Return of the Brute : Relationships: Forget sensitive. Forget nice. What women really want is a big, strong barbarian, according to a new crop of self-help books.

Hub Thompson didn’t used to be too lucky with the babes. A 26-year-old San Diego guitar teacher, Thompson describes himself as good-looking--”real good-looking”--but previously devoid of discrimination.

“I would just go for any girl who went for me,” he said. “I wasn’t selective. It was a confidence thing.”

Then he bought a copy of a mail-order book called “How to Get the Women You Desire Into Bed.” Now he’s humming a different tune.

“I am learning to dump them if they need to be dumped,” said Thompson. “This romance stuff is totally trench warfare. It’s almost like bargaining for the price of something. If somebody doesn’t want what I want, hey, there’s the door, babe.”

Ah, honesty. Ah, sensitivity. Ah, nuts.

The sexual landscape has always been a treacherous one, but there is a brewing meanness out there, a harsh ‘90s twist on the war between the sexes. It might be a backlash against feminism and double messages (Be manly! Cry, too!)--or maybe guys are just tired of being told to get in touch with their feelings . Whatever the reasons, in some quarters, honesty is out, manipulation is in. For this crowd, the sensitive New Age male is not just dead and gone, he’s been dragged back into the Dark Ages by the Neo-Neanderthal.

Deep down the brute may be looking for love (and someone to do the laundry), but you’d never know it from his approach.

The brief apotheosis of Andrew Dice Clay and the misogynistic lyrics of rappers were perhaps the early warning signs of incipient Neo-Neanderthalism. But recently, brutishness has blossomed all around. Consider:

* It is possible to buy a T-shirt in several stores on the Venice boardwalk that says in huge block letters, “Shut Up Stupid Bitch.”

* “Studs,” a new show on the Fox television network, features this low concept: “Two men go out on dates with three of the same women. Then, all convene on the set to find out which of the guys is ‘the bigger stud.’ ”

* Last month, Boston Red Sox fans were treated to the sight of bleacher bums simulating sex with inflatable dolls, until complaints caused officials to ban the dolls from the stadium.

* Recently, the world of vanity publishing has spewed forth such titles as “How to Get all the Girls You Want” (“The three main types of women are the “ho,” “the freak” and “the good girl.”) and “The Bartender’s Guide on How to Pick-Up Women” (“I’ve also included a section for women, because I feel they are the most misunderstood, abused group in terms of relationships--by their own choice.”).

For the married brute, there is “How to Cheat on Your Wife and Not Get Caught” (“The best place to meet women who are the most vulnerable and the easiest to conquer is at the Parents Without Partners group. If the organizers make you sign some type of statement that you are single, separated or divorced, go ahead. After all, you’re not forging a tax return or killing someone.”)

* Even Cosmopolitan magazine is endorsing a return to the old double standard. Last December, it published “How to be a Great Date,” a feature that suggested, among other things, “At the table, be a little geisha-like--butter his roll, put the sugar alongside his coffee,” and “Say, ‘That’s absolutely fascinating!’ at least once before the evening is over.”

An unlikely hero of the Neo-Neanderthal movement is Ross Jeffries, the pseudonym of a 32-year-old Culver City man whose real name is Paul Jeffrey Ross.

The tall, reedy Jeffries, who grew up in Lawndale, has spent the last 1 1/2 years on the talk-show circuit promoting his book, “How to Get the Women You Desire Into Bed.” He claims to have sold thousands of copies and is planning an info-mercial in the fall.

The book is aimed, he said, at those who do not possess the money or looks that most people presume are natural magnets of the dating scene. He offers some sound advice, but some behavior experts raise their eyebrows at his proposals for psychological warfare.

The book is shot full of hostility toward women, because, as Jeffries explained, they deserve it.

“Well, you have to understand, the animosity comes from being slapped down when I was too nice. But also some of that is a character I get into.”

A paragraph from the book suffices to impart its unsubtle flavor: “When it comes to sex, women have a massive power advantage,” he writes. “It’s relatively easy for even a fat, ugly troll to obtain sexual satisfaction. All she has to do is go to any bar or club, act even mildly flirtatious and be willing to put out. She’s sure to get laid, if not by the best-looking guy, then at least by someone.”

In an interview at the Sidewalk Cafe in Venice, during which Jeffries attempted to hit on two women (one was “too young,” one was married; both seemed flattered), he said his most essential advice to men is this: “Don’t be too nice. When you accommodate, you get what the commode gets, which is the crapola.”

He advocates faking warmth or being outrageous (send flowers, sign the card “secret admirer” and show up later wearing a T-shirt that says “I am your secret admirer”).

He also suggests that men prowl dormitories telephonically, dialing random numbers using known dorm prefixes until they find a student willing to grab a cup of coffee on the spot. (“This way,” he said, “you find the adventurous ones.”)

