Tag: SSH
Sigma Game on Substack
I’ve been working on the much-requested Socio-Sexual Hierarchy book and it’s going very well. Assuming we can get both AH:Q and the first Midnight’s War omnibus out to backers in the next few weeks, which we should be able to do, the crowdfund for the SSH book and the Hypergamous book will probably take place sometime in March, which is also when I anticipate finishing what was originally planned to be a 60k-word book, but will probably end up clocking in closer to 90k.
However, due to the growing mainstream interest in the SSH, particularly in the Sigma and Gamma profiles, I decided it would be a) necessary to have a central site for discussing the concepts that was absolutely not here and b) more immediately accessible to the new readers coming from outside the broader community who aren’t interested in economics, politics, fiction, games, history, or my copious media baggage.
So, I set up a Sigma Game substack. It will last as long as it lasts; no doubt it will come under relentless attack from Gammas and other anklebiters, which should serve to make certain SSH-related concepts readily apparent in a way that no amount of books, posts, and articles written by me ever could. It’s always nice when antifragility is built right into the foundation. It’s a pity that Substack comments can’t be limited to free subscribers, rather than just to paid subscribers, though.
The first post is an analysis of a 2012 Alpha Game post in which I supported Dr. Helen’s contention that shame was not an effective tool for encouraging single men to marry. And a review of the recent data would appear to strongly confirm that contention.
Twelve years later, as anticipated, shame has entirely failed as a strategy to encourage more young men to get married. To the contrary, men have even begun to demonstrate less interest in pursuing sex as well as marriage. And the marriage rate has fallen another 8.6 percent in the interlude, from 16.3 per 1,000 in 2011 to 14.9 per 1,000 in 2021.
Higher Education and the Decline of Marriage, SIGMA GAME, 17 January 2024
I don’t intend to post more than once or twice a week on Sigma Game, but otherwise it can be reasonably considered a revival of the Alpha Game blog. How long I will actively maintain it, I do not know; if the book proves popular enough, I might even transfer it to its own site on one of the UATV servers. But, in any event, it’s there now, so feel free to check it out and subscribe to it if you are so inclined.
UPDATE: Okay, that was fast. Thanks to everyone who checked it out, especially those who have already subscribed.
UPDATE: Given the surprisingly high level of interest there, I may have to contemplate doing a daily Sigma Game post.
Congratulations! Your posts have been read a total of 1000 times.
Like Father, Like Son
This is why you should listen to your father. Especially when he knows very well what he’s talking about:
Antoine Winfield Jr. was named NFC defensive player of the week for Week 18.
One of the best defensive plays of the year was made by Winfield Sunday against the Panthers: With Carolina receiver D.J. Chark seemingly set for an easy touchdown, Winfield ran him down just before he got to the goal line and knocked the ball out of Chark’s hands. The ball went into the end zone and out of bounds to give it back to the Buccaneers, a huge turnover and touchdown-saving play.
According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Winfield was 23 yards away from Chark at the time the pass was thrown. For Winfield to make up that much distance and force a fumble before Chark got to the end zone was an extraordinary effort.
Extraordinary effort runs in the family. His father was my favorite Viking since Fran Tarkenton. Despite being exactly my size – 5’9″, 180 pounds – he was one of the hardest hitters in the NFL. He wasn’t a shutdown corner, but there has never been anyone you would rather have defend the first down marker in the open field. It didn’t matter if it was a slot receiver, a tight end, or a fullback coming out of the backfield with the ball, the ballcarrier would absolutely be cut down hard, with all momentum extinguished, before he could make it past the invisible line. And despite being a starter, Winfield wasn’t too proud to play special teams; look at how he laid the smack down on a Packer’s punt returner.
Winfield made two of the greatest defensive plays I’ve ever seen, in the same game, against the Packers. The first play, facing a big halfback running behind a pulling guard, he dropped to his knees, let the guard fall over him, then popped up and dropped the ballcarrier. The second play, there were two blockers between him and the running back who’d just caught a screen pass. He twisted sideways between the two lineman, then dropped the ballcarrier.
Anyhow, it’s a lot of fun to see Winfield’s son not only following in his footsteps, but even exceeding his NFL accomplishments by winning a Super Bowl. Their relationship is an object lesson in excellence in fatherhood, and they’re obviously close to this day.
