Yo, dudes: Alpha males are a myth, according to actual experts on wolves
Manosphere misogynists like to tell themselves fairy tales about women. Their favorite such tale, repeated endlessly, is one called “The Cock Carousel” – sometimes referred to in expanded form as the “Alpha Asshole Cock Carousel” or the “Bad Boy Cock Carousel.” (Hence that Rooster-riding gal you see in this blog’s header about half the time.)
Despite the different names, the story is always, monotonously, the same: In their late teens and twenties, when they’re at the height of their sexual appeal, women (or at least the overwhelming majority of them) have sex in rapid succession with an assortment of charismatic but unreliable alpha males and “bad boys” who make their vaginas (or just ‘ginas) tingle. Then, sometime in their mid-to-late twenties, these women “hit the wall,” with their so-called sexual market value (or SMV) dropping faster than Facebook’s stock price. As Roissy/Heartiste puts it, in his typically overheated prose:
So sad, so tragic, the inevitable slide into sexual worthlessness that accompanies women, the withering tick tock of the cosmic clock stripping their beauty in flayed bits of soulletting mignons like psychological ling chi. A sadistic thief in the night etching, billowing, draping and sagging a new affront to her most preciously guarded asset.
While many women try to pretend they’ve still “got it,” even at the ripe old age of thirty, they inevitably have to either get off or get thrown off the “cock carousel.” At this point the more savvy women glom onto some convenient “beta male” who, while somewhat lacking in sexual appeal, will at least be a good husband and provider for them – and in many cases the children they’ve had with alpha male seed. Those women who don’t accept the new reality are destined to end up alone and childless, surrounded by cats.
To borrow the phrase South Park used in its episodes about Scientology and Mormonism, this is what manosphere men actually believe. Not only that, but they claim that this fairy tale is based on real science.
So who are these mysterious alpha males that get the women so excited? As one guide to pickup artist (PUA) lingo puts it:
In animal hierarchies, the Alpha Male is the most dominant, and typically the physically strongest member of the group. For example, in wolf packs, the “alpha wolf” is the strongest member of the pack, and is the leader of the group. This position of leadership is often achieved by killing or defeating the previous Alpha Male in combat. Alpha wolves have first access to food as well as mating privileges with the females of the pack.
Social status among human social groups is less rigidly defined than in the animal kingdom, but there are some recognizable parallels. Although people don’t often engage in physical violence to achieve dominance, there are still recognizable leaders in different fields who have wide access to material resources and women.
Because the qualities of the Alpha Male (such as social dominance and leadership) are attractive to women, many PUAs have adopted these ideals as models of emulation. In fact, the term “alpha” has come be shorthand for the qualities of an attractive man, and it is a common refrain among PUAs to be “more alpha” or to “out alpha” competitors.
There’s a certain logic to all this. But unfortunately for the PUAs and other manospherians the notion of the Alpha male is based on bad science. The notion of Alpha dominance, as the definition above notes, came originally from studies of wolf packs. Even if we assume that wolf behavior is somehow a good model upon which to base our understanding of human romance – as manosphere men and evolutionary psychologists tend to do – the science behind the Alpha male wolf has now come completely undone, with many of those who promulgated the theory in the first place decades ago now explicitly repudiating it.
The problem, you see, is that the studies underlying the notion of the alpha male wolf, who aggressively asserts his dominance over beta males in order to rule the pack, were all based on observations of wolves in captivity. In the real world, wolf packs don’t work that way at all. Most wolf packs are basically wolf families, with a breeding pair and their pups. When male pups reach adulthood, they don’t fight their fathers for dominance — they go out and start their own families.
As noted wolf behavior expert L. David Mech, one of those who helped to establish and popularize the notion of the alpha wolf in the first place, explains on his website:
The concept of the alpha wolf is well ingrained in the popular wolf literature at least partly because of my book “The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species,” written in 1968, published in 1970, republished in paperback in 1981, and currently still in print, despite my numerous pleas to the publisher to stop publishing it. Although most of the book’s info is still accurate, much is outdated. We have learned more about wolves in the last 40 years then in all of previous history.
One of the outdated pieces of information is the concept of the alpha wolf. “Alpha” implies competing with others and becoming top dog by winning a contest or battle. However, most wolves who lead packs achieved their position simply by mating and producing pups, which then became their pack. In other words they are merely breeders, or parents, and that’s all we call them today, the “breeding male,” “breeding female,” or “male parent,” “female parent,” or the “adult male” or “adult female.” In the rare packs that include more than one breeding animal, the “dominant breeder” can be called that, and any breeding daughter can be called a “subordinate breeder.”
