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.
@Kim: “I am also certain he’d have no time for heartiste and his fellow try-hards.” I can’t imagine any man who isn’t completely inept at being a decent human and knows the first thing about social interactions with women would have time for heartiste.
I’ll just leave this here… http://www.snorgtees.com/misuse-of-literally-makes-me-figuratively-insane
=)
`Then, sometime in their mid-to-late twenties, these women “hit the wall,”“
Actually, most hit The Wall around 30-35
BRRRAAAAAIIIINNNNNSSSSSS
You necro’ed a thread to say that?
Reblogged this on woosterlang87.
Cassandra, real men hate betas and feminists because of the emasculation of our society. We don’t want our sons and daughters to be brainwashed into mindless freaks by you lot.
Me, I just feel pity for you. What a wonderful life y’all, especially males, could have if you stopped listening to feminist horseshit propaganda.
Pablo, betas make up 99% of society. I’m one, you are too most probably.
It’s not propaganda – horseshit is brilliant stuff. As a feminist, I recommend it for growing fantastic courgettes (zuccini if you live across the pond) and can confirm that my roses just love it. Only last week, a real man delivered a load of the stuff to our allotments, to my joy. I anticipate a wonderful season of flowers and veggies.
….right, we hate betas! Because…
Because the word beta means something!
Which was debunked in the OP.
Dude.
I refer you to my earlier comment in this stream. I will now reinterpret your comment through the lens of the actual terms as understood by actual scientists.
You hate teenaged boys? You suck.
ManOnTheMoon:
Read the OP before commenting.
Pablo, let me tell you about heroes.
There was an age of heroes, once – a time of great myths and greater deeds. Heroic, valiant figures strove forward and led, by example, the tribes of men towards a brighter future. In recognition for their deeds, they were given titles, land, honour, reputations as noble men, and all were well. Idolized, they served as examples for those who came after – weaker men, perhaps, but men who could look to the glory of these stoic heroes and learn the truths of the world.
This, our age, is not the age of heroes. Great Men are no longer an indistinguishable part of nature, because the entire notion, the thought of those figures leading the humble masses, the alphas in their quests was… debunked. The Great Man theory was hogwash, in the end. And in that crash, the pillars of legendary achievements by noble spirits striving against the odds fell to the way side. This is not the age of myth, this is the age of statistics and popular movements, of groundswell and demographics.
And let me tell you something – it’s a better age. It’s a nicer age. It’s a time not of myths and legends and heroes, but of social security, vaccines and safety guidelines.
Your feeble theorizing about “Alpha” and “Beta” and “Gamma” is a lacklustre remnant of the notion that Persons Matter, Over Time – and the thing is, sad as it might be, they do not. People achieve things by dint of their numbers and the realities of the time. Auteurs, while an interesting concept, is so much bullshit. Visionary genius is a marketing term these days, not a descriptor of things worth emulating. Some people give great insights into things, and those people we honour – sure – but those people build on others who build on others who build on others.
“Flashes of insight” and “One of a kind” are terms used to describe washing machines now, not people.
This isn’t the age of heroes, this is the age of shoulders, giants, and standing there on.
There are no Great Big Alpha Men who rule the land, commanding pussy and skulking about in the dark, stealing the chasity from innocent virgins with a sly grin and a witty remark.
When you talk about Alphas, you talk about things you’d like to be – you talk about the “If only, then I”. The reason you don’t have a harem, the reason people don’t flock to you in the street and throw themselves at you is not because you’re a beta, or because other people are more alpha than you. It’s because you are not, currently, the kind of person people would throw themselves at.
Your masturbatory navel gazing implies that if you only could become “alpha” enough you could “Buckle the trend” and start getting the “Pussy” you “deserve”.
The only thing stopping you is the notion that you could, if only some circumstance change…
If you want to learn to talk to people and be a better person, start now, don’t deviate, and don’t excuse your inability to connect and the vagaries of your life on some noble theory of how you’re just not alpha enough and how us feminists demean you.
Here’s a tip. The 99 % of society who are “betas” are also the 99 % of society that matters. That get things done. That keep the world running. They are not hapless dupes in some system designed to suck them dry while alphas run rampant through pantied fields.
