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
Oh no, almost everyone here is seeing the abuser red flags, despite how hard dude is trying to gaslight us. I, too, wish that people wouldn’t coddle folks who act like that.
@fromafar
Good luck with the proposal!
You made the right decision, Mr. Pack.
Seriously, it’s apparent a lot of the super heinous things you’ve said here sounded perfectly reasonable to you and that indicates you’ve got a lot of unlearning to do. The good news is, by doing so, you’ll be a lot happier.
RE: Asixpack
I honestly dont know how to respond to your comments.
I’m not surprised. You seem completely devoid of self-reflection and analysis. Why WOULD you know how to deal with having your “alpha” ass served to you by a bunch of queers and feminists?
RE: marinerachel
The good news is, by doing so, you’ll be a lot happier.
I’m sure the women he treats as holes will be a lot happier too. Though I doubt he’s capable of caring, the little narcissist.
Oh, are we doing dialogue via videos? Nothing seems to have worked so far, so let’s try some K-pop.
PS – My posting this video does not endorse killing your abusive boyfriend by making his racecar explode, before any MRA lurkers get pissy about that.
Do I need to post ‘Alfie’ again? Because I totally can…
My humble suggestion.
Do alpha males exist in Lion packs and Primates in the wild? Yes. So you can talk about your wolves all you want. You cannot change the fact that the alpha hierarchy exists in the natural world. In fact, forget wolves all together. Humans are primate and the alpha hierarchy exists and has been thoroughly documented, again, in primates since, forever.
-1 point for feminist propaganda.
Robert: Are people wolves? No. So you can talk about your, “alpha males” all you like, the base idea is wrong.
And your examples are wrong; lions don’t have, “alphas” they have harems. It’s a different model. Primates with Alphas (e.g. baboons) also have Alpha females. Which tosses the whole, “Alpha Male” idea out the window, because he doesn’t get to choose, she does. And the role of “Alpha” is defined by how the others in the pack are willing to grant him the status. It’s not inherent, it’s emergent.
But hey, you can wank to the idea that some males are “more male” than others. I’ll be over here with the informed people talking about things of interest.
Robert,
We already have a Robert here who isn’t a troll. You should pick another name if intend on commenting again. When you do, please provide an actual citation that humans have alphas and betas.
This thread sure gets a lot of necro trolls.
So, Robert-who’s-not-our-regular-Robert-who-is-cool, you think humans should go with your (wrong) notions of how other primates behave?
You’re fine with, oh, infanticide, for instance?
You think we’d better get rid of unnatural things like clothes and houses and computers and vaccinations and writing and cooking?
No?
Then why do you expect humans to behave according to this one (fallacious) model of behaviour when we’re far from being the prisoners of biology elsewhere?
Couldn’t be because you fancy the idea of men forcing women back into a “natural”, subservient role, could it?
Robert is just sore because he conclusively argued that poo-flinging is a well-documented trait among primates, but he got thrown out of the grocery store anyway.
LOL!
He probably spreads Ebola too.
Some fucking tool on an atheist forum told me illegalising having multiple sex partners for women but permitting men to engage in sex with a variety of partners is reasonable BECAUSE GORILLAS WILL KILL RIVAL MALES! SCIENCE!
How the fuck does that even follow? How does “Gorillas do it” make it reasonable or a good idea for people?
Ah, the arguments people will use to force women into subservient, deprived roles.
Did that PoS want to be killing rival males, too? Because the numbers don’t seem to work out otherwise.
I guess he’d be right down with FGM and all the other horrors inflicted on women to make sure we aren’t interested in sex, too.
Why choose gorillas or wolves or lions as models when there are animals much closer to us in species terms? We have chimpanzees and we have bonobos. Why would we not follow either the parallel dominant males and females of the chimps and let them keep the rest of us in line, or we could go with the bonobo style of everybody tries very hard to be calm and nice – and sexy with – everybody else to keep the group together and healthy and peaceful?
Or … … we could look at our own social and sexual relationships as though they’re our own. Fancy that!
It’s very interesting to look at other animals and the similarities and differences among all of us. And that’s exactly what that is — and all it is. Interesting.
I dream of a community like this.