So the dominant male wolves – those whom manosphere dudes would still call the alphas – achieve this position not by being sexy badasses but simply by siring and taking responsibility for pups. To use the terminology in the manner of manosphere dudes, alphas become alphas by acting like betas. That’s right: alphas are betas. (For more of the details, see this paper by Mech; it’s in pdf form.)
Also, they’re wolves and not humans, but that’s a whole other kettle of anthropomorphized fish.
Posted on August 22, 2012, in alpha asshole cock carousel, alpha males, bad boys, beta males, evo psych fairy tales, heartiste, MGTOW, misogyny, PUA, worst writing in the history of the universe and tagged alpha asshole cock carousel, alpha males, bad boys, beta males, evolutionary psychology, heartiste, mgtow, misogyny, pickup artists, PUA, wolves. Bookmark the permalink. 954 Comments.
sthlivingincolor, shh! I think that might be the topic of my next post.
Don’t forget that, despite all evidence to the contrary, many right wingers also think they could win a real competition. I think that level of delusional is a requirement as well. :p
On the other hand, “Friendzone; the bar where you can hang out with men and women alike and there’s no flirting allowed” would be kinda nice.
OMG some one needs to create this, stat. I don’t have any start-up money, but I’d totally volunteer my time until our mythical bar got on its feet and started bringing in the dough. I predict that it would be wildly sucessful, spawning multiple franchises across the country. We could be zillionaires while doing an important service for humanity!
My grandma got married at 15 and had five kids with her abusive ex before he left her for a younger woman. This was back in the “good old days” the MRAs love, where her ex never had to pay a dime in child support or alimony. Grandma worked long, hard hours at a catering company (the only work she found where she’d get paid the same as a man), and after a long work week she often wanted to go have a drink. Of course, after being sexually harassed all day long (again, MRA paradise), the last thing she wanted was to spend her evening dealing with aggressive guys; she just wanted to wind down with a drink or three. So she usually went to the local lesbian bar so she could drink in peace–even though this was back when you could be arrested just for being in a lesbian bar. Yes, Grandma would rather risk being arrested than deal with drunk, pushy guys.
She would have loved the idea of Friendzone.
It’s also super context dependent. In most countries what is “left” and “right” shifts depending on which groups parties attempt to build into alliances. In the 1920s in Britain, conservatism and anti-nationalism was considered “right-wing.”
In the United States today, the only consistent feature of the right seems to be the total abhorrence o what experts have to say on anything.
“All hail PUA! PUA is love, shining, eternal and perfect!”
You what else humans aren’t? Fucking wolves.
@EEB
Considering it’s far far better than my idea for the Friend Zone, I’ll try it if I ever have enough money, even though in the city where I’m going to be living, the local “gay bar” called “Boom”is closer to a place you go to hang out with friends and have a good time than the PUA laden locales of I-Rock or Nicky-Zees. If I ever have the money I’m totally gonna start an old timey Irish style pub with the one rule of no flirting allowed.
Fixed it for ya! No no, don’t thank me. It was my pleasure.
“You know what else humans aren’t? Fucking wolves.”
Only ’cause we can’t catch ‘em!
…Ba-dump tish!
No shit, duder. We wish we could be so awesome.
I like how it attacks this idea of the cock carousel when its veracity is not impacted at all by whether or not alpha wolves exist in the wild.
Thank you, I have some notion of hearing that about alpha wolves but had never been pointed to the website of L. David Mech. And it’s tremendously rare to see anyone discuss how much their earlier books are wrong and need to stop being published.
@worldanonymous @Sharculese – LOL. No worries. It’s kind of a bad Randroid season. Election years, man.
You what else humans aren’t? Fucking wolves.
Well, I should hope humans aren’t fucking wolves.
Bagelsan – I suppose either interpretation is relevant in this context.
I don’t know what the bar scene is like these days, but it used to be that small neighborhood bars were pretty much like friendzones.
You what else humans aren’t? Fucking wolves.
Well, I should hope humans aren’t fucking wolves.
– The wolf fucker is such a brave soul they’re kind of the ultimate alpha of bestiality though.
No shit, and that’s why we think you’re creepy as fuck, Eurosabra. How the hell does your empathy work with all the “mild gaslighting” you do?
@clairedammit there are many different shades on the spectrum to be sure, but alpha and beta are useful archtypes
Maybe, but the map is not the territory.
One must also keep in mind that models are just theoretical constructs, and reifying them leads to disaster.
