[ace cis-females] Thoughts on "Alpha male" type guys?

[ryn2]

2 minutes ago, mreid said:

[...]my point is what do you really want, not what you do to deal rationally with your circumstances.

You’re mixing this in your own assessment.

 

It sounds like what she really wants is a life with another “girly girl” where neither has to do things she finds unappealing.

 

What she does rationally to deal with her circumstances is work outside the home, assert herself when needed, etc.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, mreid said:

So only one of two things can be happening here: either you are not attracted to feminine women, or you are really masculine-ish personality-wise. Otherwise what you describe is impossible.

 

I'm sure you're just trying to push this as far as it will go to piss everyone off.

 

It's perfectly possible for two feminine women to want to be in a girly relationship together @gaogao has proved this). Just as it's perfectly possible for two very feminine homosexual men to be in a relationship together. It's also possible for a feminine woman and a feminine man to want to be in a relationship together.

 

 Every single person who has responded to you has proved that people do not slot perfectly into your little theory. It's time you just accepted that fact and moved on. Stop trying to tell people they are wrong about their own feelings and their own experiences, it's honestly starting to make me sick to my stomach and I'm not the only one who feels this way as a result of your inconsideration towards and dismissal of the people respond to your threads.

 

People are giving you genuine heartfelt responses yet anything they say that doesn't match your own narrative you twist around and claim that unless it's twisted to suit your narrative then it's impossible. 

 

People exist in the world who are not you, mreid. You aren't the god of human experience who gets to dictate the way humans feel, think, and behave. 

 

The faster you learn to accept the fact that people exist in this world who are not mere extensions of your own personal beliefs, the happier everyone will be.

[Alejandrogynous]

So the baseline of this theory is, if two 100% feminine people like each other, they're going to just stare at each other and not say anything until the end of time because if one does, that means they're only 99% feminine and are thus the man in the relationship. Cool.

[gaogao]

Ok omg @FictoVore. I agree with you and I see how hilariously pointless these arguments are.

 

Just so you know though @mreid my ideal housewife fantasy life would be for me and my wife to inherit a whole ton of money or win the lottery so neither of us have to work so that we can be housewives together.

 

We would give cookies to our neighbors and have six cats or guinea pigs and a herb garden and never get into any arguments with anyone. if we do maybe they will get a passive aggressive cake as a present, but we'll  "mistakenly" mix up the salt and sugar. Our house would be pink with lace curtains and flowers would be everywhere.

 

If we have to defend ourselves we will do so hand in hand. One of us might stab our attacker with a high heeled shoe, but it just depends on who gets there quicker and whose shoes are sharper/easier to slip off. We won't need men to take care of us, because we will have each other and their blood will be our lipstick if they push us too far. 

 

this is my ideal lesbian housewife fantasy in detail. Gaogao out 💄💋👄👰🏻👰🏻

[Calligraphette_Coe]

Alpha males are a force of nature, and are such because Male+Female= progeny=passing on the genes. The ones with the most advantage almost always fare better in the game of gene pool bingo. Sure, it's not always true, but one of Murphy's Laws says:

 

Quote

The race doesn't always go to the swiftest nor the battle to the strongest. But that's the way the smart money bets."

Then there's this... from a book entitled 'The Allure of Toxic Leaders'

 

Quote

Toxic leaders cast their spells broadly. Most of us claim we abhor them. Yet we frequently follow-- or at least tolerate-- them, be they our employers, our CEOs, our senators, our clergy or our teachers. When toxic leaders don't appear on their own, we often seek them out.  On occasion we even create them by pushing good leaders over the toxic line.

...because what is an alpha male if not a leader? Toxic or otherwise?

 

Hey, I'm just the messenger. I've watched this play out over and over and over and over.....

[Lucinda]

Where have you heard this before?

 

Lucinda

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, gaogao said:

Ok omg @FictoVore. I agree with you and I see how hilariously pointless these arguments are.

 

Just so you know though @mreid my ideal housewife fantasy life would be for me and my wife to inherit a whole ton of money or win the lottery so neither of us have to work so that we can be housewives together.

 

We would give cookies to our neighbors and have six cats or guinea pigs and a herb garden and never get into any arguments with anyone. if we do maybe they will get a passive aggressive cake as a present, but we'll  "mistakenly" mix up the salt and sugar. Our house would be pink with lace curtains and flowers would be everywhere.