Get over it. Please.
Fibinachi, I felt as if I had fully addressed his post by simply mocking the way he twisted reality to get to his conclusion.
You have stripped away his words to get to the priors and assumptions that led him to twist reality.
I make genuflection in your general direction. (I assume somewhat south and west. If you go far enough south and west for long enough at the proper angle you will traverse the entirety of the planet, having circumnavigated it a near-infinite number of times).
Ooooh, circumnavigational genuflection. You, Howard Bannister, are a scholar and a swell person.
And with your added genuflection and my platinium, diamond covered internet I shall soon ascend from this earthly plane and fly high into the bloggosphere, on a trail of internets and accolades. Ha ha, ha ha ha! Ha ha, ha ha ha!
Mobius strips are fantastic. Spheres are great. Manboobz is a lovely blog.
I’m not necroing this thread. I’m… erm… making dialogue.
There is no alpha/beta binary. In sociology, if we refer to people in terms of alpha/beta, we also attach gamma, at the very least, and also delta and epsilon. In the animal kingdom, we have gamma, delta, epsilon, and omega. To insist that there were two categories to begin with is trite; even following the rules set by the animal kingdom, now debunked, there are several ranks of animals; alpha does not get choice of female, by this rule, alpha commits to a pairing and sticks to it, for the most part, but gets priority in nourishment.
If we’re applying this ruling to humans, which we certainly shouldn’t, most *people* are not alpha, or beta, or gamma, or delta, but a mix of all characteristics. Sociologically speaking, an alpha is basically a nomad. Betas are caregivers. By setting up a binary, people insist that this initially *questionable* interpretation of social order implies a lesser characteristic in the role of a beta. In reality, alphas form societies, and betas live in them, according to the model; now, the definitions these Internet communities have given to “alpha males” are contradictory, often solely fitting their own agenda. Some say an alpha male never points fingers at himself, never alters himself, others say an *alpha male* always shoulders accountability; some say an alpha male knows how to follow an agenda in order to be successful, and others claim that an alpha male is not a *corporate tool*.
The Internet model has absolutely no basis in the original theory to begin with; there is no agreement on any of the qualifications of an “alpha male”. I’m sorry if your wife/girlfriend cheated on you, but it wasn’t because you “weren’t man enough”. It’s because she was a woman who was capable of cheating, and you need to be comfortable enough with yourself to accept that it was something you had no control over. You can’t *make* a woman your wife.
(I’m talking to a ghost… the stereotypical “nice guy” who cites this nonsense then becomes a *pussy magnet*, compromising his own identity in the process for the purpose of an ill-founded notion.)
never heard about “sexual market value” and “the wall” b4 the internet
:-s
http://makeshiftalpha.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sexualvaluewileecoyote.jpg
EGAD!
I’m tired of this idea, it’s so empty. What’s the point of solely trying to lay as many women as you can? What would you be proving and to who exactly? Sex can be rubbish. Life’s too short. How about just looking for great sex instead and moving on when the magic’s gone but hoping that it doesn’t?
Wolves were just one example. There are many other animals which have social hierarchies with an ‘alpha male’ or alpha pair. Failure of an article Lol
Alpha male is not only a myth, it’s impossible as well. If one reads the supposed 25 traits of the alpha male human, one will discover that that person CANNOT exist in reality. Why? Because we’re human beings, not preternatural superior beings. Thus, we are flawed, and badly flawed… since we’re living in the 21st century, and we’re still acting like savage brutes in the age of barbarism, despite the fact that we have so much technology with tremendous potential to change the world for the better.
Also, the 25th supposed trait is really pathetic, and it’s an insult to the modern civilized man and woman. “Never let the woman pay.” Apparently, women shouldn’t spend money. They should do what instead? Save it? Are they even allowed to earn it? Or should we just reorganize the labor rights of women, to include “only womanly jobs”, and pay the men more in wages in order to cover that shortage? It’s absolutely hypocritical and paralogical.
There are stupid men and women who believe in the “traditional” patriarchal hierarchy, both at the macro and micro level. Religion contributed to this gross injustice the most, and it still does. All enlightened human beings of the 21st century, please stay away from such people – do not allow your gene pool to be polluted by “the dominant” and the “subordinate” minded men and women of our tragic times. And as for the bigoted minded trolls, screw them.