In a bawdy seminar last month at a Westchester hotel--his first--he awkwardly demonstrated the techniques borrowed from hypnosis and neurolinguistic programming, which claims to help people overcome fear of failure. The 22 men who paid $55 for 3 1/2 hours, seemed receptive, except when Jeffries allowed a couple of energy drink salesmen to solicit distributors (“Why not get rich and get laid?”). Some men left the room.

Jeffries advocates covert hypnosis to induce trance-like attention in a woman, using such techniques as the mirroring of speech and breathing patterns pioneered by psychotherapist Virginia Satir and psychiatrist Milton Erickson, neither of whom is alive.

(“I bet they would have been appalled,” said Kate Wachs, a Chicago psychologist who founded a center that specializes in romantic relationships. “You can use any good technique to con people, and this is certainly a very unhealthy use of a very good technique.”)

But Jeffries, who says he was recently dumped by his girlfriend of several months, equates courtship to street fighting, an arena in which all is fair.

“I am trying to get these guys to protect themselves. . . . Women love a guy who will listen, but the problem is when they aren’t interested in you sexually, you wind up getting slapped around. I put up with that for years, and finally I said, ‘No more.’ That is why when a woman starts telling me her problems, (he snaps his fingers) adios! “

The message seems to resonate for the men who read his book.

Anthony Alpert, a 25-year-old financial consultant in Huntington Beach, said his pattern of getting dumped by women after three or four months of dating ended after he read Jeffries’ book.

“I think women love a challenge,” he said. “I was unchallenging. I laid everything out on the line. So I got the book, read it cover to cover and pretty much knew what I was going to do the next time I met a girl.”

He cooked dinner for his next date, Julie Jerez. “I acted like I had thousands of women over to my house for dinner. There was a hockey game on,” he said. “And it didn’t matter if she liked hockey or not, I was gonna watch the darn hockey game.”

Jerez, a 22-year-old law office receptionist, said she was impressed by Alpert’s confidence. “Actually,” she added, “I did want to watch the hockey game. I was kind of hoping a fight would break out because I like it when they start slapping each other with the stick.”

Alpert and Jerez have been together for 14 months, and although Alpert attributes this in part to Jeffries’ book, Jerez thinks she would have fallen in love with him anyway.

Therapists who specialize in courtship and relationships disagree with the premises and techniques of the Neo-Neanderthal approach, but say the books do represent a phenomenon.

“Men are feeling less empowered. Maybe because of the economy, maybe because of the diffusion of roles between men and women that makes it more threatening for men,” said Carl Hindy, a New Hampshire therapist who wrote “If This is Love, Why Do I Feel So Insecure?”

Men who read books like Jeffries’, Hindy said, “have very low freedom of movement--their expectations of being able to satisfy their need are quite low. That is usually due to problems like shyness and shame and social skills deficits. I also wonder if you have these men . . . reading this stuff not for instruction, but for fantasy gratification.”

Jerrold Lee Shapiro, an associate professor in counseling psychology at Santa Clara University, finds a lot of “interesting and valid pieces (in Jeffries’ book), but then they are kind of twisted into a single-mindedness of purpose.”

Some experts say there is truth to the adage that women do not like nice men, but they offer caveats in the same breath:

“I’ve had guys ask me, ‘Why don’t women like nice men?’ ” said Wachs, the Chicago psychologist. “But there is a difference between nice and too nice. (Women) don’t want to be conned, but they don’t want someone who gives in to everything.

“I could see where this approach might work with certain people, people who want to be abused, people who are attracted to psychopathic men. This sounds very antisocial.”

All of which probably means precious little to Hub Thompson, the San Diego guitar teacher, who tells several stories about how he has applied Jeffries’ techniques to his love life. Each has the same ending, a sort of Neo-Neanderthal coda:

“I went out with a girl for a week, and my hands started doing too much,” said Thompson. “So she is like, totally flipped out because she thought I was going too fast. She said give me a couple of days to think about it. I called Ross and said, ‘What should I do?’

“He said, ‘Don’t call her on Friday. Call her on Sunday! She left you hanging, so you leave her hanging.’ So I called her on Sunday and told her I had a great weekend. I told her I went out with ‘a person’ and had a great time. It made her dig me more because it made her feel like she had lost me. I want a girl that just can’t wait to jump my bones, otherwise it’s no fun. Eventually, I ended up dumping her.”

The next date using the Jeffries method produced similar results.

“I went out with this one girl and I told her right off, ‘I want to go out with you, I really dig you. But if you don’t want to sleep with me later on, I am gonna feel like you are leading me on.’ Well, it made her mad. But what does she expect? Well, I ended up dumping her because it just wasn’t happening. But at least I let her know what I wanted.”