Even at that your, “useful archtypes” are fraudulent; the models don’t map to the real world behaviors you are trying to define, examine and use.
So they aren’t useful at all.
But anyway, I just adore Eurosabra’s logic here. Studying the behavior of some of our closest genetic relatives can tell nothing, nothing I say! about human nature, but fairy tales using terminology from outdated theories about the social interaction of wolves reveals the deepest truths of our souls.
So… all PUAs who are going to stop acting like prison rapists and have lots and lots of children and a stable family that successfully manages to socialize their offsprings in order to maintain their alpha status instead please stand up.
But wolves are sooo much cooooler than monkeys man, you’re just jealous of my wolf swaq.
Also @aworld
Hey, you’re Canadian? Me too! Which uni are you going to? (if you’re comfortable saying)
Would you be willing to share?
That would be hunting, farming, sharing, and fucking.
I’m all for those.
It’s the other shit people like you try to tack on as, “essential” that I can do without.
@Ugh
Saint Thomas University in New Brunswick, it’s a smaller one, but it’s been rated as one of the most beautiful campuses in Canada, and it shows.
That’s cool! Sadly I don’t know any students there so I can’t give you recommendations of clubs and stuff.
hellkell: He “empathises” with how happy he is sure they will be once he’s tricked them into sex.
So the gaslighting is for their own good. If they knew what was good for them, he wouldn’t be forced to do it.
PUAs get science wrong, are indignant that someone pointed it out. Quell surprise.
Everything he’s ever seen.
Traffic? Weather? How many birds there are on a telephone wire? All explained by alphas and betas.
Pecunium, I didn’t think a person could make him sound worse. Bravo.
And I didn’t think I’d ever blockquote fail twice.
Shrug. Well enough, I suppose. I do a lot less talking about myself these days, and a lot of women want to talk a lot about themselves, or are too busy pushing past me to the “stereotypically hot guy”, so I don’t have to outright lie about the stuff that almost never comes up anymore. Why would I reveal a history of depression, except if I suddenly wanted to get UNlaid for a very, very long time? (It is possible that my neighborhood has enough of a hangover from Orthodox Judaism that it’s very, very stigmatizing to cop to MI, much more so than other places.)
cool maybe you could practice that here as well
What’s hilarious is how often MRA types claim that the Alpha heirarchy is both The Natural Order Of Things and The Worst Injustice In History–often in the same breath.
Poor Eurosabra. Women are attracted to men other than him. If only they knew what was inside… they’d know he’s a manipulative asshole who thinks he can trick them into sex.
Legit question Eurosabra- why should women sleep with you? Like, if you weren’t you and were friends with these women, why would you recommend they sleep with you?
An Inconvenient “Truth”:
Not only are you completely ignorant of relevant science and anthropology, but you are also a laughably shallow thinker.
Let’s assume, for purposes of discussion, that your absurd beliefs about the alpha/beta dynamics in human relationships are true — even though they are not, and they are in fact absurd, but let’s play this game, shall we.
Are you trying to suggest that alphas evolved as superior individuals whose behavior assures the survival of their genes? Because that makes no sense when you realize that the survival of your genes isn’t assured when you blow your load into a woman of child-bearing age. That’s only the first step. To assure the survival of your genes, you actually have to make sure that your offspring survives into adulthood, to reproduce in the next generation. How in Zeus’ name are these so-called “alphas” equipped to do that?
Even if your swinging-dick claims are true, you have sex with women who aren’t interested in bearing your children. Sure, chemical birth control is a relatively new invention, but women have, since pre-historic times, gone to great lengths to avoid and terminate pregnancies that result from sex with men like you. These days, women who have sex with you deliberately render themselves infertile so as to avoid being your baby factory. In the old days, your children would have been aborted, abandoned, or sold into slavery. Even if kept alive, they would most likely lead a lifestyle that makes successful reproduction unlikely, least of all with desirable mates.
You make it a point of pride that you don’t worry about your offspring, and you do not take care of any children that you imagine you have. Do I really need to explain how this is an extremely poor evolutionary survival strategy? You don’t follow through on this survival stuff. Your genes die off and leave the pool. Your “alpha” shtick is an evolutionary dead-end.
You know whose genes do survive? These so-called “betas” and “manginas”. These men are more likely to have sex with women who are ready and willing to reproduce with them. They stick around to support and nurture their children, making sure they survive into adulthood and get to reproduce with the best possible mates.
