The Married Man Sex Life Primer 2011 (6 page)

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Authors: Athol Kay

BOOK: The Married Man Sex Life Primer 2011
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The next chapter delves into the disconnection between what women are biologically designed to respond to in a man, and what they need in a modern husband.
 

 

 
Chapter 2
Alpha and Beta Balance

 

 

(2.1) The Time Before Writing

 

Back in the Time Before Writing, it was easy to understand what type of men a woman would be drawn sexually to. Women were attracted to bigger, stronger, faster and more powerful men. Women were especially attracted to men willing to fight and defend them from outsiders or natural predators. A man with a long pointed stick that was good at killing other men (or lions) is a vastly superior mate for a woman than a man who specialized in getting maimed in combat. The warrior caste has always had its appeal to women.

 

The traits that make a man a good warrior overlap strongly with traits that make him a good hunter. Good hunters return to the women with precious fat and protein-based food. Plus in times of acute shortages, a good warrior could simply dispossess a weaker man of his property and food. So a good warrior/hunter was also a good provider to a woman.

 

In a world devoid of effective medical treatment, the health of male partners is also a prime interest to women. There’s no point getting pregnant by a sickly man and risking a sickly child that may die young, so the hunters and warriors with good physical conditioning would appear attractive to women.

 

In the rough and tumble world of The Time Before Writing the difference between the haves and the have-not’s were not simply degrees of wealth, but the difference between survival in minimal comfort and a life of extreme poverty and famine. So a more socially prominent male partner was much better than a less prominent one. Women’s attraction to men of high social status is called hypergamy and has been well documented by sociologists since around 1940. In short, given the choice between marriage to the lord of the manor or his butler, the lord of the manor gets the clear advantage.

 

Also, for the overwhelming majority of human history, men clearly dominated women socially. That domination came through the physical strength of men being clearly greater than that of women and while such use of force now is agreed on as being quite wrong, it did result in social domination back in The Time Before Writing. It’s the social domination that women have a positive sexual response to in particular. A male that is socially dominant over men as well as women is especially attractive to women. Men on the other hand, don’t respond to socially dominant women with feelings of attraction.

 

As an overly dramatic example of the rough world of The Time Before Writing, if two men square off against each other in a fight over a woman and one kills the other outright, there is clearly no point in a woman offering physical resistance to the winner. He did, after all, just kill someone significantly stronger than her, so her physical resistance would accomplish nothing and very likely place her own life in danger. Plus if her current male protector and provider were just killed, she needs a new one as quickly as possible and an objectively “better” male is immediately available and interested in her. On one level it’s a coldly rational move on her part to submit to the victor and become sexually responsive to him. On another level, her own body likely doesn’t even offer her a choice in the matter and produces a hormonal cocktail to offer minimal resistance and even bond to the victor.

 

Importantly, in both animals and humans, most male versus male conflicts do
not
reach the point of death for one of the fighters. What happens in the overwhelming majority of fights between males is that it continues until one of the males submits to the other. Whether that is by fleeing the fight, “tapping out” like an MMA fighter or just cowering, there is a display of social submission that ends the fight. For the most part men fighting each other these days are generally not very socially acceptable, but it is understood as something that does occasionally happen. However continued violence by the dominant male after the weaker one has offered submission is regarded as extremely unacceptable. It’s one thing to knock a guy out, but it’s quite another thing to beat an unconscious person further.

 

In The Time Before Writing, when a man approached a woman for a sexual relationship, he would come with enough physical and social dominance to ward off other men who wanted her. Her natural response is also to submit to a male approaching her with cool confidence; it’s both for her safety and because her own body recognizes him as a dominant and therefore attractive sexual partner. She doesn’t have to like him as a person to find her own body becoming aroused by a dominant man as it’s an inbuilt response.

 

Incidentally, this is why when you lose a fight in the playground as a kid, all the girls start giving you a wide berth and pay more attention to the guy that whipped your ass. They really can’t help it. So in quick summary, the things that women are hard-wired to find sexually attractive in men are physical health, physical power, social power and interpersonal dominance.
(2.2) The Information Age

 

Of course in modern society, much of what makes a good male warrior makes for a terrible citizen, employee and husband. While physical health remains a good thing, hair trigger violence and coercion by intimidation quickly gets a man in trouble. Jails are full of men that would have been good choices for husbands in an ancient tribal culture. (In fact, the sexual attraction of women for jailed men is well known and famously violent offenders can get a good deal of female fan mail.) But a husband jailed for a third drunken fistfight is an appalling thing for a modern wife to have to deal with.

 

Interpersonal dominance by a man over a woman is now deeply frowned on, particularly in the workplace. Back in The Time Before Writing a man faced with a woman seeking dominance over him may simply have threatened or committed violence until she displayed submission. A male retail clerk simply cannot do the same to his female manager and get away with it. The consequences of such a thing would be extremely costly to him, so male employees typically perform the work requested of them by their bosses, male and female alike, without even considering violence.

 

Likewise, the skills that make someone a good warrior or hunter don’t apply terribly well to most white collar occupations. It matches up pretty well to something like being a firefighter, but much less so to being a computer programmer, accountant, teacher, supermarket manager or pizza delivery guy. Warriors really suck at working in cubicles.