No, not because “bonobos do it”, but because it sounds like everyone involved in it would win (especially compared to, you know, the world as it works right now)
But then again, win-win scenarios are not MRAs specialty, unles both “win” go to the man.
Other Robert,
I’ve been a Jane Goodall fan since I could read. We can talk chimps if ya wanna.
In chimp society it has been noted that when the lead male makes a decision, none of the chimps follow him until the matriarchs get up and follow. When they don’t follow him, he sits and picks at his fur for a while and then makes a different decision. This goes on until he makes a decision the matriarchs approve of.
As for gorillas, they eat their own shit. It doesn’t hurt them. It’s something they’ve evolved to do. I don’t recommend that people try it. Being a primate does not mean being identical to other primates. We are related to all life on this planet. That doesn’t mean we behave like ears of corn. Go forth and study. You don’t know half what you think you do.
I also want to point out to these manly macho wannabe types that the first people to study the behaviors of chimps and gorillas in the wild were women.
Jane Goodall and Diane Fosse are the folks you can thank for our greater understanding of other primates. Put that in ya pipe and smoke it.
@pecunium
“The battle for alpha female; Ashanti vs Phyre”
http://ngamo.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/the-battle-for-alpha-female-ashanti-vs-phyre/
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“But hey, you can wank to the idea that some males are “more male” than others. I’ll be over here with the informed people talking about things of interest.”
“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.”
http://www.davemech.org/news.html
Don’t male lions fight each other to take over the pride and then if there are cubs the new males kill them to ensure only their offsprings continue? Yes, they do. Primates also fight for dominant position in a group. Human (primate) exibit this behavior. From the school yard to the work environment some men have the innate urge to one-up or out-do others and woman with other woman.
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“Anatomy of the Alpha Male From Identification to Impersonation”
http://www.bodylanguageuniversity.com/public/239.cfm
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@Luzbelitx
“But then again, win-win scenarios are not MRAs specialty, unles both “win” go to the man.”
Sounds more like feminism. Woman want equality! But still want the door opened for them, meals paid for on a date, of course (!), and get on the life boat while the men stay behind cause there’s not enough space, etc etc etc. Woman want equality while keeping all of the benifits the traditional woman gets.
You feminists aren’t fooling people with your double standards and hypocrisy.
_________________
All people were not created equal. It’s that simple. All this feminist propaganda isn’t going to change millions of years of evolution. The feminist goal of destroying the alpha male amongst other aspects of socoiety is disgusting. And weak people latch on. Feminism, the new religion, thank you feminism, for without you, we wouldn’t have the Fat acceptance movement. Laugh. Feminists accept and respect a womans choice (!), unless it’s wanting to be a stay at home mom.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/amy-glass/2014/01/i-look-down-on-young-women-with-husbands-and-kids-and-im-not-sorry/
Setting to ignore teal deer from the non-cool-Robert because my word, upon skimming it looks extra extra boring.
I’ve seen Jane Goodall speak twice! And last month she signed my copy of her book.
@Lea
Primate Sociality and Social Systems
http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/primate-sociality-and-social-systems-58068905
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Dominance hierarchy
http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Dominance_hierarchy
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Individual differences versus social dynamics in
the formation of animal dominance hierarchies
“Linear hierarchies, the classical pecking-order structures, are
formed readily in both nature and the laboratory in a great range of species including humans. However, the probability of getting linear structures by chance alone is quite low. In this paper we investigate the two hypotheses that are proposed most often to explain linear hierarchies: they are predetermined by differences in the attributes of animals, or they are produced by the dynamics of social interaction, i.e., they are self-organizing. We evaluate these hypotheses using cichlid fish as model animals, and although differences in attributes play a significant part, we find that social interaction is necessary for high proportions of groups with linear hierarchies. Our results suggest that dominance hierarchy forma-
tion is a much richer and more complex phenomenon than previously thought, and we explore the implications of these results for evolutionary biology, the social sciences, and the use of animal models in understanding human social organization.”
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/8/5744.full.pdf
Grumpycat,
That’s awesome.
Seconding not riding that teal deer. I also gave it a skim over. We’ve got another idiot pulling assfax out of his butt again. Looks like he’s enjoying that fight with the star feminist he built. Maybe she’ll pay attention to him.