 

If we have to defend ourselves we will do so hand in hand. One of us might stab our attacker with a high heeled shoe, but it just depends on who gets there quicker and whose shoes are sharper/easier to slip off. We won't need men to take care of us, because we will have each other and their blood will be our lipstick if they push us too far. 

 

this is my ideal lesbian housewife fantasy in detail. Gaogao out 💄💋👄👰🏻👰🏻

 Jokes aside, I do actually find the idea of two very feminine women living together and being sexually intimate etc very personally attractive. Before I learned about asexuality I did used to think I must be gay as I've always been attracted to very curvy, pretty, women - women who look very curvaceous while still being thin like myself. Not someone ditzy, but intelligent and kind etc. If I was to have a relationship with a lady like this we'd both dress each other up, do our makeup, make each other look very sexy - just because that's fun and would be an enjoyable activity to do together (though I have no interest in doing it on my own). I am already naturally very curvy and do look very feminine from the outside (inside I'm neither masculine or feminine), so I think it could be a really fun and pleasant way to live.

 

Also it's weird that the automatic assumption (for some people) is that the more masculine partner will go out to work. I've known plenty of cases where the father (who is a plumber or whatever) stays home to care for the kids and the wife who works as a hairdresser/makeup artist/fashion designer is the one who works because she earns more money or is very passionate about her work and doesn't want to give it up (even though it's a typically feminine job). Meh.

[Philip027]

Quote

it would derail this thread and annoy a lot of people.

Think it's a wee bit late for both of those things

[Calligraphette_Coe]

19 minutes ago, mreid said:

 

So your fantasy is a feminist utopia where money falls magically from the sky and everyone hates men. Where have I heard this before...?

 

Also, what would happen to your utopia if a group of very patriarchal men with guns suddenly invaded it and wanted to force women into slavery because they believed that's their place? Your high heels wouldn't be of much use then.

 

@Calligraphette_Coe So, so true. And I will check out that book.

Another one you might want to check out is 'The Lucifer Principle'-- it also gets into social orders and natural selection among humans. And be forewarned, it's a _scary_ book.

 

Re the first scenario, I'm always reminded of a sci-fi short story by Joanna Russ in the  70s entitled 'When It Changed'. It dovetails nicely with this discussion-- here's a blurb:

 

http://academic.depauw.edu/aevans_web/HONR101-02/WebPages/Fall2009/Janelle/pages Thixton/new changed.html

 

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, Calligraphette_Coe said:

but one of Murphy's Laws says:

 

As far as I know there's only one Murphy's Law, and it states that if something can go wrong it will. Often at a very inopportune time. Did you mean that the worst alpha male is guaranteed to win the race? Because I can't see how Murphy's Law applies to this convo otherwise

[daveb]

Just to satisfy my own curiosity I looked up the quote mentioned above and found some interesting info. (although irrelevant to the main topic of this thread).

 

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/04/race-swift/

[Calligraphette_Coe]

12 minutes ago, daveb said:

Just to satisfy my own curiosity I looked up the quote mentioned above and found some interesting info. (although irrelevant to the main topic of this thread).

 

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/04/race-swift/

Ecclesiastes 9:11, actually.

 

I guess I'll never understand Googlephobes. All you have to do is search on Al Gore's invention, and _Viola!... it shall be revealed unto you. Techies have a million variationis of Saint Murphy's wisdom out there on this thing called the Internet.

[Sally]

5 hours ago, mreid said:

@Lucinda It's a long list, and it would derail this thread and annoy a lot of people.

What difference would  that make?  The thread's already long, has been derailed many times, and you've annoyed everyone on the thread.  

 

 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

The only thing I think about 'the alpha male' is....avoid them at all costs. I know this doesn't fit the classical view in Primatology , but females who become disillusioned with an alpha male leader eject him smartly. I haven't read all the posts here though, so it'll have been said here previously.

[gaogao]

8 hours ago, mreid said:

 

So your fantasy is a feminist utopia where money falls magically from the sky and everyone hates men. Where have I heard this before...?

 

Also, what would happen to your utopia if a group of very patriarchal men with guns suddenly invaded it and wanted to force women into slavery because they believed that's their place? Your high heels wouldn't be of much use then.

 In my fantasy I never said that all women should live the way I want to live or that everyone should hate men. Where did you get that from?

 

I'm just talking about a fantasy for me and my hypothetical wife only.. not some kind of utopia for all women. It wouldn't work for everyone else - there aren't enough lotteries or rich dead relatives to go around.

