Life is tough for the beta male. During his twenties, as Manosphere dudes never tire of reminding us, women reject him, choosing instead to throw themselves wantonly at caddish alpha males.
Only after these cruel, callous women have squandered their youth and beauty – by the age of 30 if not earlier – do they turn at last to the betas, who’ve been patiently waiting in the “friend zone” the whole time. Those poor betas, nice guys and good providers all, are then lured into marriage with these now-ugly shrews, who are no longer interested in sex, and want only their money, often used to provide for kids sired by alpha males. (See here for Holly Pervocracy’s more detailed analysis of the “Greek system.”)
But life can be tough for the alpha male as well, driven to exhaustion by nearly constant sex with an incredible array of horny twentysomething women. The movie trailer below will give you some idea of just what the typical alpha male has to deal with on a daily basis.
@ David
Respectfully, you have forgotten the “Zeta male” who, despite numbering perhaps only a few hundred, is changing society as we know it. For the “Zeta male”, as AVfM points out, have started to intervene when he sees a woman being violently assaulted. The reprecussions of these are difficult to overestimate – it’s a fundamental change in society. Things will never be the same again…
Either that, or it’s a typical MRA masturbatory fantasy in which the evil woman gets her comeuppance whilst begging the noble MRA for help.
*started to not intervene, that should have said…
I think it’s always worth pointing out on these threads that even wolves do not actually have alpha and beta hierarchies. Zoologists used to think they did, but it turns out wolves naturally live in nuclear families, and the “beta males” aren’t submissive but just young wolves living with their parents. They avoid mating not because they’re cruelly deprived of it but because all the females in the pack are their mother or sisters. When they get older they go off on their own and find mates.
So yes, wolf social structure is strikingly similar to a lot of human groups. Just not the way Manosphere guys figure.
Also there are epsilon males who are very very small.
Not forgetting, of course, the Nu Man. And of course manboobz has its share of pi males who are irrational and go on and on forever.
*slow clap*
@Holly: The whole alpha/beta wolves thing probably started as *anthropomorphism* from researchers studying wolves in the first place. Though maybe we need a better word for the concept “applying human definitions to unrelated animal behaviors, except that in reality that behavior does not even occur as is in humans but is at best a social construction and at worst a complete misunderstanding of reality by a few ideologues” than “anthropomorphism”, since that word at least implies that the behavior ascribed to other animals actually occurs in humans.
Okay, so the way it seems to me, is simply by virtue of having sex, a man is an alpha male. So my husband, who was unemployed when we got together, was an alpha male? The Manoverse is so confusing.
First of all, “hard life.” Heh heh heh heh.
Second, something just occurred to me about the Greek system that I’ve never thought about before. Doesn’t the usual story say that women who are still attractive (under 26-ish?) are on the carousel because they’re trying to lure an alpha into marriage? The alphas, of course, have no intention of marrying any of them since they can just have sex with more PYTs, and as soon as the women get too old to ride the carousel, they realize they have to settle for a beta?
Here’s the thing: as a woman in her early 20s, the reason I’m very unlikely to marry any sexual partner I’m with in the next few years isn’t because I’m very dumb and think that I can land them, but they’re too alpha for marriage. No, it’s because I’m not anywhere near ready for marriage. I know MRAs — PUAs especially — tend to think of women as sexy bodies that you can convince to passively allow you to fuck them, but in actuality, we’re complex human beings that grow and change as we age. Right now, I don’t have the maturity to enter into a marriage with someone, which would make that person a part of a new family. Not to mention, I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’m still a student, there are a lot of avenues still open to me, and I might grow in a way that moves me apart from a partner.
All of these things are true for me, and tend to be true for other youngish people. There are some people who get married young and have wonderful lives together, and I don’t mean to discount their experiences. But they’re by no means the majority.
Does anyone even know anyone who buys into this alpha/beta crap? because I have never met anyone with this bizzare obsession with hierarchies, sexual market places/value and all this other dehumanizing BS until I found out about the cesspool that is the manosphere. I’m convinced it only exists on the internet. I hope for the sake of all the goodfeeling-ness and fun of a relationship that it is.
The Greek system is just wish fulfillment… sorta… Women only care about hot guys, and to justify this they use the term Alpha to refer to all hot guys who get laid with a tenuous link to the usual term Alpha.
That means everyone who doesn’t get laid is a Beta, because women choose Alphas over them. BUT WAIT! There’s a problem, because some non-conventionally-hot men still get laid! Oh, but its alright, because the women are ugly as well, so it all works.