Also, his dad is 100-percent correct. Budda Baker making the Pro Bowl over Winfield Jr. this season is a ludicrously bad joke.
The Case for the Gamma Male
In which a self-styled “dating expert” explains why Gamma Males should be more attractive to women, due to their superior relationship qualities:
In this informative post, I will tell you all about a lesser-known hero – the gamma male.
We’ve all heard of the infamous alpha male archetype; they’re the strong, dominant character who doesn’t take no for an answer. As a dating expert, my take is that the alpha personality type deserves all the praise he’s getting. However, I also believe that the gamma males sure are diamonds in the rough women are missing out on.
A gamma male is a highly intelligent, reflective, and empathic man. To put it simply, he is the epitome of a sensitive guy. Contrary to popular belief, this personality type is nothing short of a man. Although ranking fourth in the social hierarchy ladder, this personality type is first in line for being the most well-rounded.
Top 5 Qualities:
- He Is Secure In His Masculinity
- He Is A Romantic
- He Is Compassionate
- He Is A Jack Of All Trades
- He Is His Cheerleader
And best of all, he is available! Not only that, but once you get him fixated on you, he will never, ever leave you, not even if you want him to.
Now, I have no doubt that there are women to whom the Gamma Male will harbor special appeal; de gustibus non disputandum est. Everyone has their own particular kryptonite, whether it be curvy, hot-tempered Latinas or haughty ice-blondes with resting bitch face. But it is a little startling to see the behavioral pattern portrayed in a much more positive light than one is accustomed to seeing.
This doesn’t mean the picture being presented is entirely wrong, it’s mostly just… incomplete. Then again, it’s not as if women who prefer Alphas tend to spend much time contemplating the fact that he’s almost certainly going to cheat on her, and usually sooner rather than later.
Beware the Christmas Cakes
First, it’s probably necessary to define Christmas Cakes, technically “unsold Christmas Cakes”, which is, believe it or not, a Japanese term.
“Women are Christmas cakes” because just like how nobody wants to buy a Christmas cake after December 25th, unmarried women over the age of 25 are worthless — believe it or not, this used to be a popular saying in Japan just a few decades ago. Perhaps, the double surprise for those unfamiliar with Japanese culture is that people buy a specific type of pastry to celebrate Christmas here. When I learned about this phrase from my female boss, I was genuinely shocked. As a single woman who just turned 25, I would have been called an “unsold Christmas cake.” The slur implies that a woman is viewed as valuable only if she is either young or married. Although we still have a long way to achieve gender equality, at least we disapprove of such outright insults today. As a growing number of women are postponing or forgoing marriage and pursuing careers instead, the Christmas cake analogy seems to represent outdated anti-feminist and sexist attitudes.
Yeah, so, about that.
Almost all the women I know who are single and over 30 think they’ll eventually find a great husband to take care of them. There is no self-reflection or plan to find out what men want so they would be a better choice over a younger woman.
On average, the whole “I am a strong independent woman who don’t want no man to take care of me” phase so common to young women these days lasts past college and about 18 months into their much-ballyhooed careers. However, once a woman actually experiences, for the first time in her life, how difficult and unpleasant it is to provide for oneself, and how low her standard of living and quality of life is likely going to be for the rest of her life, her opinion about marriage and children often undergoes a dramatic change. This belated realization is very often the point at which a woman suddenly decides that perhaps the traditional life is acceptable to her after all.
Which is why women under 30, who have the intrinsic wisdom to seek a life as a wife and mother in conscious preference to one with a career, are to be vastly preferred to those women who are only settling for a traditional life because they think it will be an easier life than the independent one they previously sought.
And women under the age of 30 would do very well to recall that men possess just as much agency as they do, and that young women who make a strong bid early tend to find themselves married to higher quality men than those who keep waiting for a better option to present itself.
UPDATE: It is educational to observe that even those women who had a traditional life and threw it away to pursue the greener grass on the other side quickly come to realize that the strong and independent life isn’t particularly desirable.
“I told my friends and family I’d never get married again. I needed independence, a fulfilling career, and space to chart my own course, and I didn’t think marriage fit into that vision. I was content to look toward a future without a husband, children, or the trappings of a ‘traditional’ life,’” she wrote.