 

In my fantasy just as in real life, me and my hypothetical wife are two women out of the billions who exist. Is it that hard for men to leave us alone? is that the most unreasonable part of this entire fantasy?

 

If men with guns tried to make me and my wife slaves because they want to put us in our place ... I'm sure you can see the problems with a whole platoon of men with guns SWAT teaming a single pink house and attacking two rich spinsters with six cats and a herb garden just because we didn't want husbands? 

[anisotrophic]

On 9/12/2018 at 9:50 PM, mreid said:

1. How do you feel about them?

2. Experiences with them?

3. How do you feel about the idea of being "taken care of" by such types, and playing a passive, stereotypically feminine role?

4. Do you think you might be a bit masculine personality-wise?

I skip most of this thread. Boring heteronormativity?

 

1. I get along with men, intellectually, emotionally, and am attracted to them at a "physical" level. (Yum.)

 

2. I'm not interested in performing femininity for men. Presumably this isn't attractive to some of them, alas.

 

3. Lol nope. Nor do I want a partner like that.

 

4. Yup.

 

Intimacy with men has been, by far, more attractive to me. I am not ace in the slightest, and now I'm tired of playing female.

 

If someone born female isn't attracted to being "feminine" for men, there's also the option of being AFABulous gay trans man. 😉

[Calligraphette_Coe]

1 hour ago, anisotropic said:

 

Intimacy with men has been, by far, more attractive to me. I am not ace in the slightest, and now I'm tired of playing female.

 

If someone born female isn't attracted to being "feminine" for men, there's also the option of being AFABulous gay trans man. 😉

I'm the other side of the coin, and I can empathise with what you say. I am ace, and I learned early on that I didn't even entertain the notion of playing male, alpha or otherwise, for women. It just made me feel silly, like a Persian cat trying to impersonate a lion. And kinda lonely, too, because it's so rare to find someone of the opposite biosex with which to interact without it turning into a job interview at Procreation, Inc. (Blech).

[gaogao]

1 hour ago, mreid said:

It was an analogy, and I was thinking more taharrush gamea style.

Uh. What is your point here? Mass sexual assault isn't any more acceptable than people SWAT teaming a lesbian couple in their own home.

 

1 hour ago, mreid said:

My point is just because someone gives you the money it doesn't change that you fantasize about being a passive girly housewife who is supported by something other than your work. Someone has to have won that money in the first place, and it wasn't you (at least not through work).

Two things here:

1.  Housewives do an incredible amount of work. It's a lot of work to keep a house running - have you tried maintaining a spotlessly clean household, managing household expenses, taking care of your looks and cooking at least two to three meals for your whole family every single day? I'm guessing not. If you have children, the work is multiplied x 100000. I actually have more respect for my mother, who was a housewife, than for my father, who had an incredibly stereotypical "alpha male" career in the goddamn Military and in the Government. 
   
   Yes, he worked hard, but he woke up almost every morning to a beautifully prepared breakfast made by my mother, which she would clean away before getting me and my my brother ready for school. My dad would come home in the evening to a spotlessly clean house, two children already home and cleaned up after a grimy day at school, and a family meal with at least three side dishes on the table. After preparing all that, my mum would then continue working - cleaning up the dishes and straightening the messes my brother and i made before bundling us up to bed and doing whatever else she needs to do for my father, while he just sits like a blob in front of the TV because he thought it'd be beneath him to lift a finger to help her.
    
2. When I say I want to be a housewife, I don't wan't to have the same life as my mum or be with someone like my dad who never appreciated her. I have almost no respect for him when I see how he treated her over the years, and I believe she earned every single penny of money she ever spent by being an amazing wife and mother. My ideal fantasy is being able to create and be that sort of wife without having to have an outside source of income from someone who doesn't appreciate me or "feminine" work. Maybe being with someone who doesn't discount it is why I tend to like other women who are very "feminine"? Either way, having two people doing household tasks and knowing how much work it is to keep a happy home makes it a lot less strenuous and a lot more fun, and life is just much nicer that way. 

[anisotrophic]

It is hilariously expensive to raise children, @mreid. I have two so far, and I'm lucky to have a career that is enough to cover "outsourcing" that labor. Even then it's often a wash, or even a net expense (paying to stay in the work force). Our house is messy, and hiring cleaners too is just too much expense. We've decided a sparkling home is not that important to have.