So it seems to me, “betas” are far evolutionarily superior to “alphas”. They are better than you. Then again, given the general level of intelligence that seems to prevail in the PUA community, you guys do humanity a huge favor by removing yourselves from the gene pool.
So, according to An Inconvient Truth:
Meanwhile, the MRAs and PUAs who have found their way over to this thread have done the following:
— Insist that although wolves don’t follow their alpha/beta model, gorillas totally do. (Except that they don’t.)
— Insist that they have mountains of evidence for their position. Yet for some strange reason they refuse to tell us exactly what this evidence is.
— Insist that the Alpha Male worldview can explain everything. Even if people that fit their view of a beta male to a T end up having lots of sex, that supports their worldview because they can just redefine alpha to mean anyone who has a lot of sex. (I mean, I think that’s what Eurosabra was saying.) Hey, if something is unfalsifiable, that means it must be true, right?
— Insist that because much of human society has been patriarchal for millennia and because the human species hasn’t gone extinct in all that time, therefore patriarchy is responsible for the continued existence of the human race.
But it’s totally the feminists who are acting like young earth creationists here. What with their actually pointing out the scientific mistakes and logical fallacies their opponents have made and actually providing evidence to back up their claims.
Right.
What did Marilyn French say? Something like this, “Sociobiology is evoked to challenge feminist assertions about human equality.” Yeah that sounds about right. Also, shit lords always pick the animals they want humanity to emmulate when it suits their purposes.
It’s never insects…can you guess why? You can also find examples of every type of sexual behavior under the moon. Some creatures mate for life, others, like manatees like to indulge in group sex every once in awhile. Cuttlefish don’t mate and only have virgin births. And so what? We’re fucking humans.
Of course, this unending propraganda is never complete without a reminder to everyone that women are only sexually useful as teens and early 20-somethings or whatever those assholes are always raving about. Except they’re always talking about fertility and never about sexual peak (sexual peak is scary, it’s about how often you want to do it and how experience enhances sex, and that’s attainable, according to the Kinsey Institute, around the late 30’s to 40’s). It’s their favorite mind-fuck of all time, and it’s boring as shit.
EEB wrote: “This was back in the “good old days” the MRAs love, where her ex never had to pay a dime in child support or alimony.”
This sounds like what happened with one of my cousins. One of my father’s uncles and his wife were keeping their granddaughter. Their daughter had left the family farm to find work in the nearest city. There she met and fell in love with a man and she became pregnant. When she told him she was pregnant, he refused to marry her or support her or her baby in any way. He threatened to have several of his friends claim that they had had sex with her, too, if she tried to get any support from him. Those were the days when there weren’t DNA tests, only blood type tests. So, she left her job, came home, had her baby, left her daughter with her parents, and then left home for the second time and found another job.
Those are the good old days MRAs want: when women and their children were at the complete mercy of men. If they were good men who were able, they took care of them. If they weren’t, the women and children were out of luck.
@Aworldanonymous: So when the PUA kids get here and start whining, what do?
SIMPLE! We lock ‘em in a cage and study them for patterns of primate behavior.
We can get a paper or two out of it, right?
SRS question: PUA’s on college campuses.
I am a teacher, so that means I am not seeing most of the students’ lives (when I was in college in the mumbledy mumble 70s and 80s, I don’t think “game” had been invented).
From my observations (which means either students in my classes, OR my sf club I advise), nope.
But then English as a major here skews heavily female; a lot of our majors are married (and divorced and married and divorced), and many of the women in class are older than the men. In the sf group, there’s a wider range of majors (a woman who’s in astrophysics YAY), and lower range of ages (big majority are in their 20s and single, a few single fathers and single mothers, and a couple of women my age-ish, we’re the ones who wanta talk about BOOKS). The guys in the sf group besides being heavily into MLP AND cosplay AND dancing (OMG WHERE WERE THEY WHEN I WAS YOUNG), have shown no signs of game–and they seem to all sort of hang out in a group and play games and such.
As someone bullied horribly in high school (fat, teachers’ pet, glasses, sff reader), I loved college (so much I just kept acquiring degrees–graduate school even better than undergraduate–though I admit I may be weird in loving graduate work), I found the sf clubs, the theatre/art majors, and creative writing types in English, at the universities had MY kind of people.
Good luck!
Woooomeeeeen’s coooollege…. *waggles arms enticingly* Nooo PUAs!
And yes I know that is massively unhelpful advice. ^^;
It’s enough that I know why, and the women find out why, and in general my actual relationships have been happy (as opposed to one-nighters, which were often unfulfilling). It’s only trickery to the extent that I pretend to be a better dancer than I am.
