BETA of the Month: my vote

Roissy has revived his popular BETA of the Month post, and all three nominees are a doozy.  We are presented with three options:

1. Catholic guy whose wife wants a divorce
2. Elaborate proposal guy
3. Widower whose adulterous wife was murdered while getting her groove back in Turkey.

All three men are sad sacks.  Whereas BETA #1 appears to be a normal low delta who simply can't except that debasing himself and accommodating his wife isn't going to regain her affection, he doesn't appear likely to be fine with her cheating, much less gallivanting off to foreign climes in search of vibrant alphas.  BETA #2 is cringe-making, to be sure, but while it is gamma to the core, it can't really be compared to the other two situations even if it wouldn't be terribly surprising to eventually learn that his marriage has gone the way of our first contestant's.

So, my vote is for BETA #3.  The fact that the intrepid widower hasn't come out and stated that his idiot wife got exactly what her behavior deserved only tends to underline his lowly rank on the socio-sexual totem pole and makes the deceased's behavior comprehensible, though not even remotely acceptable.

The "morality" of serial monogamy

This is where the moral flexibility championed by the relativists and moderates was guaranteed to eventually result.  I don't say "end", because it isn't the end, it is merely a waypoint on the descent to complete pagan immorality.

In the past marriage was for life and this left serial monogamists in a moral bind.  However, now the rules have changed.  Under the new definition of marriage so long as she waits until it is “official” she is fully within the letter and spirit of marriage to jump to another man.  Those who are moral sticklers would of course insist that she marry this new man before having sex with him, and when she is ready for the next man after that divorce husband number two and then marry husband number three, etc.

This is why divorce laws must be eliminated in the interest of preserving Western civilization.  While it remains state-sanctioned, marriage is reduced to nothing more than an elevated, legally-recognized boyfriend status.  If women are worried about not being able to exit a marriage, then they should not get married in the first place.  Neither abuse nor unhappiness are justifications for divorce.

This also demonstrates why the state should not be involved in marriage at all.  Let it sanction legal civil unions for any two or more people of either sex who wish to establish one and leave marriage up to the church.  The legal sanction of the state has not strengthened marriage, it has drastically weakened it.

Alpha Mail: Alpha is relative

In which the metaphorical apple strikes PA on the head, inspiring thoughts of gravity:

Let me quickly tell you how much I appreciate your thoughts at Alpha Game, and how they have profoundly influenced me since I began reading your work and realized, well, that you're spot-on correct, before I get on to personal nonsense. Over a couple of pints today I was meditating on the issue of ALPHAs and concluded (entirely anecdotally; no science involved whatsoever) that ALPHA-ism is both relative and circumstantial.

On "relative", here's what I mean: Within a limited circle of available males, the most ALPHA among them will be the "effective" ALPHA, regardless of his actual socio-sexual standing in the world at large.

An illustration: After high school (during which I was manifestly the most pedestal-worshiping gamma of gammas), I became (largely by accident) the de facto leader of a Christian/churchian youth group. Surrounded by males who were invariably gamma, delta or omega (at best), and in a proscribed circle in which everyone was pairing up and nobody was looking outside the group for partners (because partnership with unbelievers was frowned on and not many other Christian groups were in the immediate area), I was absolutely treated as ALPHA, without having to change my behaviour patterns at all. The eligible girls in the group were in competition with each other to earn my favour and I was surrounded at all times with women. It couldn't have been more different from my high school experience. I hadn't changed, but my competition had.

On "circumstantial", here's what I mean: When a natural beta or gamma is not particularly attracted to a woman and is just using her, he behaves like an ALPHA and is treated like an ALPHA.

An illustration: (I was going to get into my failed marriage here and realized, while entirely on point, talking about my experience would: (a) make me look like a heartless ass, which I was; and (b) demean somebody who was probably far less at fault than I.) Suffice to say that when a man is just looking for sex (or just adulation and an ego boost) and has no real, personal interest in the specific woman he's after apart from his own immediate gratification, he becomes an "effective" ALPHA even if it is not his natural mode. Women get that you can take or leave them at any moment, and respond to that with a willingness to please. Sad but true.

