So manosphere dudes have a theory of sorts about young women that they frequently boil down to the handy catchphrase “alpha fucks, beta bucks.” The idea is that women — oh, you evil women! — have an insatiable desire to mate with and capture the sperm of hot but unreliable alpha males, and an equally innate tendency to try to con some hard-working beta schlub into paying the bills, with his beta bucks, for the resulting alpha spawn.
There are a few problems with this theory. First of all, this DOESN’T HAPPEN. Ands second,it makes no fucking sense. Why would the invisible hand of evolution want to reward the genes of Alpha men with no interest in caring for their kids and punish the betas who (at least in the manosphere version of the world) actually keep those kids alive?
But I digress. Because one clever Manospherian commenter — recently featured in a post on Rollo Tomassi’s Rational Male blog — has discovered yet more proof of the evil alpha fucks-beta bucks theory in action: Sperm banks.
Let’s let him explain, because I sure can’t:
Let’s look at this abstractly. Man and woman marry, find that she isn’t getting pregnant, determine from medical testing that his swimmers aren’t winning the race. So they pay for another man to impregnate her, although via a medical go-between. The original sperm banks screened donors and pretty much limited them to med students and other college men.
This is “Alpha Sperm, Beta Provisioning”, and nothing less. Putting a tech or a doctor in the middle wearing gloves and a lab coat, and injecting semen with a syringe rather than the usual method doesn’t change that.
Uh, aren’t sperm banks a way for couples who want babies and can’t have babies themselves to have babies? The guy in this scenario has no way to pass on his genes. That’s not an option. He wants a baby, too.
Sperm banks are therefore a clinical version of AF-BB, and as such clearly serve the Female Imperative in the same manner as a married woman having an affair while she’s ovulating … .
Uh, BUT THE MAN WANTS THE BABY TOO. Men can love children who are not biologically theirs. Families adopt children. They love them too.
[T]he whole idea of a sperm bank is a clear, medicalized, fully legal example of the Female Imperative of AF-BB … today we all accept it because teh wimmenz deserve their own bay-bee if they want one (or more), no matter the cost to anyone else.
What cost? WHAT COST? THE MAN WANTS THE BABY TOO.
“Rollo Tomassi” adds some conspiracy theorizing to the mix:
On virtually any post I’ve made about feminism … one or more commenters invariably post the youtube video about how feminism was conceived to destabilize western society (by the Rockefellers?). …. the fact that sperm banks were an unheard of development prior to the sexual revolution does give me pause to think that they were a need anticipated to better facilitate and perpetuate a future feminine-primary society.
Yes, that’s right. Feminism + Sperm Banks x Rockefellers = MALE ENSLAVEMENT
Indeed, he points out, some of the women who go to sperm banks DON’T EVEN HAVE HUSBANDS.
Almost as if in anticipation for the unfettering of women’s hypergamy, the facility of insuring a woman’s best optimized hypergamy was institutionalized and normalized. This may sound like conjecture (since the socially proposed purpose was to facilitate pregnancy for an infertile man), but the utility of sperm banks quickly shifted to facilitating the pregnancy of women who wouldn’t be married or had no intention of marrying to start a family.
Unmarried women having sperm bank babies. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
This was the first institution, legalized and normalized that laid bare feminism latent purpose – strong independent women® could remove the man from the equation of effecting an optimal hypergamy, while at the same time effecting future legislation and social engineering to enlist men (either publicly or privately) in the provisioning of this new breed of motherhood. And with every guy dutifully jerking off into a petrie dish, they effectually contribute one more element to institutionalized Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks.
And so a dude getting paid to masturbate into a cup — they don’t use petri dishes, dude — becomes yet another brick to the wall of the manosphere’s imagined oppression of men.
I just love thinking that even MRAs’ sperm is rubbish.
Do they tend to have racial restrictions? I once looked into donating eggs, and around here they’ll only take white and Asian donors.
@auggz, talking about this on the other thread, but happy to answer in this one. My body either doesn’t make the right kinds, or makes them in the wrong ratios. So my eye film is too dry. Diet change is the only option. Surgery was mentioned (they plug your tear ducts) but the plugs can some out, and tears have a different composition to eye film so it’s not a good fix. I do have some ampoule things of fake tear(?) solution I can use directly into my eyes if they get too dry.
emilygoddess – There might be differences between sperm and egg donors as far as what’s in demand. The sperm banks I looked into were actively recruiting Asian and Indian donors. Height and education are biggies too. I think sperm donors have less height diversity (5’7″ is usually the minimum) and they require at least college enrollment, if not a degree.
I felt a little guilty and shallow when perusing the lists, because you’re picking based on a bunch of traits and verbal descriptions. It’s like the world’s weirdest blind date.
They couldn’t give it away even if it came with free scented candles and Prada bonbons for life. Not even if there were trash cans on every corner. Not even if Tom Hiddleston were standing next to them with white gloves on to lift the lid for you.
@emilygoddess
Blah. That’s fairly skeevy.
They couldn’t give it away even if it came with free scented candles and Prada bonbons for life. Not even if there were trash cans on every corner. Not even if Tom Hiddleston were standing next to them with white gloves on to lift the lid for you.
::gasp::
::wheez::
😆
sereph, no, it’s in that first block quote, they’re all alphas because once upon a time, allegedly, the sperm banks only took, er, deposits from med students and “college men.” Who are all alphas, apparently.
As far as I can tell that’s not remotely true; the first sperm banks were created for men facing fertility-damaging surgery so they could father children afterward, and it actually took a while before doctors thought to screen for genetic disorders and STIs, let alone alphaness. The guy’s probably thinking of the so-called “Nobel Prize sperm bank” started by eugenist Robert Graham in the 1980s, which advertised that it only dealt in sperm from high-IQ scientists, businessmen and athletes. Spoilers: it was basically a scam and quietly closed after Graham’s death. There’s a pretty good book, The Genius Factory, on its weird history and what happened to the children it produced.