 

Dismissing the labor on the home front in naive sexism -- I say as someone who is *not* taking that path.

[gaogao]

@mreid And what is your point regarding being supported by something that someone else earned?

[ryn2]

10 minutes ago, mreid said:

You can't want to be taken care of and yet find unattractive someone whose main defining characteristic is taking care of others in a way.

Maybe *you* can’t, but it sounds like gaogao can.

 

More broadly, fantasies often aren’t realistic.  That’s kind of the point of fantasizing... to remove the constraints of real life and picture something you’d enjoy more.

[ryn2]

5 minutes ago, mreid said:

@ryn2 My point is, her fantasy is about being supported, not about supporting herself. I think from there to wanting to be supported by someone is just a small step. Could be just me.

Sometimes just a tiny tweak to a fantasy takes it from lovely to repugnant, though.

 

I see her fantasy as one of not needing to be supported, too, not one of being supported.  By that I mean she’s describing a

scenario where she can live the life she wants without resource constraints.  Yes, in reality that implies those resources came from somewhere... but that part isn’t included in her fantasy (from what she has shared).

 

Like, if I fantasize about a world where my pets never age... in real life that would mean somehow conquering death.  I’m not fantasizing about conquering death, though, just about my cats being fluffy and healthy.

[gaogao]

43 minutes ago, mreid said:

You can't want to be taken care of and yet find unattractive someone whose main defining characteristic is taking care of others in a way. Even if you don't like alpha male types because you are a lesbian, you will probably still like masculine women. Otherwise your fantasy just makes no sense.

 

I am not trying to tell you what you like or should like. I am just pointing out things that I find contradictory.

1. Since when do fantasies have to make sense? I have a persistent fantasy of being a Witch and attending Hogwarts, but at the same time, I'm super disappointed by JK Rowling and think she is extremely culturally insensitive. Doesn't make me want to become an animagus any less though :/
    
2. Why are women who choose to work a full time job to earn money masculine to you? Sure, maybe it'd be cool if my girlfriend decided to get a super high-paying strenuous job so that I could stay at home all day to cook and clean for her, but I am not attracted to someone for whom that is a defining characteristic. I would want her to still be her sweet, adorable, feminine self and I would worry for her in her new position and hope it isn't too much. In my experience, people who think their earning power and ability to "take care of me" are a defining characteristic are insufferable and annoying and I would want to stay away from them because for me that is a gigantic red flag.
    
3. The kind of care I want most in my life is emotional care. I want someone who is protective of me the way a mother bird is protective of her children because that's how I am with the people I love. I'm not interested in someone who will shower me in money and financial gifts and take care of me that way. Those things don't interest me. I'm interested in someone who will nurture my good sides and who will support me when I'm feeling sad with kind words and hot chocolate. Can you imagine someone who thinks they're a stereotypical "Alpha Male" doing that? I can't... 

[ryn2]

Just now, mreid said:

Ah, but to a psychoanalyst it always is... there's always something concealed behind that kind of thing in a fantasy. At least to a psychoanalyst.

Understood, but I think we’ve determined in the past here that not everyone is a proponent of/in agreement with Freud’s version of psychoanalysis.

 

Also, people tend to be a bit imprecise with terms like “fantasy.”  Sometime they mean wish, idle daydream, fun idea, etc., rather than the strict Freudian definition.

[gaogao]

 

 

39 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

I see her fantasy as one of not needing to be supported, too, not one of being supported.  By that I mean she’s describing a

scenario where she can live the life she wants without resource constraints.  Yes, in reality that implies those resources came from somewhere... but that part isn’t included in her fantasy (from what she has shared).

Quote

Ah, but to a psychoanalyst it always is... there's always something concealed behind that kind of thing in a fantasy. At least to a psychoanalyst.

Honestly.. isn't winning the lottery or inheriting a lot of money a pretty common fantasy for a lot of people? Even "manly" men fantasize about it ... I know men who do because if they didn't have to work they could tinker with cars and guns all day and play video games. Is that unmanly of them?

Does that mean they actually want to be taken care of by a more masculine person?

 

[LeChat]

5 hours ago, mreid said:

Ah, but to a psychoanalyst it always is... there's always something concealed behind that kind of thing in a fantasy. At least to a psychoanalyst.

The professional ones seem to be aware that it's not nice, friendly, polite, etc. to psychoanalyze everyone in their lives and advise others to not psychoanalyze everyone in their lives, either. It's different if someone is asking for help or advice.