This is all correct.  Roissy has made it clear from the start in observational terms, and it is logically inevitable as well given that socio-sexual status is hierarchical.  This is why all the idea of any chest-pounding about "I am X" is pointless, because where we stand in any given hierarchy completely depends upon the particular hierarchy.

That being said, what defines us is how we rank in our normal daily work, school, and family hierarchies.

Alpha Mail: what's a woman to do?

AM asks how, as a thirty-something non-carousel rider, she is expected to navigate an increasingly difficult marriage marketplace:

I am a 32 year old woman of Indian descent that was raised in a extremely Christian and god-fearing household and am still single.

I need some advice on finding a husband. I really don't know what to do and thought you might have some suggestions. I was reading 3rd Millenium Men and they were listing 7 reasons Not to Seriously Date Girls over 30 (and I am 32). I am not disputing that the guy has given valid reasons for this. I am human. I can't help the fact that I am probably hitting the wall (though I and my family are relatively youthful looking, I don't or never got into the party lifestyle, rarely drink alcohol, eat relatively healthy and exercise so it might take longer), my fertility is declining and maybe a bit emotional but does that mean I have to prepare for a life of spinsterhood? This search isn't new, I have been at this for several years and it has become very discouraging, my mother started helping when I turned 25 as arranged marriages are very popular in our culture (and I am open to them). I promise, I was never one of those women that wanted to put off marriage and family for a career. I did go to college, but now have a low paying dead end office job. I really did want to get married and have children by now. I would have married in college if I found any guy that I liked that much.

The positives about me (I think) is that I have no ex boyfriends to speak of and have never had sex, as I think it is something important to save for marriage. I have never  I am relatively attractive and am not fat or have been overweight. I have waist length hair, no grays. While you might call this "Churchanity", I attend church every Sunday (and no there aren't any single guys remotely in my age range) and Bible Study Fellowship every Monday.

The negatives about me is that I am extremely shy and socially awkward. I have been diagnosed with ADHD, which I inherited, which I don't want to take drugs for but would change my diet. I rarely went out in college or in my twenties, not even to safe, Christian centered events. While people like me, I don't have any close friends. I can cook (or at least can easily learn to do so, I do cook and bake for my self and family) I am not the best housekeeper.

My mother says I should pray to god about this and look presentable, and that is the extent of it. Do you have anything that I might not have thought of, or should I got to the nearest animal shelter and adopt a dog and prepare for spinsterhood?

It's really up to AM.  If she is going to continue to be ruled by her shyness and social awkwardness, she probably is going to end up alone.  The rules have changed and the low deltas and gammas of the world are no longer expecting or even trying to find wives, not with the ready availability of Female Alternatives such as porn and games combined with a decade or more of invisible sexual maturity.

If she wants it, she has to be prepared to seek it out and find it.  There are plenty of delta/gamma Indian men in the programming world; it can't be that hard to figure out where they are and what is of interest to them.  But then, the decision has to be made to go and let it be known that she is available and interested in pursuing marriage and children.

Feminized churchianity has all but driven off all the men under 40, so it's not a very good place to meet a Christian man these days.  Does anyone else have any suggestions?  Unfortunately, AM serves as an example of how the uncontrolled behavior of some women makes life that much more difficult even for those who behave in a more traditional manner.

In the meantime, she shouldn't get too down over the androsphere rhetoric.  Most men over the age of 35 are perfectly open to marrying a woman in her thirties, particularly early thirties, regardless of the arguments presented against it.  The only relevant point is that 32 is a little late to be extraordinarily picky about the men on offer; she shouldn't make the mistake of the forty-something laundry list cat collector and turn up her nose at a fundamentally decent man who might be lacking in a few areas.

