex with them and leave them, or worse. It's more than just seduction techniques or improving success with women - it's seduction techniques combined with some serious misogyny and a waaay jaded view of the human condition.

My personal view is that pick-up techniques aren't inherently a bad thing, if improving your confidence with women is your thing. If you're using it to settle a score in some weird way with previous women in your life, that's fucked up and you need to examine your shit. To me that's what /r/theredpill is all about.