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James Sears, AKA “Dmitri the Lover” and born Dimitrious Sarafopoulos, is incredibly famous in the Toronto area as “[the] world’s greatest lover” and “Canada’s greatest seducer”- both names he’s recently given himself. Alongside his website, dmitrithelover.com, Sears has recently created the Toronto Real Men (TRM) network- a “anti-feminism” club where he charges exorbitant fees to men in the Toronto area for “seduction” classes which can cost around $40 a pop. Naturally, his self-important and often firestarting nature has landed himself in newspapers and websites across North America. On his website, he calls himself everything from “elegant” to “sexy” to even “[a] sexually-obsessed animal”.

Nonetheless, there is something special about James Sears: he’s the best example of a “pickup artist” I’ve ever had. Why? James Sears, AKA “Dmitri the Lover” or “Joseph the Lover” or whatever he wants to call himself, is absolutely, in my professional opinion, insane. Don’t believe me?

James Sears pre-“Dmitri”

James Sears was born in Toronto to a troubled family- allegedly, according to one Toronto Sun article, one parent was an abusive alcoholic, the other struggled with mental illness. In Sears’ own words, “My father was very physically and emotionally abusive. My mother was just a borderline manic, histrionic, dramatic woman, and I did not grow up really understanding what love was”. Despite this troubled history, Sears nonetheless was revealed to be relatively bright, which allowed him to enter the University of Toronto medical school in 1986. During this time Sears also served in the Canadian armed forces.

During Sears’ work in the armed forces, it became remarkably clear that something was wrong with Sears. Initially, it seemingly began with a psychological evaluation of Sears by a Canadian military psychologist, who was called in regarding reportedly “erratic” behavior. It got worse. In 1991, sexual assault allegations regarding Sears’ medical practices began to come into light. According to the accusers, during his work, Sears made “verbal sexual overtures” toward his patients and “sexually assaulted them by attempting to kiss and embrace them”- all during routine checkups. Allegations also emerged that Sears would compulsively masturbate during work by going to the washroom between seeing patients. Sears pled guilty to these allegations in 1992, though he later would note that he felt “pressured” by his lawyer(s). He later appealed these charges, and was subsequently acquitted. Nonetheless, he did not re-acquire his medical license, as the authority on such things in Canada still supposedly found him too much of a live wire. Allegations also emerged during that time that during Sears’ work in the Canadian armed forces, he may have tried to forcibly enter a female officer’s room. Cops allegedly found empty grenade canisters, a stun gun and mace in his room. I cannot personally verify this information.

Essentially powerless without his medical accredidation, Sears immediately took to (relatively) behaving himself with a company that specialized in medical work (which somehow skated around the fact Sears is not an “official” doctor). In 2004, James Sears formally launched the “Toronto Real Men’s Network”, a purportedly “anti-Metrosexual” group supposedly helping men become more “masculine”, allegedly fighting some kind of “feminist alarm”.

TRM Network : The Pitch

The Toronto Real Men’s Network is, well… read it for yourself:

TORONTO REAL MEN AND THE WOMEN WHO LOVE THEM is a community dedicated to de-feminizing the men of Toronto, and encouraging women to become more sexually liberated. Real men are sex hungry studs and real women are bisexual sluts.

Yep. It reads like a 12 year old’s concept of a dating manual, but it’s pretty straightforward: TRM has classes run by James Sears (going now by “Dmitri the Lover”) and his “girlfriend”, who provide a variety of courses oriented towards helping Toronto men feel less guilty about wanting to have sex and pushing them towards doing it as much as humanly possible. The selling point, much like other similar organizations, is that “Dmitri the Lover” sells himslf as some sort of dating/sex god, including noting to potential female browsers about his sexual abilities.

According to Dmitri, men are “born murderers and rapists”- and the only way to come to terms with that, to escape societal repression, and to ultimately get laid is to essentially succumb to those desires, at least in a manageable way. This somehow also seems to include not drinking alcohol for some obtuse unknown-to-this-author reason.

Also according to Dmitri, women are born bisexual sluts- meaning, yes, oversexed uncaring sexpots. Of course, much like the “born murderer and rapist” tagline, Dmitri’s concept of escape from the “prison” of societal control is just letting go- and presumably having sex with anything in sight, probably including him.