As she grew older, however, the fun, carefree lifestyle – being wined and dined, going to parties – began to get old. The pursuit of comfort and self became dull, she said. When she turned 38, terror began to take over.
Thinking Outside the Engineering Box
This story about his experience as an engineer in the dot com era by the late Seamus Young should be extremely enlightening, for engineers and non-engineers alike, as it has the benefit of providing us with not only the communication that took place in the meeting, but also what he was thinking about it at the time. Keeping in mind that this is nominally written from the perspective of “the engineer is the good guy who knows what he’s doing and what he should be doing”, see if you can identify the fundamentally destructive element described in the following vignette.
John Business seems to be the most important guy in the room. He’s also the guy who narrated the pitch video. He’s seemed happy so far. But now he turns to me and asks, “Can we start visitors outside of the mall? We have this grand entryway and we want them to be able to see it before they go inside.”
I scrunch up my face. “Yeah guess you can. But people like to teleport because it’s more convenient…” I trail off. John Business looks confused. Did I mess up and give him some jargon?
“Shamus means they like to appear and disappear in different places rather than walking.” My Boss is clarifying things for me. That doesn’t happen very often.
John Business nods. He gets it now.
Holy shit. This guy doesn’t know what teleporting is? I guess the whole video presentation he just narrated made him seem a little more tech-savvy than he really is. Okay, I need to step this all the way down to neophyte language. How the hell did someone with such a limited understanding of virtual worlds end up in the deep end? This guy doesn’t seem to know enough to launch a web-based business, and he’s going to oversee the construction of a virtual one?
I nod at my boss. “Right. One of the advantages of virtual space is the way people can move instantly to their desired location. Making them ‘walk’ for a long distance before they can begin using the software will just make them reluctant to log in. And unless we change it every few days, they will quickly tire of the entrance.”
John Business looks annoyed. My boss shifts nervously in his seat. I’ve messed up again. I’m evidently offering guidance above my pay grade. John Business asked me a simple question about a simple task and now he seems to think I’m trying to weasel out of doing it. Possibly he suspects I’m a slacker. They don’t want my artistic input. These guys have already designed the place. They just want me to answer the question.
My boss steps in to smooth things out. “We’ll have them start outside and see how it works out. We can always change it later.”
I nod. Fair enough.
John Business also nods, perhaps ticking off a mental checkbox before moving on to the next question.
It goes on like this for half an hour. He keeps asking me to do simple things that would be impractical, annoying for the end user, or harm usability. He’s trying to make a world not just for people playing “a videogame” for the first time, but people who are overall new to the internet. I want to educate him on why the design is wrong, but I can’t seem to do so without violating some sort of unexplained social order. Usually I pride myself on being able to smooth out misunderstandings and bring people up to speed, but right now I find myself falling into the role of the “obtuse, obstructionist engineer” and I can’t seem to break out of it.
What’s wrong here? Our company is typically good at this stuff. We’re usually pretty adept at bridging the gap between what the customer asks for and what they actually need. But this meeting is running sideways and the power dynamics are all wrong. For some reason, John Business seems to regard me with… is it suspicion? I don’t know. But there’s a communication problem here and I can’t seem to solve it.
Without trust, every time I say “no” or “Yes, but…” it irritates John Business. And that makes my boss nervous, which eventually makes him frustrated with me. So it feels like the room is against me, which makes me nervous and panic-y, which makes me stammer and vacillate, which makes me sound even more untrustworthy.
John Business returns to his printed notes. “When a visitor clicks on an item on a shelf, can we have it fall into their shopping trolley?”
I somehow resist the urge to make a horrified face at the suggestion.
People are going to push shopping carts around your virtual mall? Doesn’t that have the stench of low-end shopping? Will the carts collide with shelves? If so, then people WILL get stuck, frustrated, and log out without buying anything.If not, then expect people to navigate as if the cart didn’t exist, which means they will constantly end up clipping into walls. Everywhere you go, you’ll have the front ends of shopping carts peeking at you through walls and shelves. In addition to being really ugly and immersion-breaking, this will be confusing to people. And don’t even get me started on the ways people might confuse or harass each other with them. What if I leave a store without paying? Does my cart vanish, or is it cleared? Will the items be restored if I return later? We need to figure out what the “expected behavior” is going to be before we know how to design this.