Nietzsche on women

The old nihilist may have been moralblind, but it is informative to see how his description of the effect of women unlearning to fear men echoes the effects of Man unlearning to fear God:

The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so much respect by men as at present--this belongs to the tendency and fundamental taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to old age--what wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of this respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute of respect is at last felt to be well-nigh galling; rivalry for rights, indeed actual strife itself, would be preferred: in a word, woman is losing modesty. And let us immediately add that she is also losing taste. She is unlearning to FEAR man: but the woman who "unlearns to fear" sacrifices her most womanly instincts.

That woman should venture forward when the fear-inspiring quality in man--or more definitely, the MAN in man--is no longer either desired or fully developed, is reasonable enough and also intelligible enough; what is more difficult to understand is that precisely thereby-- woman deteriorates. This is what is happening nowadays: let us not deceive ourselves about it! Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal independence of a clerk: "woman as clerkess" is inscribed on the portal of the modern society which is in course of formation. While she thus appropriates new rights, aspires to be "master," and inscribes "progress" of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite realises itself with terrible obviousness: WOMAN RETROGRADES.

Since the French Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has DECLINED in proportion as she has increased her rights and claims; and the "emancipation of woman," insofar as it is desired and demanded by women themselves (and not only by masculine shallow-pates), thus proves to be a remarkable symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of the most womanly instincts. There is STUPIDITY in this movement, an almost masculine stupidity, of which a well-reared woman--who is always a sensible woman--might be heartily ashamed.

In short, female "progress" is nothing less than the devolution of civilization, a prediction which we are seeing play out in real time.

More from the WRE department

Their female teachers are crippling the education of boys:

The way boys are treated in K-12 also impacts how they do with regard to college. According to a recent study of male college enrollment, it's not academic performance, but discipline that holds boys back. "Controlling for these non-cognitive behavioral factors can explain virtually the entire female advantage in college attendance for the high school graduating class of 1992, after adjusting for family background, test scores and high school achievement." Boys are disciplined more because teachers -- overwhelmingly female -- find stereotypically male behavior objectionable. Girls are quieter, more orderly, and have better handwriting. The boys get disciplined more, suspended more and are turned off of education earlier.

Female teachers also give boys lower grades, according to research in Britain. Female teachers grade boys more harshly than girls, though, interestingly, male teachers are seen by girls as treating everyone the same regardless of gender. More and more, it's looking like schools are a hostile environment for boys.

One solution, as William Gormley, a professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, has suggested here in the past, is to hire more male teachers. As Gormley notes, Stanford University professor Thomas Dee found that "boys perform better when they have a male teacher, and girls perform better when they have a female teacher." Yet our K-12 teachers are overwhelmingly female -- only 2% of pre-K and kindergarten teachers are male and only 18% of elementary and middle-school teachers are.

Title IX for boys isn't the answer.  Getting women out of the business of educating boys is.  We already know from the pathologies of single-mother families that women can't be reasonably expected to successfully raise men.  The evidence now indicates that it is nearly as unreasonable to expect women to be able to successfully teach boys.

The problem isn't just the maleducation, but that the lack of exposure to male role models creates increasingly feminized men even when it doesn't leave them largely feral.

Science destroys itself

And scientists wonder why the public has so little confidence in them and their magic process:

Whether you adore Lena Dunham or think she's overrated, one thing seems to be in consensus: She's not drop dead gorgeous. She made a hit TV show about being average ("real"), she's constantly scrutinized for wearing not enough or nothing at all, and always has to address her looks on top of her talents.

But is Dunham really all that average, or even bad looking? Not according to science.

Beauty, it so happens, is not just a matter of personal taste but rather a matter of measurements, geometry and calculations -- all the stuff you loved in 8th grade math. That science says that Dunham is just like the rest of those Hollywood exquisites, if not even more attractive (gasp). Yes, the frequently body-shamed "Girls" maverick is scientifically better looking than "conventional" beauties Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Jessica Chastain, and even Jessica Biel. 

Look, it's really not that hard.  If your hypothesis results in the conclusion that Lena Dunham is more objectively beautiful than Jessica Biel, that is not evidence that society's standards of beauty are somehow incorrect or require modification, it is evidence that YOUR HYPOTHESIS IS INCORRECT!