Advice Rance's Guide to Escalation and Emotional Calibration in Japan

[Rance]

This guide is the way I personally think about escalation and emotional calibration. Of course, everyone has their own way of thinking about these topics, but I hope this guide can introduce the subject for newer geomaxxers as well as explain the system that works for me. And, as my understanding continues to evolve, I hope to be able to update this guide to reflect what I learn.

This guide is written from a "red pill" or PUA perspective, which is not necessarily the focus of this forum. If you have any questions about specifics or terminology, please do ask. I will try to hyperlink definitions as they appear. As the wise @Exutoire once said: think blackpill, act redpill, speak bluepill.

And, of course, this guide is written for those who want to geomax in Japan. Some of the principles may apply to other destinations, especially other East Asian countries, but not necessarily.


What is Escalation? (No, really)
The common way people think about escalation is that it’s physical. While physical escalation is the most recognizable form, thinking of it only in this way is in my opinion a limitation, because it makes it easy to forget that your connection with the girl is fundamentally emotional in nature -- not physical. Our goal with the girl may be physical (sex), but to get there it’s often more appropriate to think in terms of emotions than physicality.

If sex is the goal, then it makes sense to view escalation as progress towards that goal.

Escalation is progression towards sex.

Making this distinction is important because escalating physically is often not the best way to move closer to sex (it depends on the situation). It’s a useful component, but it’s not the only component, and it’s even possible to have sex with no prior physical escalation at all. The reason for this is that escalation is emotional. It’s not that you didn’t escalate at all -- you accomplished the same effect through non-physical means. The only reason to get physical with the girl is if it helps you later reach sex.

Escalation starts when you first meet, and you push closer to sex the whole time until you make it. This is a mix of vibing, building rapport and physical escalation, as appropriate. In principle, this is a smooth progression -- not a thing you suddenly start doing after 20 minutes chilling at the sex location. From start to finish you’re building an emotional connection that allows sex to take place.


What is Emotional Calibration?
Humans are emotional creatures, and our emotions affect the decisions we make. Escalating with a girl means leading her emotionally. The basic process of leading emotionally is:

1. Understand her emotional state
2. Share that emotional state with her
3. Transition the emotional state together

Emotional calibration is the first and second step, while escalation is the third step.


How to Emotionally Calibrate
You must seek to understand what she’s feeling. You have to be able to understand what she’s feeling without her actually telling you, because not only can you not trust what she tells you to be accurate, but you can’t even trust her to understand her feelings herself. Girls often have no idea what they’re feeling or why they’re feeling it, so you have to be even better at understanding her than she is. Sounds impossible, but this just takes practice.

You don’t have to understand everything, but the more you can intuit, the easier life will be. You should be always working to understand the girl (intuitively, not necessarily by asking her questions). Understanding girls without them outright telling you anything is attractive in and of itself (you become a guy who “gets it"), but on top of that it’s how you understand what to do. When you get a very good sense for this, it’s like seeing the Matrix, and you can put things on autopilot and think about other things (like logistics). But until then, pay attention: how is she standing? What is her expression? What does her voice tone say? At any given time the girl will be giving off a million different signals that betray her inner feelings. As an exercise, you can try intuiting the mood and thoughts of girls you see. This skill will also improve your approach.

When it comes to escalation (and especially during LMR), the key thing to pay attention to is how comfortable she is. If you go too fast for her, she will shut down and you risk losing her. On the other hand, if she’s comfortable and you’re not pushing forward, she will start to think you’re weak and not capable of it.

So long as you’re actively seeking to intuit her emotional state, your judgement of it will improve with experience.

[Continued in Next Post]​

 

[Rance]

[Continued from Last Post]​

How to Escalate
In the West, physical escalation typically starts early and continues progressively until sex. In Japan, attitudes towards PDA make this a less wise approach, but when you get the girl to the sex location, it doesn’t feel like going from 0 to 100 because you’ve (hopefully) already accomplished the escalation by other means. In my personal experience, there’s little benefit to escalating physically with the girl before reaching a sex location (beyond friend-level playful touching). A girl might be uncomfortable holding hands in public yet will give you a blowjob in private -- there is practically no correlation, and no particular expectation for you to make any overt moves in public. But, importantly, we should keep in mind the reason for physically escalating -- to be able to have sex. Making a girl horny outside of the sex location is often a mistake because you can’t close her there, yet you’ve shown your cards (no more plausible deniability), and horniness fades quickly likely to be replaced by anxiety about sleeping with a guy she just met. On the other hand, there may be circumstances where stealing a secret make-out in a hidden place will give her a thrill that makes her even more captivated by you. It depends on the girl and specific circumstances and is something you should judge based on your own experience. Just know that there is no expectation of physical escalation in public.

Escalation is essentially a process of leading a girl progressively out of her comfort zone. With every escalation you’re asking her for her trust, and you should validate her decision to trust you and ensure she’s still comfortable. If you ignore this, or do a poor job of it, she will stop trusting you and shut down, so you must keep in tune with her emotional state to understand how much you can push at a time. And, again, escalations are not just physical. Requiring her to enter a private space with you for example is a big investment of trust from her and should be treated the same as physical escalation.

The following are all non-physical escalations:

1. Isolating her from her friends
2. Bouncing her to another place
3. Inviting her into your home
4. Taking her into your bedroom
5. Sitting her on your bed

If you repeat the process of leading her slightly out of her comfort zone, then validating that decision, you will gradually be able to expand that comfort zone all the way up until sex.