Isn’t the advantage of a VIRTUAL mall the fact that you don’t need to worry about the physical hassles of carrying items? I know in your head you’re picturing people simply replicating real-world behavior, but that’s not going to happen. People will act in ways that don’t make sense. What if I click on an item that’s nowhere near my cart? Should the item fly across the room and land in the cart? If so, then expect new users to be confused by random items flying all over the place. Or you can give them an error message telling them to move closer. That will stop the flying merchandise, but now you’re inconveniencing people trying to buy stuff.
How will they get items back out again? Physics engines that operate in a shared space are years away, so making them rummage around a pile of loose items won’t work. What if they want to remove an item from the cart and it’s buried under others? What happens if I go to the other side of the store and then remove the item? Should it fly across the store to where it belongs, or should we replicate the real world where fickle shoppers constantly scramble your inventory by abandoning items in random parts of the store? Or should it just poof away?
What I actually said:
“Sort of. We can show an object falling into the cart.”
“But will the object disappear off the shelf?” This point seem to be awfully important to him.
You… you want to create a virtual store with scarcity? WHYYYYYYY? Madness! If this is possible, people WILL try to empty the shelves into their cart so that nobody else can buy anything.
What I actually said:
“No.”
The actual answer would be “It depends”, but it would be long and complex and I sense everyone is just looking for simple answers to complex questions. We could make shelves that deplete of stock and need to be refilled, but this would create all sorts of interface headaches and the need for a bunch of new coding, because we’d need to create a program to track the position of all items and handle restocking them. I can spend ten minutes explaining that the timetable is already WAY too tight and there’s no way we have time to code experimental new features with unknown challenges for purely cosmetic effects.
The meeting drags on like this, with John Business casually asking for monumentally difficult things that will make the store less useful in order to re-create the limitations and frustrations of the physical world.
Crash Dot Com Part 3: The Meeting, TWENTY-SIDED
I’m convinced that one of the reasons engineers are correctly viewed as needlessly obtuse and obstructionist by the rest of the business world is that too few of them have ever played team sports and the concept of “do your job” is therefore intrinsically foreign to them. Or, to be more precise, “don’t do what is not your job”.
Did you see what the fundamental problem with the engineer’s attitude is? Here’s a hint: it’s a fundamentally Gamma action.
What’s remarkable is the way that the engineer unconsciously elevated himself into an assumed authority that he flat-out does not possess. He’s not only “managing from below”, he’s actually taking it upon himself to “design from below” on the basis of a) his opinions about user preferences and b) his preferences about what he works on and how to work on it.
Even if he is 100-percent correct about the ultimate consequences, he’s 100-percent wrong to attempt to assume that authority, because he does not have the responsibility. Moreover, he doesn’t even want that responsibility; the best way to shut an obstructionist engineer up is to threaten to put him in charge of the project, including the sales and marketing.
But the most important thing for an engineer to grasp is that he does not have the whole picture, and that what makes zero sense in one context might make complete sense in a more significant context. Maybe the company wants to lose money. Maybe the company just needs to get something out the door to maintain its patent or its trademark. Maybe it’s not really supposed to be a working product, but a proof of concept that is a milestone on a corporate merger. Or maybe the executives are technologically ignorant and the lead designer is a lunatic with an insane and impossible vision.
Regardless, if someone asks you a question, it is literally never your job to infer from it what might be, unknown to himself, the unconscious motivations of the asker, then answer the question on the basis of your own interpretation of those hidden objectives and goals. Answer the question asked. Then, if necessary, talk to your boss later about your opinion that the nature of the questions indicated a high probability of future project failure from your technical perspective.
What’s remarkable about Seamus is that he eventually figured out the problem on his own.
Personally, I HATE the e-commerce / distance learning stuff. It’s dumb and boring and lame. One afternoon I’m standing in the aisle complaining about this when Roger takes me aside and explains that while the e-commerce stuff isn’t sexy, it’s actually an important revenue stream. Those business people might be boring and tedious to work with, but they have tons of money they’re willing to spend on this stuff. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be able to serve those aspiring game designers I love so much. The game designers are interesting people, but they’re broke as hell.
I slowly begin to realize why so few of my feature suggestions make it into The List™. I always argue for things in terms of how “cool” it will look and how intensely people want it, but I rarely make a business case for my ideas.
