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.
You’re right – women do make the decision to cheat. They are responsible for their actions. You’re absolutely correct about that.
That doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for your part though. “It would have been someone else” is a convenient excuse people use to justify sex with people in relationships. It’s not necessarily accurate. It wouldn’t necessarily have been someone else. You may well have taken advantage of someone in a very, very low place, emotionally, who never would have engaged in such a thing if they hadn’t been feeling like shit or if you’d just left them alone.
My partner and I went through the fucking wringer over the winter and are still feeling the residual effects of it. During that time, a dude I thought was my friend moved in on me. I didn’t cave. I wasn’t interested. By making me feel wanted at a time my partner did not though this dude could have influenced me to do something I would regret horribly and for what? To make himself feel powerful? To punish women for what an ex did?
It’s not cool, bro. Don’t be that influence.
I’m still not seeing why we need to provide this assbag with an audience.
Yeah, cos you’re such an alpha, no woman could possibly not want to cheat with you. After all, women are all such cheaty cheating cheaters, am I right? Asswipe!
Cheater-exposing-bot is the worst public service ever. Can we trade him in for something more useful?
Asixpack, you have admitted to treating women, who are human beings, like objects that exist for your consumption and pleasure… and somehow you want us to feel sorry for you? Never. Never never never. Your bids for sympathy make me sick.
Asixpack: you roll up in here saying awful shit about women and now you want nothing but nice replies and your feelings cosseted? If that not the very definition of male entitlement and privilege, I don’t know what is.
You’re not doing the public service you think you are by exposing cheaters, you’re being an awful person.
Fuck off.
Marinerachel, i guess you are right. I did take advantage of their drunkenness and emotional state to get them to cheat. I guess i was justifying my actions to myself by making up excuses for myself. I just feel even more horrible. I guess i defenitly need to rethink my life. The funny thing is that i came here when i was drunk to prove that alphas exist and how im a living example and now i just feel like a loser.
As well you should. Take your pity party somewhere else.
Bye!
That one left a bad fucking taste in my mouth.
I guess i better not post here again lest my misogynistic posts may irritate the sensitive audience of this section. LOL 😛
Assfax,
Stick the flounce.
LOL, right? LOL, I consider it a victory if I upset people because at least they fucking noticed me for 5 minutes. LOL, I know I’m a shit person and I want to put all of that pain into women so I don’t have to feel bad anymore. LOL I want to tell my mommy about how I’ve been using women so that she will soothe my feelings, but she would probably be disgusted, so I will tell a bunch of surrogate mommies on the Internet. LOL.
LOL. ¡¡
I forgot “LOL I pretend I’m going to leave in yet another transparent attempt to get people to pity me, but I have never had any intention of actually leaving because I crave the validation.” But now I’m done with this particular man child.
Protip: When a lot of people tell you you’re being a misogynistic asshole, it’s not us being too sensitive, it’s you being a misogynistic asshole.
Go the fuck away, titty-baby.
So, AnAsshole didn’t stick his flounce? Well, go stick it, sixpackofdogshit.
What a tiresome asshat. And he wants us to feel sorry for him? I save my sympathy for people who aren’t actively trying to hurt/punish other people.
What an ass. Is he gone, finally? For real?
Look, i wish i was some cyber troll who went around trolling websites so i could just laugh my ass off for the day and go to sleep. But i CANT, this is MY fucking life and i dont expect you to give a shit about it. I dont want to be the whiny middle school kid crying to his mom about why everyone is so mean to me. I know why you dont like me but i wish we could be more civil about this. I rarely resort to name calling and mockery because i know how hurt people feel when bullied. I wish we could all get along because i really respect all your opinions and still think you’re all otherwise reasonable people. I know that you people still think of me as an asshole and there is little i can do to change that. I came back here mainly because of marinerachel’s initial comments and not to push my life story and my self pity down your throats. Im sorry if i hurt anyone here and swear that it was unintentional. I still respect everyone here and can understand why my posts were annoying and whiny. Sorry for everything.
If you can understand why we don’t like your posts, you should be able to understand why we’d like you gone.
Huh, it’s so weird how when you enter a conversation by telling a group of people how evil and untrustworthy they are they don’t feel particularly inclined to be civil to you. It’s almost as if your behavior was itself fundamentally uncivil.
I’m not sure how he figures his posting history show us any respect at all.
This is why no one takes your overwrought contrition seriously. This Jeckyll and Hyde shit right here.
“I guess i better not post here again lest my misogynistic posts may irritate the sensitive audience of this section.”
“I guess i better not post here again lest my misogynistic posts may irritate the sensitive audience of this section.”
“the sensitive audience of this section.”
Seriously, what are you even doing right now?
Oh Ally, that is terrible. I am sorry you had to go through all that, and still do.
I wish someone would tell the TERFs I know about things like this. They still don’t get it because they’re so hung up on biological sex. They don’t realize that this sort of thing isn’t quite the same thing as homophobia, because you don’t identify as a gay male. It passes as homophobia, maybe, but as you said, it’s not due to maleness, it’s due to male-passing. It’s so ironic that they fight tooth and nail against the idea that brains have a sex (and it’s true that they don’t, but that’s not what transgender brain differences are anyway), but then they fall right back on that ol’ bio-twoofer sex essentialism when they pull this “male privilege” argument. It makes me want to strangle a tree. But I’m not the proper one to explain it to them, because it’s not my lived experience. And those whose lived experience it is, are often too busy struggling just to live, period, and they haven’t got time for this shit on top of all the other shit. I honestly can’t blame anyone who’s gone “deep stealth” in a simple effort to stay alive, sane and away from all the drama. I probably would, too, if that were me.
Absolutely true. And the same goes for me. I say if someone’s feminism isn’t radical enough to include trans women as women, without hedging or preconditions, then it’s not radical, period. Because nobody is better situated than a trans woman to question pre-conceived ideas about gender conditioning and societal norms surrounding it, and we all have a lot to learn from our trans sisters.
And our trans brothers, too, since I also know quite a few trans guys who are tackling this issue from the other side of the fence. One of them is a very good friend who lived for many years as a lesbian before coming out and dealing with his dysphoria, and starting his physical transition. He gets mighty ticked whenever someone starts pulling male privilege and acting like a jackass once the T-shots kick in, and he doesn’t hesitate to let them know it. Allies like him in the fight against sexism are worth their weight in rubies.