 

The entire social hierarchy has vastly changed and in many ways has rendered the old traits that attract women obsolete. Warriors go to jail. Warriors can’t hold a job and be a good provider. Men that routinely seek physical aggression over women to gain compliance fall afoul of Human Resources and domestic violence laws. Men who fight other men have to find a way to do it without violence, otherwise even if they win, they lose.

 

What modern women
say
they want in a male partner is someone that can be a productive member of modern society and will support them in their own interests as well. So according to what women
say
, an ideal male partner would be someone that can hold down a job, pay attention to her, provide child care, help out around the house and provide emotional support and so on. These are all very different skill sets than our warrior has.

 

The point is that all these skills that women say they want really are valuable and do create comfort for the woman, but they don’t generally create sexual attraction to the man that has them.
(2.3) Alpha and Beta Male Traits

 

Now we come to the essential disconnect between what a woman is hard-wired to be sexually attracted to and what she needs to create comfort in a modern relationship. I call these two differing skill sets Alpha Traits and Beta Traits.

 

The Alpha Traits are those that worked in The Time Before Writing. The old physical and social dominance abilities based on the warrior and hunter skill sets. The Alpha Male Traits are devoted to physicality, assertiveness, leadership, social dominance, healthy genes, raw sexual energy, power and at times even violence. The positive version is that of an inspiring protector and the not so positive version is simply a thug. These are the male traits that women are biologically hard-wired to respond to that get panties wet and trigger sexual attraction. The thugs still get panties wet just as the high school quarterback does, but they are scary to be in a relationship with.

 

The Alpha Traits do seem to very much align with the dopamine response in women. Alpha Males are exciting, fun, intense and engaging. Not only do they spark a woman’s sexual interest, they spark her romantic interest as well.

 

The Beta Male Traits are those needed for a modern relationship. These are often about the ability to be socially submissive and in a loose sense a “Nice Guy”. The Beta Male Traits are devoted to things that are good for raising children in the modern age like having a work ethic, building the nest, kindness, parenting skills, listening, holding a job, controlling anger and sexual energy, being artistic, verbal skill and creativity. The positive version is the man that provides for and supports his family; the negative version is the man that gives away all relationship power to the woman and turns himself into her “pussy whipped” servant.

 

The Beta Male builds relationship comfort and this seems to very much align with the pair bonding hormones oxytocin in women and vasopressin in men. It’s all about comfort building and interpersonal warmth. It is a critical point to understand that Beta activities will make a woman like you around, but not fall in love with you.
(2.4) The Betaization of Husbands

 

The failure to understand the need to have both of the skill sets of Alpha and Beta Traits lies at the root of a wife’s declining romantic and sexual interest in her husband. For example, when a young woman meets a young man, he likely has much of his “warrior” or Alpha mindset still in place and therefore creates a good deal of attraction in her. He isn’t a thug, just somewhat mindlessly demanding and assertive with her. The first time he asked her out he didn’t really ask her, he just told her to meet him at a local restaurant. She told him he was a pig for talking to her like that, but she went anyway. Plus he had good physical health, surfed competitively and she loved watching him. So when he asks her to marry him, she excitedly agrees because he has a wonderful Alpha profile and she is in love with him. Sex is frequent and hot.

 

But after five to ten years of marriage the situation might be quite different. There’s a job that he now really needs to keep, so rather than just blow it all off and go surfing like he used to, he’s grinding it out at the office. He’s older and thirty pounds fatter. Then there are the kids who he loves of course, but they take up a lot of time and in general he defers to what his wife wants to happen with them. His wife certainly doesn’t have time to just sit and idolize him from the beach either; she has a job of her own and the house to keep up. She’s started complaining about him not doing everything correctly and he does try to please her, but it doesn’t really seem to make any difference. There’s always more complaining. The sex has dwindled to a trickle, mostly because his wife says she is always tired.

 

As you can see in that little snapshot, the husband started with a high Alpha profile, but as he started “doing everything that he should,” he stopped doing the Alpha things entirely and substituted them with nothing but Beta activity. This switch from Alpha to Beta is called Betaization. As a result of being Betaized, his wife started losing attraction to him and the sex declined between them. She did however feel quite comfortable in the relationship, hence her assuming the role of being the dominant partner in the relationship and being willing to chew him out over household chores. Those that are socially equal typically don’t yell at each other – that is usually something that only the socially dominant does to the socially submissive.

 

This unwitting transition from a mostly Alpha profile to a mostly Beta one is very common for husbands. The trap for men is that all mainstream media advice on relationships strongly encourages husbands to make this transition and often his wife and family request the same as well. Furthermore most things that are Beta are actually useful and good: helping out at home is good, being an involved father is good, holding a job is good. But frequently the big picture gets lost in everything that needs to get done and the man loses what attracts his wife along the way. The wife is of course usually completely unaware of her role in his decline and is typically bewildered by her lack of interest in her husband. She never planned to neuter him, fall out of love and detest his sexual advances. Most couples just assume that romantic feelings are short term and that failing sex lives a few years into marriage are normal.
(2.5) Finding the Alpha Beta Balance
 
The man needs to develop both Alpha and Beta traits in a long term relationship and show them appropriately. Without the Alpha the woman loses attraction and wants out of the relationship, but without the Beta the woman isn’t comfortable enough to stay in the relationship.

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