Crash Dot Com Part 6: The List™, TWENTY-SIDED
Business Lesson 101: You don’t make money by doing what you think is cool. You make money by giving other people what they actually want, whether what they want makes sense to you or not.
SSH Lesson: The more special and unique and technical you are, the less your opinions matter to everyone else. Unless asked, keep them to yourself.
PS: DM of the Rings is absolutely hilarious and the Remaster is worth re-reading.
Mailvox: SSH in Finland
A Finnish reader observes SSH appearing in the Finnish media:
I must give you an update on the spread of your ideas. The socio-sexual hierarchy has now been referenced as part of the Finnish presidential election where the campaigning is beginning.
The ‘far-right’/True Finns presidential candidate is Jussi Halla-aho, and of course the media is on the offensive against him. Particularly aggressive are the Swedish language newspapers who are the most shitlib in the country. However, as a new development, they now highlight how Halla-aho’s supporters call him a sigma-male, which the paper crudely defines as an ‘introverted alpha-male’.
The paper goes on to vaguely reference a ‘right-wing blog’ as the place where the term originated, but do not mention you directly.
First, if the term is being used correctly and Halla-aho is a genuine Sigma, his leadership is very likely to be effective for the True Finns given the current circumstances, and conceivably could eventually be of great benefit to Finland as well. While Alphas are generally to be preferred as leaders in most situations, Sigmas are much more capable of ignoring the personal temptations of corruption, and they are also less easily influenced or neutralized by the infiltrators and saboteurs who inevitably manage to work their way into the leadership councils as advisors or experts.
Consider the difference in what Xi and Putin have accomplished for their nations compared to what Trump managed to do for Americans. It’s the difference between a Julius Caesar and a Pompeius Magnus; the Sigma will break the unwritten rules and ignore the opinions of his elite peers when necessary, the Alpha will not.
While Alphas are usually much better at – and much more willing to provide – leadership, Sigmas are optimal leaders in emergency situations where their self-certainty, high-handed manner, and lack of interest in the opinions of others are deemed acceptable for the duration of the exigency. This is why the nations of the West that manage to find a sufficiently capable Sigma, and, one way or another, convince him of the necessity of pursuing leadership, are much more likely to survive than the nations that rely upon the leadership of the usual Alphas who crave it.
Mailvox: SSH and Non-Solipsism
Prompted by your post today on seeing your neologisms in common usage, I thought it might interest you to know that middle schoolers at a Methodist church in Orlando, FL are using your expanded SSH terms casually in conversation with each other. I’m a parent and small group leader, so I’ve been able to have some interesting conversations. Without giving away that I was aware of the terms, I asked what they meant (as if they were any inscrutable zoomer slang), and they were using them more or less correctly.
The ideas, they disseminate. It’s encouraging that the younger generations will have the opportunity to understand and utilize their behavioral patterns in a way that their predecessors did not. Like most information, it can be used for good or for ill, but making informed decisions tends to lead to better consequences than uninformed ones. And before one can surmount one’s flaws and weaknesses, one must be aware of them.
Speaking of surmounting one’s flaws, a woman on SG seeks to understand what not being solipsistic is like.
Does male non-solipsism mean that when a man gains any information, he does not by default consider its relevance to himself? Sincere question from a mystified woman. #womanposting
That’s correct. It should be readily apparent, in fact, by the way men have a habit of turning themselves into subject matter experts in their particular areas of interest which have nothing whatsoever to do with the man involved. When I was working out the details concerning whether Lionel Messi was the greatest soccer player of all time – and he quite clearly is – the thought of comparing myself to him, or to Ronaldo, or to Pele, never crossed my mind. I simply wasn’t relevant to the topic. It never occurred to me to work out my own career goals-pens+assists per-game average.
Men tend to be more interested in the idea, the subject, or the event for itself than in its potential relationship to himself. This, by the way, is why so many men find women to be tedious and seldom enjoy talking with them, because the female tendency to turn every conversation toward herself is readily apparent, mildly annoying, and generally uninteresting.
For example, let’s say that you took in a family of Ukrainian refugees after the start of the special military operation. Do you mention that every time the topic of the Ukraine war comes up? It might be relevant if the discussion is about refugees or the depopulation of Ukraine, but most of the time, it won’t be. There is a lot to discuss about the war that doesn’t have anything to do with you or your past actions. Every mention of a subject that has something tangentially to do with you is not an invitation to start talking about yourself, and should not be taken as one. In most cases, you would do well to resist that solipsistic urge.
