#181: From PickUp Artist to Chastity Mentor—Roosh V

Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh used to be the world’s most influential Pick Up Artist (PUA). He wrote over a dozen books on how to seduce and fornicate with young women with greater confidence and efficacy. Many thousands of young men around the world read his blog, bought his books, and attended his events to “get good at game.”

But over time, the whole glittery enterprise lost its shine and appeal. Roosh felt emptier than before. Each sexual exploit seemed to deepen the void he sought to fill. It’s an old story, but everyone who lives it swears it’s utterly unique and “first” to himself. Sin is that way, especially the soul-bending nature of sexual sin.

After a number of setbacks and disillusionments—and the unexpected death of Roosh’s younger sister to breast cancer in 2018—the darkness and emptiness grew to its darkest and deepest. And so Roosh did something radical and unforeseen.

He prayed. (“I had to google ‘how to pray’ he admits.) 

God was faithful to this cry of the heart for help and consolation. Today, poco a poco, Roosh is a changed man who continues to grow in both faith and ongoing repentance. He’s writing a memoir and plotting his next move, but this time relying more on his discernment of the will of God than his own resources and plans. 

Pay attention. Roosh V will become much better known for his work on behalf of Jesus Christ than he was of the enemy of our souls. Most of what you read about him online was written by his enemies.

In this episode you will learn

• How and why he got into blogging about being a PUA
• The personal defects that inclined him to an embedded lifestyle of sexual sin
• Why his methodology only works for broken or wounded men, and is successful only in bedding fallen women
• The role of fatherlessness in promiscuity
• The reaction(s) of his former followers
• Why he has no fear of the future or “being somebody” thanks to his friendship with Christ in the Armenian Orthodox Church.
• The role of daily prayer as antidote to sexual chaos and loneliness

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Roosh V’s website and forum
• The Confessions by St. Augustine, trans. by Frank Sheed

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