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.
Wait, Not-Robert’s ace-in-the-hole to prove that feminism is wrong; alpha males do exist, dammit(!); and that all people are not equal is a paper on the social hierarchies of cichlid fish.
And the paper doesn’t say what he thinks it says, but exactly the opposite? That these hierarchies are fluid and based as much on social interactions as inborn characteristics? And that non-linear social hierarchies are possible?
That is hilarious. That just kinda made my day.
Oh, also.
@OtherRobert:
@FromThoughtCatalog:
Huh, interesting viewpoint, I guess… although.
Wait.
What’s this?
@FromThoughtCatalog:
Why would I want to know about the reasoning behind and identity of a person who seems perfectly willing to be obnoxious?
Oh well, I guess I might learn something.
Not really learning anything here, other than fabulation and the fact that someone was being obnoxious to make a point, which doesn’t excuse the obnoxiousness but certainly does make the point. Even if I disagree.
Which it turns out lots of other people did.
And those responses were published on the very article you linked to, with links, from that same site. And this happened months ago.
And yet, here we all are, someone is going: “Cichlids prove that alpha males exist and that feminists want to destroy them! Look at this feminist writing bad things about stay at home mothers! Here’s some stuff about primate social systems which completely prove my point in some way despite several social systems differing by miles and oceans and fucking planets from the point I was trying to make!”.
I’m glad everyone came back an schooled the troll while I was on my lunch break.
Hey AssholeRobert, my reading comprehension needs work? I’ve written and published biological research papers. The paper does not say what you think it says. Your confirmation bias is blinding.
And the ‘alpha male lions’ line was a joke, which I guess must have went entirely over your head.
Ha ha.
New Robert, why didn’t you address any of my points? Are you gonna tell me how feminism is a religion, or why you think women are a hivemind?
Wait, is fake Robert saying feminists oppress fish???
Right?
a) no we don’t. ask us next time.
b) Okay, i’ll open doors for you if i get paid more than you for the same occupation and education and i have a chance of suffering less violence by intimate partners and people like me represent me in government instead of people of your gender. sound fair?
mmmmmmmmmm i’m groaning at totallyNOTrobert’s shtick on how we are not equal. when has that ever not been code for abledwhitecisman is the best and everyone else sucks?
@EvoPsychDudebroRobert
Sex is a social construct originating from the discourse of patriarchy. It does not exist as a binary beyond social context. You and your shitty science have no ground to stand on in regards to proving the existence of patriarchy or or the existence of intrasexual social hierarchy like the alpha/beta/whatever hierarchy.
ALL HAIL THE ONE TRUE ROBERT!
The One True Robert is Cool Robert! Beware of Not Cool Robert, who will bore you to death with his teal dear herd!
Out of curiosity, does anyone even know where that “the divorce rate in California is 75%” stat even originates from? Because I did Google it as Not Cool Robert suggested, and I’m mostly getting the Web sites of California divorce attorneys who don’t say where they get their info from.
Sooner or later it all comes down to “I’m better than everyone else.”
I’m rating that flounce 3/10, but it’s already down to -1/10.
HAIL!
Sounds about right. People who believe that humans have alpha males and being one is desirable are always assholes and they always are either abusers and rapists or apologists for them.
Isn’t the point of the evo psych’s version of an alpha male that he gets to spread his genes by mating with many of the best females? By definition MGTOW can’t be alpha males because they aren’t mating with any females, right? Yet they talk about alpha males a lot.
LOL at using thought catalog as a citation. That site is full of idiots. Using a shitty thought catalog article as evidence that feminism is bad is like using Justin Bieber as evidence that all Canadians are assholes.
Thanks for the support, all. It is very reassuring.
” Using a shitty thought catalog article as evidence that feminism is bad is like using Justin Bieber as evidence that all Canadians are assholes.”
As a Canadian that made me lol
Robert (the twitty one): Body language university? really? This is your idea of a rebuttal citation?
Lions don’t have alpha. There is no “top dog” there is one male per pride. Moreover people are socially gregarious; lions aren’t.
Are there “boss” lionesses? Yes. How does this apply 1: to male lions? 2: to humans?
Wow… you linked to the study this post was based on… to refute this post.
So your “citations” make for three whiffs. Three pitches, three strikes.
You’re out.
In your second at bat: Our results suggest that dominance hierarchy formation 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
Pop-fly to first, out.
Looks like you need to spend more time in the minors.
Robert (the twitty one): You’re reading comprehension is not strong and your understanding of the term ‘alpha’ seems very limited to chest thumping.
Dude…
You’ve just defined any meaningful use of “alpha” out of existence.
You see any dominance hieratchy as proof.
Any example of non-alpha (esp. in re the context of the study mentioned in the OP, which negates the “Alpha-Wolf” model the MRA/MRM/PUA types tout as, “the way it is) you then say shows Alpha is real.
You have a religious fervor. Got it.
You need to believe in the mythical “Alpha”. Got it.
You are a clueless, self-delusional idiot with zip for reading comprehension, the fallacious idea that someone else writing something you agree with makes it valid, and a need to pretend you are innately better than others.
Got it.
None of this is material to the facts at hand, and all your blather won’t save you from the unpleasant (for you) truths.
1: People are not wolves.
2: People have a complex social structure which doesn’t have a rigidly defined heirarchy (see the paper on fish for more detail on this, as it refures your claims about it).
3: People are going to judge you on how you function in your society.
I’m going to guess that number three is the real problem. You aren’t getting the deference you think you deserve, and you want to believe it’s because of “alpha”. So if you can learn the “tricks” which make you “alpha” you will get deference
Ain’t
Gonna
Happen.
While I do agree that Alpha males in the strictest sense of the word in humans does not exist. I do believe women do actually ride the ‘cock carousel’. I am in nightlife a lot, mostly because I am a musician. I notice it are almost always the same guys that leave the bars and clubs with girls. They do almost exclusively sleep with the most desirable men, being a musician doesn’t help, being rich doesn’t help, all that helps is being good looking as far as I see it from my surroundings.
@MC2
You know the vast majority of sex that happens in the world isn’t through meeting at clubs, right?
Yes, that is what everyone says until they are in the presence of a true Alpha male. Their body gets flooded with hormones of which they have no control and they engage in one of two actions: Either they completely submit through subtle cues (eye darting or if eye contact is made for longer than a half of a second, a nod is quickly returned before removing their gaze), or they engage in forced power plays in an attempt to quell the flooding of hormones associated with submission.
Males will ask forced questions. Questions which can be answered with simple observations. If they are present with a woman and the alpha male is in their area, the threatened male will instantly show affection to the woman in an attempt to show the alpha that that woman is his property. Little does the threatened male know is that the alpha wasn’t interested to begin with.
You women will know it is the alpha because the minute you are in his presence, all your guards will have dropped. The assertive, take charge attitude you cling passionately to will disappear and you will be reminded of the purest expression of your femininity. If you are in a professional environment it will take all of your mental energy, while in the presence of the alpha, to maintain a professional aura. It will take the full usage of the frontal lobes to keep the limbic system and the inevitable lust for his manhood in check.
You will do things for his attention. And when you finally get it you won’t know what to do with it. You will freeze. You might grin slightly. You will be aroused, and the alpha is instantly aware of it. He knows you are aroused and there is nothing you can do about it. If the alpha wanted to, he could gently take your hand and lead you wherever he wished, and you would gladly go.
Just being in the presence of the man, frees you of every worry. Every anxiety is released and you experience what it is to be a real woman.
But no… no, the alpha male is a myth.
Damn! The Wargies missed one 🙁