Well, it’s called the abusers’ lobby for a reason.
Yeah? Where does the gaslighting come in?
I can recall that, many years ago, there was a dreary little article for young ladies that described “brownettes” (the term in use for females whose hair was between sandy and medium-dark brown) as being the wholesome, boring sorts that men married after they had their fling with glamorous “blondes, brunettes, and redheads”. It kind of looks like these MRA’s have stood this on its head. Maybe they should get some Clairol and see if blonds have more fun.
How unlike a scientist to dislike it when the wider culture runs with ideas based on outdated research!
Dude, are you bored with your schtick yet? Because I sure am.
Yet another reason to love manatees
Now that I think of it, Anders Breivik and Geert Wilders did just that, and the result s about as much fun as a barrel of maggots.
How does one pretend to be a better dancer than one is?
One could, I suppose, claim to know the Tango, or the Rhumba, or some other dance unlikely to be done at the club one is at, I suppose. But other than such pure fabrications, it seems pure folly… because as soon as she wants to dance the jig is up.
ithiliana: Game was around in the 80s/90s. There was a book advertised in Playboy about it.
There was even a porn flick made, mocking it, with Ron Jeremy as the fool who buys it and tries to live it’s precepts.
…because as soon as she wants to dance the jig is up.
Indeed. Well played, Pecunium.
I always tell people I only dance the waltz since I was approved by Almack’s to do so. Most people get confused and let me read my book in peace.
I’d ask you to dance… since any woman who went to Almack’s is my kind of girl. :)
I am surprised since you never struck me as the hypocritical high society type.
ithiliana: Game was around in the 80s/90s. There was a book advertised in Playboy about it.
There was even a porn flick made, mocking it, with Ron Jeremy as the fool who buys it and tries to live it’s precepts.
–
Yup.
_ A lot of modern PUA started out directly as a following of Ross Jeffries – of Get The Women You Desire Into Bed (1992) fame. When the internet hit big he started the Speed Seduction Forum based on his methods, and that became “The” place where the “science” was developed, oh so scientifically.
Princess: I think of Almack’s in it’s 1805-1810 heyday, when it was a Gambling Hell of the most urbane, and depraved, sort.
Carp! I meant 1970s/80s.
I think the title was, “how to pick up women”
Oh that makes sense then Pecunium. Kind of.
This whole PUA ‘alpha males’ and ‘cock carousel’ crap makes me laugh. Purely personal reaction: a bloke who’d fit their idea of dominance or whatever fits my descritpion of an arrogant shithead LOSER and the thought of having sex with someone like that is repellent. (The thought of having sex with anyone but my beloved is repellent, for that matter, but if I were looking … oy, those ‘alphas’ are more ‘omegas’ in my listing.)
Oh man… I ran across the Yellowstone documentary on Netflicx, and there’s a lovely section of wolf mating.
So: Lone wolf is shadowing the pack, ’cause the “alpha” is going to kill the shit out of him if he gets caught. It’s mating season though, and one of the pack wolves is interested in geting a little, ’cause the rest of her pack are immediate relatives.
The two have a quick tryst, which is hampered by the wonders of canine biology, and the return of the rest of the pack. The Alpha then proceeds to chase after the loner, who is still locked tight to the Alpha’s daughter, and not looking to come loose anytime soon. Fortunately for the lone wolf, he manages to get free, and runs off with his tail between his legs (probably so he doesn’t freeze his dick off in the -40 Yellowstone winter.) If successful, the lone wolf’s cubs will be part of the pack.
So, PUA “Alphas”; are you the father who will be raising the kids of a deadbeat dad, or the “lone wolf” getting run out of town by said shotgun-wielding father, sans pants?
So when I think of alphas in the way PUAs mean it, I think of this for some reason:
But then again, Gangnam Style is awesome and Alpha/Beta is just silly, so it’s an unfair comparison.
I was going to jump in with “Cedar Milan is full of shit”: but I see skeptifem beat me to it *harumph*
Hey PUAs, ever heard what preying mantises do after sex? What, you don’t want your sex partner to kill and eat you? I swear, you are so anti-science, just like YECs.
(If anyone wants to totally derail this thread into talking about dogs, I’m in! XD )
Also several species of spider.
The whole alpha/beta thing only applies to werewolves, rather than real wolves, anyway.
@ aworldanonymous- Ahaha, I suspect SK is the secret storehouse of all the world’s awesome.
Lycanthropy is misandry.
Where are the Cherwolves?