Shorter every troll on this piece: We’re not going to let facts get in the way of a good brainwash! Even if the facts come straight from those who inadvertently started the brainwash themselves!
Why is everyone making personal attacks against me? I simply stated my opinion that the guys who women want the most are good looking guys with money and it does not matter how he gets the money, dominant male or not. There is no reason to attack me.
You are far too quick to attack someone and make assumptions about me. I think the Pua guys are a joke but I don’t agree with everything you say either. As far as the comment mocking mr saying, ” I guess you only care about a woman’s mind ” goes, not her mind but her personality and behaviour was all I cared about. I now accept the fact that I will never find a compatible female companion. There is no reason to mock me or be hostile. I am no threat to anyone. I was not trolling and you guys are as bad as the pua idiots for being hostile toward anyone who does not share all of your opinions.
I think the whole alpha/beta debate sidetracks us from the reality that there is a commodity/marketplace relationship between what men and women have and want from eachother. I’ve seen definitions of alpha male that are so fantastic that other than Jesus Christ or Ghandi nobody would or could qualify. At the other end of the spectrum, some believe (possibly most PUA’s) that any a-hole with a bulge in his expensive pants, good sized arms, cocky aloof attitude (and maybe a nice car) can walk off with his pick of the litter leaving the “well intentioned and very very NICE but frumpy beta-males” in the dust.
So then theory meets reality. Yes, successful men who are enthusiastic and outgoing and outwardly focussed on what they do best (and not self-absorbed or self-obsessed) seem to very often get very nice women to go with or date or marry. But it also seems that handsome fellas with pockets full of cash can ALSO get *nice looking* ladies, but perhaps not women as educated, sophistocated, or worldly as the gals the REAL alpha’s are catching. Depends one’s definition of alpha.
I think, though, the the one-size-fits-all definition of “alpha” does not really work for all women. There are a LOT of different characters that are handsome, successful, funny, affectionate, confident and have their sh1t together. So, you can have alpha computer programmers, alpha football players, alpha writers, alpha tradesmen, alpha artists… And I think you can have beta’s from all walks of life too.
Joe Blow says that women are basically gaga for men with a)looks and b) money. I don’t really agree 100%. Yes, some women will accept only looks and money. Some just looks. Some just money. Most women are looking for more than that. Some guys have money because they work 14 hours a day in very dangerous or demanding jobs, and they may be handsome, but they may also be extremely beta when at home or have little power despite their good earnings. Other guys might be handsome and have money, but can’t get women who want more in a man (class, affection, humor, worldliness, sophistication, good with kids, fatherly) might not settle for just looks or money where a long lineup of women would happily do so.
I think it’s a simple matter of a woman being excited to be around a man, and excited BY him and excited (moreso) by the fact he WANTS her. A beta’s NEED for a woman and NEED to serve her might lure her in, but I think this feminine energy is the same energy that ends up driving her away. Conversely, the Alpha’s initially attractive features may also drive a woman away if he’s got character defects or other problems that devalue him more than his alphaness is worth. I am drawn to the male/female chi-balance kind of concept. Women find female attributes attractive because by their very nature, nurturing and sensitivity are *nice*, but are they what women want on a more primal level?
Nice guys do finish last. Except nice handsome, wealthy, successful and confident men. They finish first all the time.
Nice guys with NOTHING ELSE TO OFFER finish last regularly.
Nice alone doesn’t cut it.
I agree with “Nice guy theory” I suppose.
I think it’s a very complicated thing, actually, and that you need to look at each man/woman pair as individual people and compare not just what they bring to the table, but what each of them look for in a partner. I also think most relationships are destined for failure simply because people choose spouses or partners from chance meetings. Met at party. Conversations are fluid. Seem to have common interests. Physical attraction is there. Three dates. Sex. Relationship starts.
Wat.
Dude would be better off dropping the whole idea of looking at people and relationships as things and commodities, or assuming everyone else does. TL: DR – people who treat others that way aren’t worth having any relationship with.