A three-day gathering held in Berkeley, known as SlutCon, brings together men interested in honing their skills for winning over women. Admission runs from $3,300 to $18,000, and the organizers are rationalist tech workers. Its founder, Aella, operates as a sex worker and runs provocative online surveys on niche sexual ethics.
Lighthaven, a former hotel in Berkeley now run by Lightcone Infrastructure, hosts the gathering. Rationalism emerged online in the 2000s with writers such as Eliezer Yudkowsky, Robin Hanson, and Scott Alexander leading the way. That subculture centers on sidestepping cognitive biases and using Bayesian reasoning to pursue practical goals, which include keeping artificial intelligence aligned with human interests.
The Flirt Girl Job
A woman named Overlocked, who writes under a pseudonym, was brought in to serve as a “flirt girl.”. She was tasked with letting men practice their flirting on her. Another flirt girl at the event wore black arm sleeves and eyelash extensions. When Overlocked’s shift came to an end and she reported back, she admitted she had felt bored throughout.
“I’m good at flirting, and it isn’t hard to get a man to sleep with you,” she said. “Once I start, I can see exactly where the evening will end. Here, she told me that she felt like an ‘apex predator.’ I laughed. Then I sat there sinking into the mattress, trying to work out what the laugh was for.”
A pair of men who followed the blog LessWrong and worked at an indistinct tech enterprise sat with the group. All four positioned themselves cross-legged upon a mattress that someone had laid down upon the floor. That mattress proved so yielding that whenever the girl seated beside her moved her body, she drifted closer.
Circling at Lighthaven
The place was once a hotel, and though its form has changed, the bones of that old building remain — courtyards and garden paths still mark the spot. Today it operates under the management of Lightcone Infrastructure, which runs the venue. Events like SlutCon are held there now.
Lighthaven calls this practice “circling”, which involves telling others what is happening inside you as it unfolds. So if your throat dries when someone looks at you, you speak that feeling aloud to the group right then.
The Event’s Thesis
The organizers laid out their premise for Overlocked when she applied to become a flirt girl. They said they loved men (do we?, she questioned), and that they wanted men to improve at seducing women (of course).
In their training, they were instructed to approach the event with high degrees of openness, along with curiosity and candor. Each flirtee would wear a wristband; when it was on, they could be approached by the attendees. People would be finding the edges of their “seduction style” over the weekend, the organizers said, so some of them would try things they might find awkward.
If a problem arises, they should gently correct it, or announce their desire to leave before ending the exchange. It is best to avoid “crushing their spirit.”, if that is possible.
The Attendees
The number of flirt girls was about equal to the number of ticket holders. Admission to SlutCon ran from $3,300 to $18,000, with the pricier tickets offering limited-space workshops, personalized feedback, and what the documents referred to as “spicier educational sessions.”. No part of the documentation mandated that ticket purchasers be male or that those being courted be female, yet she encountered no cases where either condition was broken.
Her friends kept asking about the people who attended SlutCon, and she said she had never met any of them.
She did not find the gathering overwhelmingly white and nebbish, but it was noticeably so. The men she encountered tended to be rationalist or close to it, and they had known each other from earlier Lighthaven gatherings. Their ages spanned from their 20s into middle age. They were ordinary heterosexual men, which meant they gave off a sense of plainness rather than poor taste, although a handful wore real fedoras, much like Magic the Gathering enthusiasts.
She knew these earnest and uncomfortable people as the Pokemon evolution of the startup guys she had known in college, though they seemed to be sincere and awkward in their own way. Some of them were involved in the poly and/or kink scene, while others were not.
The Women at the Event
The women varied more but were also largely in their mid-20s or 30s. The rationalist or rationalist-adjacent women were dressed comfortably in flannel or skater skirts like SuperWhoLock posters, and they greeted their friends wherever they went.
Some were people from outside the Lighthaven culture altogether. Among them was a beautiful former camgirl who said that Aella’s writing about escorting had described her own life. There was also a sex-positive painter who had flown in for inspiration. Two stunning housemates from another country showed up too, drawn to the gender relations angle of the event — one wanted to mend a relationship with her misogynistic brother. Somewhere in the group was a journalist from Playboy, wearing sigil-shaped jewelry.
The Crowd’s Common Thread
More than just rationalists and sex workers showed up for SlutCon, though both groups appeared in greater numbers than the general population would suggest. The shared trait among attendees, regardless of their background, seemed to be a plain way of thinking and communicating with others.
She discovered it rather pleasing, much to her own surprise. As a lawyer, she has grown used to a certain guardedness and artificiality within her profession.
What This Says About Rationalism
Reading groups and “meet-ups” represent rationalism in physical form across the globe, and its followers are especially active in Silicon Valley. The community has a distinct vocabulary and discourse style, including:
- “Attack surface”, which refers to a complete set of vulnerabilities
- “Priors”, a starting point or baseline
- “Scope insensitivity”, a cognitive bias concerning scale
Measurement is something they value highly.
Surveys probing niche sexual ethics are Aella’s calling card. The hobbyist researcher and internet provocateur carries out these polls as her primary means of making a name for herself online.
Source material: “SlutCon,” thenewcritic.com.
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