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Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by gaius on Saturday April 18, 2009 @06:04AM (#568230)
Woman are programmed to find the leader of the pack attractive, even if said leader is an ahole.

That's the key point - alpha characteristics/interactions trump everything else. Girls like alpha assholes despite them being assholes, not the other way 'round.

Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by banned_man on Saturday April 18, 2009 @11:05AM (#568362)
This is completely wrong, because women who like alpha males have those preferences because they've been taught that sex is degrading, humiliating, and painful, and are therefore attracted to men who are likely to humiliate and damage them. Therefore, the attraction is because of these men being assholes.
Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by _pius on Saturday April 18, 2009 @01:59PM (#568538)
I think you're overgeneralizing quite a bit. Aren't women allowed to prefer an alpha male without being accused of wanting to be degraded?
Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by banned_man on Saturday April 18, 2009 @02:15PM (#568561)
Asking "aren't women allowed to prefer an alpha male without being accused of wanting to be degraded?" is like "aren't red octagons allowed to have 'STOP' written on them without being accused of being stop signs?"

No one is accusing anything. You don't see the red sign and "accuse" it of being a stop sign. You realize immediately that it is a stop sign (pattern recognition) and behave accordingly. Behaving accordingly with respect to such women is avoiding them entirely.

Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by _pius on Saturday April 18, 2009 @02:38PM (#568576)
I wonder if we're using the same phrase but meaning two different things.

If what you're calling an "alpha male" is a domineering asshole, I actually agree with you 100%. There are definitely dysfunctional women who like that kind of guy and I've learned to steer clear.

If we're talking about "alpha male" in the evolutionary psychology sense (i.e. conveying confidence, virility, and leadership), though, I think you're incorrect to say that women who look for those traits in a partner are just looking to be degraded.

Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by dkarl on Tuesday April 21, 2009 @02:24PM (#572758)
The women who believe that are the women who grew up in households where it was true, or who believe that they are worthless for some reason and don't deserve any better. A small minority of women, in fact.

If you see that mentality in most of the women you meet, then you're missing something about them or about the men they like. Or you're hanging out in strip clubs.

Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by metachris on Saturday April 18, 2009 @11:30AM (#568386)
i think that's a very vague theory...
Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by banned_man on Saturday April 18, 2009 @12:25PM (#568452)
I disagree.

1. A number of people in the US find sex to be degrading and harmful, at least on a subconscious level, while most reasonable people would only apply those epithets to a small subset of sexual activity.

2. People who harbor unhealthy beliefs (such as those described in 1) have a tendency to behave in suboptimal ways according to those beliefs, often with results that confirm them. An example of this is the misogynist/misandrist; people who believe that all members of the opposite sex tend to repel quality partners and have a very limited range of experience, and those negative experiences reinforce their beliefs.

3. Men who fit into the stereotypical "alpha" category strive to humiliate and damage women; thus, sex with them is, in fact, harmful and degrading.

4. Ergo, according to (2), women brought up with the attitude described in (1) are likely to be sexually attracted to the sorts of men described in (3).

I don't see anything vague here.

Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by gaius on Saturday April 18, 2009 @01:13PM (#568498)
I don't think you even know what "alpha male" means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_male

"In social animals, the alpha is the individual in the community whom the others follow. Where one male and one female fulfill this role, they are referred to as the alpha pair"

Girls want to be part of an alpha pair, it's as simple as that. I think you are projecting your own warped ideas about sex ("humiliation") onto this. But hey, whatever floats your boat, we're all grownups here.

Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by banned_man on Saturday April 18, 2009 @01:35PM (#568519)
The concept of "alpha" is highly variable among species and therefore doesn't generalize easily. In humans, it describes the type of man who would have a large number of wives in a pre-monogamous society-- narcissistic, brutal, detached, and without conscience.

Healthy women don't want to be anywhere around those sorts of men, who tend to be abusive husbands and terrible fathers. However, a certain class of psychologically damaged woman does tend to find that type of man sexually attractive.

Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by cousin_it on Tuesday April 21, 2009 @09:57AM (#572310)
Healthy women don't want to be anywhere around those sorts of men

Will have sex with them gladly, though, and tell the nice guy the kid's his.

Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by _pius on Saturday April 18, 2009 @02:02PM (#568541)
A number of people in the US find sex to be degrading and harmful, at least on a subconscious level, while most reasonable people would only apply those epithets to a small subset of sexual activity.

Heh, I doubt this phenomenon is endemic to the U.S.

Re:Why Being Smart Won't Get You Laid by banned_man on Saturday April 18, 2009 @02:13PM (#568553)
It's obviously not. It seems to be more common in American culture, but I don't have enough experience to evaluate the accuracy of this perception.