“Hypergamy” in MRA-speak has come to mean “dating any guy better than an MRA.” Which is pretty much every guy, so the definition is broad.
That makes dating a dead guy hypergamy. 😛
Scratch that: it makes dating a dead Norwegian Blue hypergamy.
I was laughing at the idea that sperm bank technology was being suppressed for the good of humanity until the Rockefellers and/or the sexual revolution let the cat out of the bag,* but it turns out artificial insemination has been around for a surprisingly long time. The first insemination of a human woman was performed in the 18th century! (Without her or her husband’s permission, of course. Oh, medical history, you are horrible.)
However, it only really became practical with the invention of a) refrigeration and b) a reliable method of freezing and reviving sperm, which are much more recent developments.
*Have you noticed we didn’t land on the moon until the sexual revolution? FEMINIST PLOT FOR MOON SEX.
Yes and the whole “cold war” thing was a massive metaphor for female frigidity. 😉
But, wait. If an infertile man is by default a beta male, and he’s married to a woman, and they choose to go to a sperm bank so they can have a baby, isn’t that the antithesis of this ridiculous theory? I mean, she married the beta male. She’s staying married to the beta male, not trading up when discovering he’s a beta. She didn’t trap him into the marriage when already pregnant. Nor is she spermjacking some nonconsenting alpha or cheating on the beta male husband and trying to convince him the kid is his.
(Yes, I know, the thought that a man anywhere might actually want to be a parent is completely foreign to these guys. It might as well be in Martian, the idea is so alien. And frankly, I’m happier to know most of these hardcore MRAs would never breed.)
@Marie- I think it’s more of a classist thing than an overtly racist thing. Couples/women seeking egg donors usually want as close a physical match to the recipient as possible. Egg donor recipients tend to skew white and higher income. Cycling is staggeringly expensive (insurance doesn’t cover it in most states) and most people come to egg donation after a lengthy, disappointing road of expensive IVF cycles (also not covered by insurance) There may be cultural factors at play, too, regarding willingness to seek treatment for infertility, the stigma of using donated eggs, and willingness to match with an anonymous donor (versus recruiting a friend or family member).
But I do agree, it’s always better to have a diverse pool. Not all recipients want a carbon copy of themselves.
And frankly, I’m happier to know most of these hardcore MRAs would never breed.
This has puzzled me for awhile. Why haven’t MRAs been weeded out of the human population, since their whole goal is to avoid having kids and getting trapped into custody payments. It seems like a pretty maladaptive trait.
It’s a cult, primed to catch men predisposed to be misogynistic fuckwits.
/semi sarcastic
Some MRAs are of the religious “go forth and multiply (with a suitably submissive wife)” variety. They probably reproduce enough to make up for all the rest.
AUUUUUUUUUGH
This could be the *perfect* PSA advertisement against unprotected sex, so there could be an up-side. 🙂
It seems like these guys think that no one actually wants kids. Divorcees want to have “paper abortions” and legally abandon their kids (unless they want automatic full custody so they don’t have to pay child support). Husbands (who are obviously always betas) obviously have nothing to do with the decision process. Women only have kids to trap men into providing for them.
It makes me feel bad about what these people’s childhoods must have been like.
I’m confused about the MRA attitudes toward raising children too. If men hunted mammoth and women didn’t, the theory that men just want to spread their seed and move on without helping raise the kids doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t fathers need to teach their sons to hunt and make the spears and stuff?
Mama (the beagle) always sniff my moms tea without trying to drink it. Then one day, my mom had put cream in it instead of milk (ran out) and the dog tried to drink it. So, you never know what it is that those humans have if you don’t check it out every single time; wouldn’t want to miss out on the good stuff.
Inorite?
Their ignorant, incoherent babbling about evo psych really bugs me. IANAS but I’ve read a lot of Frans de Waal, and I know that human’s closest relatives are chimpanzees and bonobos. Well, among chimps, the “alpha” (higher status) males do everything they can to keep all the females to themselves. But the females actually sneak off and mate with the betas whenever they can.
The alphas try to prevent this by beating up on the illicit lovers, if they catch them, but IIRC genetic studies have shown that the betas are fathering their share of babies.
So even among chimps, the laydiez are doin’ what they want, defying abusive knuckleheads. And IT’S THE ALPHAS WHO ARE BEING “CHEATED” ON. THE ALPHAS YOU MORONS!
And BTW, being “alpha” doesn’t necessarily mean the individual is somehow the “best” (smartest, strongest,) chimp. He’s just the one with the highest status. Something which is achieved in various ways, including (as with humans) birth, alliances, politics.
(As for bonobos–well, we all know what those pervs are up to!) 🙂
Ok I’m thoroughly confused. If hypergamy is marrying up ie marrying alpha males then artificial insemination of a single woman is explained how again? Did they come up with a new word for single women going to sperm banks? One thing’s for sure. MRA’s and their buddies are never consistent.
If we’re going to compare ourselves to members from the animal kingdom, I vote the deep sea angler fish. No, wait, Ruffs! Ruffs with faeder males, where open homosexual coupling between the faeders (often initiating the mounting) and the dominant males (often receiving the mounting) attracts females for the dominant males.
I want to see what the MRAs make of the fact that both territorial males and females appear to prefer coupling with the faeder males. Are faeders alpha or beta? What’s going on here? They lack territories and territorial males will beat other males of all kinds up.
WHICH ONE, GUYS…