Often, a single escalation may be too much for her. In these cases, you should break down the escalation into smaller sub-steps, then try again with the same process. If the smaller steps don’t work, break them down even smaller. You can break things down practically infinitesimally if you get creative.

For example, if she won’t let you take off her jeans, the process I will do is as follows (over the span of a few minutes):

1. While kissing her laying down, place the front of my thigh over her pussy so that it gently rubs that area
2. Move my hand down to her ass
3. While still kissing her, take away my thigh and replace it with my forearm
4. Slowly move my arm up until eventually my hand is rubbing her over her jeans
5. Slip my hand under her jeans
6. Unbutton her jean button and continue rubbing her
7. Take off her jeans

Another example that I experimented with a few months ago was breaking going down on her into smaller steps because this was an insecurity of hers. Instead of going straight for going down on her, I made the sub-step of putting my fingers in my mouth after fingering her first. For receiving a blowjob, you can try having her handle your dick, then standing in front of her so that your dick is near her face, then placing it against her cheek, then telling her to stick out her tongue, and so on.

There is usually a sub-step to be found for everything, but if at any of the steps you get stuck and can’t think of a way to create smaller sub-steps, change the escalation approach. Instead of directly escalating to take off her jeans, flip the subject -- escalating to taking off your jeans. It may be that once your dick is out, her barriers will fall. A lot of girls have insecurities individual to them (e.g., taking off clothes with the lights on, oral sex, etc.). It’s usually best to work around these than trying to escalate through them (revisit them after closing all the way).

If at any point you feel that she’s becoming uncomfortable or wants to stop, de-escalate to take the pressure off and comfort/validate her. Never try to force anything unless you know she wants you to -- you will ruin your trust with her.


Validating a Girl’s Decision to Trust You
This is the key for busting through LMR. The girl is constantly deciding how much she should trust you and how far it’s okay for her to go with you. You want to create a balance between moving forward and validating her decisions to move forward with you -- you want her to feel that moving forward was safe. If she starts to feel that moving forward is a mistake, she will get anxious, especially if she thinks you’re going to push forward regardless of her hesitancy.

There are several ways to validate her decisions to move forward with you and they are best combined together. One of the strongest ways is simply verbally acknowledging that she’s trusting you. I will usually say this during LMR if the girl is nervous. This can be combined with looking in her eyes or holding her close to you. This has the additional effect of having her consciously realize she has come to trust you, reinforcing the connection you have been building with her.

Another way is to take a short break by moving back to a previous level of physical intimacy. For example, if you have been kissing, but she shows resistance at touching, go back to talking intimately for a while, then begin again. Do be swift with this, as I believe reverting to previous stages of escalation can often defuse sexual tension. It's nothing to worry about so long as you begin escalating again in short time without letting the mood get stagnant.

Combinations are the most powerful, because many of these can be layered together achieving both effects at once. A technique that I often use is to talk to the girl in-between kissing her on the neck. The physical activity helps bring her physically into state (aroused), whilst also preventing her from getting into her head too much because she’s concentrating on the conversation. This is especially effective when the conversation is intended to create a deeper emotional connection.


Summary

• Escalation is inherently emotional (you’re bringing her closer towards an emotional state that facilitates sex)
• It starts the moment you meet her -- always be leading her closer to sex
• Escalation should be gentle but persistent (and always calibrated to her emotional state)
• Physical escalation should be strategic, not for its own sake
• If she’s uncomfortable after an escalation, bring her back into a state of being comfortable
• If an escalation is too much to accomplish in one go, break it into sub-steps

This is based on my own experiences. If other people have other ways of thinking about these subjects or techniques they use, I’d be interested in hearing about them. Also, if anyone has any questions, post them in the thread.

 

[Exutoire]

Another high iq thread good job mate

 

[Someone]

High IQ

It can feel a bit lonely in Tokyo sometimes, so it’s worth reading the other guide beforehand and learn how to meet Japanese girls in the first place: Rance’s guide to HelloTalk

 

[bittersweet]

I don't get it. You just magically infer how she feels?

 

[predeterminism]

I can't believe I use a forum like this

 

[Rance]

I don't get it. You just magically infer how she feels?

You don’t “magically” infer how she feels. You just pay attention to the right things. Japanese girls, especially, won’t always say what they feel outright, so you have to read between the lines. It’s all in the body language, tone, and pacing of the interaction.

For example, I was at some hole in Shibuya and started talking to a girl at the bar. She was polite but giving short answers, smiling in that default, socially polite way. Held her drink close to her chest... easy to intuit this as a "barrier signal". Instead of pushing forward, I teased her about her drink choice, and she giggled and corrected me. That’s the first sign of engagement. A few minutes later, she started leaning in, moved her drink to the table. Touched my arm while laughing. That shift told me she was getting comfortable, so I moved things forward.

The key is to test and calibrate. Push a little, see how she reacts. If she leans in, escalates, or starts contributing more, you know you’re on the right track. If she pulls away, hesitates, or stays neutral, you ease off and let her warm up. It’s not mind reading, just picking up on what a lot of guys ignore.

As with everything "game", it's not something easily explained with words, rather something you naturally pick up on as you rack up more experience with these situations. What's important is that you remember to think about it when you're out there in the field. Log it in the back of your mind. You WILL come across another girl giving the EXACT same reactions to you in the future, and you'll have deja vu moments of "this worked last time" ... "this didn't work last time" ...