Naturally, there is a price tag to all of this. Whereas the bulk of what’s online is free, the courses themselves range anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to, of course, a weekend course for $5997.00 or a 5 day course of $97,500.00 (plus tax).

The Analysis

Here’s where I tear James Sears apart.

First off, let me do my traditional thing and create a disclaimer: I don’t personally know Dmitri the Lover. I don’t know James Sears from Adam, beyond the research I’ve done on the man. Realistically, I seriously doubt I would want to physically meet Sears, nor do I feel I would be able to hold a normal, logical conversation with him, medical degree or not. Some information here could very likely be biased by women who, rightly so, hate him enough to exaggerate his “evil-ness”. However, that being said, court documents and newspapers do not lie, at least for the most part.

James Sears, in my opinion, is insane. Given the above facts, it is not only clear that Sears may possess behavioral issues and impulse control issues, but it is also pretty clear that he’s a misogynistic idiot. The ridiculous attempt at pop psychology Sears endorses is, frankly, vomit inducing. His concept of the world- with hyper dominant men and hyper sexualized women reminiscint of a Boris Vallejo painting- leads one to question the factors that may have led up to this perception of the world, as well as why he feels it necessary for men to hyper-exert their dominance to women.

Realistically, of course, his “tricks” and “methods” don’t really work- and when they are revealed to an impartial audience, they simply seem stupid. Don’t believe me? Women have recorded voicemails he left them– and yes, they are THAT bad.

Women are not “sluts” and men are not “born murderers and rapists”- this is Sears’ misreading of what is essentially part of Freudian psychological drive theory. Yes, all of us have parts in us who want to have sex with, kill, and eat everything not glued down. Both genders possess these drives to various urges, along with a huge number of other drives that govern our actions. Basic Freudian psychology endorses this idea- it is our looming Id which we bash down every single second of every day. It is, in another sense, part of our pleasure principle.

Does this mean that, in the any sense, we are to let our Id run rampant and operate entirely on the pleasure principle? Absolutely not. Doing so is incredibly ridiculous and childish, and it indicates someone who does not think through the full ramifications of such behavior. Would we all suddenly behave based on our bare impulses, the ability to constructively work for ourselves in the long term- and generally, the ability for us to work collectively- is destroyed. In the great sort of Judeo-Christian sense, it is our ability to withhold pleasure and to sacrifice ourselves in various ways for future pleasure or for the benefit of others that facilitates life as we have it now.

Sure, this theory might work on the club floor, as no doubt David DeAngelo’s books work in that realm- but the club world is not the real world. “Dmitri the Lover” may be able to swagger around a club picking up absolutely piss drunk women with his wide open shirts and his heavy cologne, but this is an incredibly limited and ultimately boring life.

Honestly, the way in which “Dmitri the Lover” constructs his world (or his ideal worldview) leads me to believe that he may have deep seated fears of women and a serious inferiority complex. The need to force upon the world a system where men are hyper-masculine and (in essence) control women leads one to believe that James Sears is afraid of his own masculinity- and, in essence, “needs help” with it. One might liken Sears to the stereotypical American “jock” who overcompensates his masculinity through sports and drinking to hide his fear of being perceived as feminine.

The Take-Away

What can we learn from James Sears?

First off, the most powerful lesson here is merely to not trust pickup artist clubs/schemes. James Sears is not the only mental ward patient running around claiming he can pick up women fueled by arrogance- there are a lot of them, some hiding their insanity better than others. These men may seem powerful and dominant and in control, but this facade is merely that: a facade. Oftentimes, these men only manage to get women through sheer luck independent of their “skills”- and being roped into obeying them (and worse, paying them) is to implicitly gamble on your own love life.

Second off, Sears is a great example of the folly of “manly” culture. Indeed, I (and many other people on many different websites and in many different blogs) wholly endorse being masculine without shame- but there is an upper limit to such behavior. Being truly masculine is often not necessarily feeling the need to scream your gender from the rooftops, but often rather merely the ability to, with dignity, be confident and cool and understand yourself.

Tags: Dating, Hit it and Quit It, masculine theory, men, news, toronto