One thing I would encourage women to do, if they want to be held in higher regard by men, is a) to be aware of the conversational context, and b) to never talk about themselves or to mention people that the men don’t know. To better understand the desirability of this try silently counting the number of “I” and “me” used by your interlocutors when they engage in a conversational soliloquy. It can be very enlightening.
A good conversation is not two or more people waiting to talk and exchanging unrelated monologues. Try actually listening to people, no matter how tedious or stupid they are. You really can learn a lot from them, even when what they’re talking about is of zero interest to you.
Gammas and Lambdas are the most solipsistic men, which is why they are also the men who most enjoy talking with women and who are most likely to be a woman’s best male friend. Show me a man who is a woman’s best friend, and if he isn’t gay, nine times out of ten he’ll be a gamma who secretly pines after her.
The Tragic Error
The Kurgan explains how situational advantages are generally insufficient to break ingrained patterns of behavior for the Gamma.
The Alpha may actually get quite stung at rejection, especially if it is public and from a high status woman. His ego and need to be seen as the Alpha may in fact also cause him to be quite caustic or dismissive, but if so it will be only in the moment and temporarily. After all, no real Alpha wants to be seen as a pitiful shadow of a man that is pining after some woman. Besides, there are usually several waiting in the wings for him happy to heal his broken heart. In the Alpha mind, getting angry at rejection from a woman is essentially below his dignity and status to do. He may privately be quite hurt, but rage, even to himself, goes against his nature, which is essentially generous and expectant of plentifulness (be it women, business, fame, and so on). The Alpha is a reacher for things, including women, but usually not a desperate grabber in the normal course of affairs.
The Delta is more of a balanced individual and generally will take rejection on the chin, be hurt, then move on with his life and try and find peace where he can. These are the majority of well balanced men.
The Gamma however has wholly different internal mechanisms and they end up being the really creepy and dangerous ones, even if they present as easy-going, liberal, modern metrosexual men in touch with their feminine side. In almost diametric opposition to Sigmas, the Game has a profound (and un-admitted) lack of self-confidence. This is a root cause in their very core and they try to cover up that existential hole in their soul with all manner of fakery. Be it money, status, recognition by the masses for their achievements (real or most often imagined or “manufactured”), it is never enough to really fill that essential lack of self-truth.
A Gamma can be a billionaire (see Bezos) and still behave in a completely creepy/loser/gamma way with women. It is true that and Alpha or a Sigma or even a Delta, that is really a millionaire or billionaire can have his pick of women willing to be his sexual partners, and many of those women, initially attracted by the power, wealth and status, may even end up having genuine feelings for the man in question, but there is a core difference in the dynamics with a Gamma.
The billionaire alpha, sigma or even delta, may be perfectly aware of the sexual liaison with women being purely transactional. Their temporary thrill at being on a private jet, or even just seen with the billionaire in question, is enough for them to permit sex between them. The Delta will eventually be a bit sad at such an arrangement and over time get disillusioned with this woman or perhaps even women in general if the pattern repeats. An Alpha may even prefer the situation to be transactional and be fine with it and get a new “performer” once he bores with the first one, or have multiple ones in play or make a proper business contract out of a “marriage”. A Sigma may do the same, or become a pimp, or a celibate monk by choice. But a Gamma will simply think that his material wealth gives him the right and the authority to do what he imagines Alphas do or get away with doing. And this is the tragic error.
Jeff Bezos really is the quintessential example of the triumph of behavioral patterns over situational status. But if you want a visual example of what the Kurgan is describing, you can’t do better than watch the clip from The Big Bang Theory, when Stuart dreams of being what he thinks is an Alpha dating Penny, complete with top hat.
For some reason, Gammas have very strange ideas about hats…
AI and SSH
An AI service sent me the following article on the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy that purports to mimic my writing style. And to be honest, the AI did a much better job on the basic concept than the average “If you want to know what it’s like to be Sigma Male, well, just let me tell you all about it” human grifter.
