The woman and the alpha – in this view – gets the best of both worlds; the alpha gets to spread his genes while the woman gets not just superior genetic stock for her offspring but also physical and material support as well.
Meanwhile the poor cuckolded beta is stuck having his genetic line cut off while expending resources raising another man’s child.
Every once in a while, I like to go browse through some various blogs, forums and subreddits specializing in men’s dating advice to see what theories are being espoused.
It’s not terribly surprising (to me) to see that the idea of “being alpha” is continuing to be tossed around as the end-all/be-all of dating; it’s a part of the DNA of men’s dating advice – the complaints of Nice Guys lamenting the popularity of assholes, nerds complaining about jocks getting all the girls and of course, the obsession in PUA circles with status games and “shit tests” – that is, acting in such a manner as to “test” a man’s status by trying to make him supplicate or otherwise disqualify a man from being a potential sexual partner.
Unfortunately once again: this is an an intellectual fallacy, an attempt to use nature and evolution as a way to justify the way one things to be.
The idea breaks down as soon as you take the most cursory look at actual evolution.
Evolutionary psychology is frequently used to justify certain behaviors in men and women, insisting that certain behaviors are not only natural but inevitable and thus are the way that things are supposed to be.
According to this theory, it is therefore the natural order of things for men to spread their seed far and wide in hopes of impregnating as many women as possible.
Yes, chimpanzees – our genetic near-relatives – have an alpha caste who enforce sexual restrictions through violence…but we’re a social hierarchy – are matriarchal, with relative status determined by age rather than muscle and violence.
Sex amongst bonobos is a free-for-all; males and females have equal access to one another and participate in sex regularly with both troop members and apes from other social groups.
The betas subsist on the scraps that are left over once the alpha has moved on and are excluded from sex with any of the females on threat of death.
The alpha alone gets to pass along his genes; many apes – chimps and gorillas especially – will outright mating patterns (humans, after all, are just hairless apes), the idea is that women are naturally attracted to alpha males – dominant, powerful, high-status men – while disdaining the weaker, less dominant betas.
