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.
@Emilygoddess,
If you scroll up a bit, you can see that i was called everything offensive under the sun from assfax to sixpackofdogshit. You wouldnt even find one post of mine where i called a person here names other than “HellKelloggofacereal” as a comeback to assfax, i pity myself for even coming up with that. Its offensive if you find cereal offensive. I dont really have it in me to call people names i guess. I repeat, im sorry if you found my posts offensive because it was REALLY unintentional because I really am fucked up at this point in my life. I dont know if it will get better, but i will try my best to change. I really dont know how to make a better apology.
Would hints in musical form work better? Let’s give it a shot.
Cry moar, sixpack
It’s alright to say that all women are untrustworthy unfaithful bitches as long as you leave out the “bitches” part!
We need a block button for situations like this. I want to talk to y’all about music videos like we were doing earlier! Or wolves, or whatever, just not this guy’s self-inflicted woes.
A good friend at college once told me that the one.thing she envied about gay men was that they could get laid without dealing with straight men.
I just remembered that, for some reason.
I think I’ll let Blondie give asicpack a hint:
See, Asspack can say this while calling women “sluts” and “just pussies to conquer” because, well, obviously women aren’t people.
He came back? Jeeze. Then he claimed he was providing a public service to all the wronged boyfriends out there by having sex with their girlfriends.
“Im just in it for the ones who are blissfully unaware of what their loving girlfriends are doing in their free time.
My Hero!
How does that work, exactly?After sleeping with these young woman he writes the boyfriends a letter, sends them a video or maybe he corners the dudes in the college cafeteria and opens with, “Hey, bro, I had sex with your girl last night.” (Places a sympathetic hand on the guys shoulder then sighs) “It’s better you know now that she’s capable of cheating on you, don’t ya think?”
That’s what he does? Err, no. No. That doesn’t happen, duder. You’re full of shit.
You should pity yourself, if only because that was the weakest of weaksauce, son.
If it was a choice between Asterix and celibacy I’d be heading off the join a nunnery right now.
Whoo boy. Leave the internet for a few days, find out a sad troll wandered in and shat all over everything.
If women are so untrustworthy and unfaithful, then what is possessing me to propose to my boyfriend while we’re on our anniversary vacation in a month?
These are the rings I got!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A15U08Q/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
But nope, I’m a total cheating slut whore thing, like all of the rest of the ebil wimminz.
Your rings are very pretty! Let’s just hope that Asterix doesn’t email your boyfriend to inform him that he knows that you would have cheated if you could have gotten away with it even though you kicked his horny ass to the curb when he tried his very best PUA lines on you.
Nice rings!
But we all know you’re doing this because something something hypergamy something warhgarble.
Hey Cassandra, you like this one?
I only like songs about women who betray men for shits and giggles, as is my nature as a woman.
OK, naptime now. Hopefully by the time I come back Asterix will have finally gone to whine somewhere else, or fallen into a drunken stupor, whichever happens first.
Have a good nap.
Fromafar, one of the docs I work with has those rings, they’re super cool-looking. Good luck with your proposal!
Fromafar2013,
I wish you all the luck for your proposal.
Shut up, asixpack.
Dude, you want to change? Go get help.
Don’t expect us to be sweetness and sunshine, here, until you do. To date, you’ve attempted to feed us the exact same freaking lines that some of us have heard from abusive jerks. We aren’t inclined to be polite (on a mockery site, no less!) to people who use those lines.
If you’re serious about changing, good luck.
If you’re still to scared to talk to a therapist, and have another one of these drunk ‘I need to tell someone’ moments, I’d suggest googling for helplines in your state. Call them.
Unlike us, they specialize in being supportive and finding you help. We mock, they help, savvy?
Record the bleeding conversation, so you can listen to it again when you’re sober, and learn from it.
Okay? I’m done with you now. Flounce score: -85.
For everyone else, have some kitties in boxes!
http://youtu.be/7hHXFSilTVU
And some ‘true facts’ about ducks!
http://youtu.be/6k01DIVDJlY
Oh, and fromafar, that’s awesome!
Nice rings, too.
So, what’d I miss?
asixpack:
okay
asixpack:
All right.
asixpack:
I’m beginning to see a pattern here…
cassandrakitty:
Uuuhuuh
@asixpack:
Well that sucks, so
@asixpack
might as well go and delete everything.
@asixpack:
Well, okay.
@asixpack:
Yeah, definitively getting a theme but I can’t quite place my finger on it…
@asixpack:
Oh.
@asixpack:
There once was a Dude from a college
Who had a lot of knowledge
All those women they cheat
I’m just in it for the meat
I get so much pussy the word for it is “haulage”
So he spent some time despairing
and all of his woes airing
typing out screeds about women ‘s needs
he fulfills them with PUA creeds
Oddly, we’re suspected of caring
Thus unaware, with no self-awareness to declare
He literally wrote out “I know what poly is, but I’m in it for breaking up relationships”
What the fuck dude
what the fuck
what the fuck
the fuck
ahem.
So this chum went on about his desiring to cum
declaring in bold, “Hah, you’ve been told!”
Frankly, admitting to not reading a word
and thus not having heard
How many times that he’d been offered scold
“Won’t you love me, I’m lovely!
You fucking sluts who cheat on me, that I can’t trust but will revenge-fuck to prove to your BF how you’re just as likely to go for a Bob as Jeff
Sorry, was that offensive? I didn’t mean it to be
I was sad when I was younger,
fucking whores”
When telling about his suicidal ideation
the reply was not elation
because that stuff is rough
We know it, but suspect it’s a bluff
If it ain’t, get thee to an aid station
“But I can’t change, my friends will call me nuts
all the nuts I bust, all those cute butts
it’s how I get my jollies
despite all my fucking follies
Why would I gave that up to save myself from cuts?”
Sigh, the readers do, because this is true
if a man prefers sex to a happy life, and friends who declare him an outlaw if he doesn’t treat his dick like a knife to stick into people as part of a strife
You can’t reach those dudes, that’s totes sad for real
I ain’t laughing at the “I know what poly is, but I just want to ruin relationships”
what a fucking appeal.
That’s amazing, fromafar!
fromafar2013: Very nice rings! Congratulations!
Asixpack: Get off the Internet and get help. It’s not an entire gender’s fault that your high school girlfriend cheated on you. It’s not an entire gender’s fault that you’re not happy. You are choosing this. You are choosing to behave the way you do.
You are choosing to treat women as objects. You are choosing to believe that every woman cheats because women are just that bad. This is morally reprehensible. It makes you an asshole.
I’m sorry you’re depressed, but you’re still an asshole. Again, get off the Internet and get help.
@ Fibinachi: Thanks for the compilation and the awesome poem! You rock 😀
And thanks to everyone for the well wishes! We’re going to be in a rustic cabin in the woods with no one around, but I’m still nervous! It’s silly. I get butterflies thinking about it! XD