 

(TW for one commentator who uses a couple of swear words, after reading the psychiatrist's article.)

https://neuroself.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/think-like-a-shrink-1-dont-psychoanalyze-your-family-and-friends/

[Calligraphette_Coe]

5 hours ago, gaogao said:

 

 

Honestly.. isn't winning the lottery or inheriting a lot of money a pretty common fantasy for a lot of people? Even "manly" men fantasize about it ... I know men who do because if they didn't have to work they could tinker with cars and guns all day and play video games. Is that unmanly of them?

Depends on the situation and who is doing the appraising. Using the Pat Robertson school of relationships, i.e. 

 

Quote

"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household, and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period."

I watched my poor sister buy into this until it finally ended in abuse. She was married to a minister's son who refused to work. About all he would do is watch the kids between doing what he wanted to do while she killed herself as a busy RN. OMG, my mother hated this guy with a passion, but often this kind of guy will spin the narrative how they are literally God's Gift to their long-suffering wives. Literally, the family Alpha Male around whom the family revolves , making them feel VERY manly. In the eyes of God and themselves.

 

On the other hand, some 'kept men' get a ton of flack from the community and have their manhoods questioned endlessly. You know, the 'henpecked' talk?

 

So my sister finally couldn't take it anymore and walked away from a crappy trailer and bought a house on her own and took the two children with her. She pretty much got the 'whore' treatment from all those loving fundies, even her own daughter stopped talking to her and moved out at age 18.

 

But then she fell in love with a guy who made a lot less money than she did and remarried. I didn't see it, but then I'm pretty much disowned by the family, but I hear she had him hen-pecked. At least until he got caught perving on the woman a few houses up, being a peeping Tom. I lost track, but I think she is still married to him, but not happily.

 

So there you have it.... a Tale of Two Husbands where the wife didn't get to live Happily Ever After.

 

Sure, I often think about what would have happened if I had been able to transition in my 20s and meeting Prince Charming who would have let me continue to be an engineer and business person who made a lot of money. And then I wake up......

[Guest]

18 hours ago, mreid said:

@gaogao I am not downplaying the value of housewives. What I am saying is a housewife needs a husband, and a traditional bread-winner husband needs a housewife. The reason is because the housewife has to tend to the house she doesn't have time to work, and because the bread-winner husband has to work he can't tend to the household. They split the tasks and work as a team. In your fantasy you are supported by lottery money or whatever but the point is, you are being supported by something that someone else earned.

I'm a full-time solo parent who also works (from home). I have no cleaner, no support network, I don't even let anyone else babysit my kids. I can work, tend my household, cook and clean, raise my kids, and even have time left over to watch a show in the evening and muck around on AVEN. 

 

Your views are extremely sexist and outdated.

 

Also just because someone is working and earning money that certainly doesn't make them automatically 'masculine'. Feminine people can earn money too. I can't believe I have to state that.

[gaogao]

@mreid I have a few questions for you, based on stuff I asked before but haven't heard back from you on: 

 

1. What made you think that I want everyone to hate men?

2. Do you think it is hard for men to leave women who aren't interested in them alone? 

(2a. why?/why not?)

3. Do you think it is unreasonable to expect men to leave women who aren't interested in them alone? 

(3a. why?/why not?)

4. What was your point in bringing up mass sexual assault? 

 

I'm not really looking to debate, I would just be very interested in your answers. 

[Lucinda]

20 hours ago, mreid said:

What I am saying is a housewife needs a husband, and a traditional bread-winner husband needs a housewife. The reason is because the housewife has to tend to the house she doesn't have time to work, and because the bread-winner husband has to work he can't tend to the household. 

What you are describing are two people who individually believe that they can't individually work and tend to household tasks such as cleaning, cooking, maintenance, etc.  They are both needy and are looking for someone else to provide for their perceived incapabilities.  Are they both psychologically feminine, by your definition, as they both want to be provided for?

 

20 hours ago, mreid said:

You can't want to be taken care of and yet find unattractive someone whose main defining characteristic is taking care of others in a way. Even if you don't like alpha male types because you are a lesbian, you will probably still like masculine women.

But the needy bread winner is also looking for someone to take care of others in a way.  Are they looking for a masculine woman or an alpha male type?

 

Are people who can manage to both work and make sure their laundry gets done neither feminine nor masculine psychologically, according to your definition?

 

Lucinda