Hang on, the women are sometimes hot? Well… this would be a problem… unless of course the entire system is produced directly by your ass, in which case you can say that they are just trying to trick the poor schlubs into giving up money or something. It even resembles reality, because conventionally hot women usually wear makeup, jewelry, buy expensive clothes that look nice, etc.
It’s a bizarre case of creating a system to describe reality that changes to match reality and still doesn’t describe it correctly.
Oh man. I love how that trailer portrays women’s sexual agency like a horror film. Because dang. Women who want things are SCARY.
Oh right… lol penis. ^_^
I’ve recently started watching Big Bang Theory and am totally physically attracted to Wolowitz (what’s that about Brad Pitt?) His personality sucks though because he is a complete creeper that tries too hard and even mentioned game in one episode (negging and kino, when he mentioned that I laughed, groaned and facepalmed at the same time) in the context of a TV show such behavior can be funny but it also is discomforting to watch as there are guys who act like that and aren’t as innocent about it. For one he doesn’t have hatred towards women, manosphere dudes mostly do.
anyway there are probably so many Wolowitz’s out there that women would love to be with if they would only drop the game shit and just act naturally. It’s awkward when you’re with someone who always has some sort of act on and I think it’d be downright tiring to always be “on” all the time. There’s even game for marriage….that is just sad on so many levels.
@Quackers- I know some of those men IRL (guys who are not raging douchecanoes who use game) and here’s the thing. Even if they aren’t as vile as MRAs, use of game is a great indicator that they don’t see women as fully human. The problem isn’t necessarily their techniques, the problem is the underlying assumption that they can try XYZ and any woman they want will fall for it, ie, that women are not human with individual quirks and likes and dislikes. We have to go after the underlying attitudes that fuel the behavior.
http://mramarmoset.tumblr.com/post/15620794274/and-they-did-it-without-spending-1000-on-a-pua
I don’t know anyone in the real world that’s into the Greek system bs, but I have heard some nice guy’s whine that “why do women always go for jerks”? These whiners don’t use the vocabulary of PUA’s but they’re in the same ballpark. These same nice guys demand that they need a skinny supermodel girlfriend, but throw a hissy fit when straight women judge men by their looks.
@M Dubz
I completely agree. It’s just insulting and the underlying idea is misogynistic. Everyone has different preferences and no line or trick will work for all women or men for that matter. On top of that it seems to suck all the fun out of relationships and the love that eventually comes too. How can someone maintain a mental checklist all the time to make sure they’re always acting alpha? When I see guys on Roissy debating over what is alpha or not….it’s just funny and also quite sad. I’d say I sympathize but given the fact that most of them think women are subhuman I just laugh at how pathetic they are.
LOL@ that mramarmoset too. The fact that they believe so called alphas are the only ones who get sex just show how deluded they are.
@Kendra:
The “Nice Guy” way of thinking definitely seems to be a big influence on the MRM.
Also, based on what I’ve read about the classification system, Alpha guys sound kind of awful. White-bread all-American good looks, willing to flash money around to get what they want, and willing to sleep with tons of women as a status symbol. Give me a beta any day of the week. They are at least interesting.
Alpha males are boring. Why be Kirk when you can be Spock?
“Does anyone even know anyone who buys into this alpha/beta crap?”
I always used ‘alpha male’ to describe a guy who appears to consider himself one, i.e. he thinks every woman is desperate to sleep with him, tries his hardest to step on other people to get what he wants, has a hugely inflated ego and so on.
@MDubz:
Funny thing is, even their definition of Alpha is wonky… Because the description of what all Alphas are and the requirements to be labeled an Alpha are different! To be called an Alpha, you just need to have sex and being somewhat charismatic, but all Alphas are also rich as fuck, sleep around everywhere, and are generally hedonistic and narcissistic.
It’s like how to be a woman you just need to look like one, but all women are evil harpies who are also stupid who are also ugly who are also gorgeous who are also gold-diggers etc. It’s amazing how much this sort of generalization is ingrained in the MRM…
After all I’ve read about this in the manosphere I’ve come to the conclusion that alpha means raging douchebag and beta means guy who actually thinks women are people.
… it’s almost as if they’ve been made irrational with hatred! Who’d have ever thought that hating most of the population at all times would turn you into a seething ball of stupid and illogical?
/snark
@Quackers, unfortunately “beta male” can also mean “man who thinks women owe him sex, but aren’t giving it to him, the hypergamous bitches.” Pretty much anyone who self-identifies as an alpha or a beta or an omega or whatever is someone I would want to avoid.