Understanding the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
As we navigate through the complexities of life, a range of invisible social rules and structures guide our interactions and decisions. One such framework often overlooked is the socio-sexual hierarchy—a system that categorizes individuals based on their tendencies and success in competing for and attracting mates. This intriguing concept not only sheds light on elements of human nature and social dynamics but also offers a lens through which we can view and better comprehend societal structures, relationships, and behavioral attributes. Moving forward, this article aims to delve into the socio-sexual hierarchy, explaining its basic concepts, various levels, effects on relationships and societies, and the ongoing controversies it attracts.The Basic Concept of Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
Definition and Understanding of Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
The socio-sexual hierarchy is an anthropological and sociological concept that classifies individuals based on their sexual behavior, attractiveness, and appeal within their society. This hierarchy operates at both individual and collective levels, influencing patterns of encountering, choosing, and bonding with potential partners. The socio-sexual hierarchy model suggests that individuals can be categorized into various tiers, such as “alpha,” “beta,” “gamma,” etc., according to perceived sexual attractiveness and dominance.Impact of Socio-Sexual Hierarchy on Society
Socio-sexual hierarchy significantly influences societal structure. It informs the social order and shapes the patterns of interpersonal relationships and interactions within the community. The socio-sexual hierarchy concept provides a lens to understand behavioral patterns, such as competition, cooperation, and selection, both intra-sexually (within the same sex) and intersexually (between the sexes).For example, the societal perception that “alphas” are the most attractive and desirable individuals can lead to increased competition among individuals striving for this status. These competitive behaviors could potentially exacerbate social inequality and create tension within the community.
Socio-Sexual Hierarchy in Individual Relationships
On a personal level, socio-sexual hierarchy affects various aspects of individual relationships including dating and mating choices. Individuals tend to seek partners who are perceived as having an equal or higher position within the socio-sexual hierarchy. According to the matching hypothesis in social psychology, individuals of similar socio-sexual rankings are more likely to pair together, thereby maintaining the socio-sexual hierarchy.Influence on Interpersonal Dynamics
Socio-sexual hierarchy also has significant impacts on broader interpersonal dynamics, not limited to romantic relationships. For instance, it may influence interpersonal respect, authority, and power relations within groups. An individual ranked high in socio-sexual hierarchy might have more influence and command greater respect within their social group. At the same time, those positioned lower in the hierarchy may face challenges in their social interactions and struggle for recognition.Successful and Unsuccessful Hierarchies
Despite its influence, the socio-sexual hierarchy doesn’t guarantee success or failure in relationships or society. Many argue against rigidly applying this model due to its potential to foster harmful stereotypes, sexism, and toxic behaviors. While the socio-sexual hierarchy can help decode certain social dynamics, it’s essential to account for individual characteristics, emotional intelligence, and other factors that contribute to healthy relationships and societal cohesiveness.The Influence of Culture on Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
In the socio-sexual hierarchy, the weightage and significance of different attributes, such as physical attractiveness, social status, or financial security, can change considerably based on cultural variations. Each society establishes its social and sexual norms which, in turn, impact its socio-sexual strata. Furthermore, contemporary societies are progressively dismantling and challenging historically conceived socio-sexual hierarchies. Advocates in these societies are pushing towards an egalitarian outlook, honoring individual preferences, and endorsing the appreciation of diversity.The Different Levels of Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
The Structure of Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
Through the lens of psychological and sociological study, an understanding of the socio-sexual hierarchy has been sketched. This model theorizes that within each social milieu, males can be separated into numerous rankings or positions, with unique behaviors and attributes defining each layer. Although this theory has predominantly been framed around heterosexual male interactions, it offers a helpful lens to analyze female hierarchies and the behaviors of individuals oriented towards the same sex.Alpha
At the top of this hierarchy is the alpha male, generally characterized as the most attractive, charismatic, and assertive males in a given social group. They are often the leaders, commanding respect and attention from others. Alphas are typically dominant, confident, and emotionally unaffected by others’ opinions. They exhibit high levels of social intelligence and have varying degrees of physical attractiveness. In terms of sexual relationships, alphas often have the most partners due to their perceived desirability and aptitude for social dominance.
I think it’s pretty clear that whether they like AI or not, writers are going to have to come to terms quickly with utilizing AI tools if they’re going to be competitive with those who embrace them. Hardest hit: James Patterson’s ghostwriters. However, it’s also clear that without a creative core, AI simply isn’t going to be able to do more than flesh out an pre-existing conceptual skeleton.