Alpha Dominance

I’m sure nobody has missed the brouhaha surrounding Tiger Woods’ alleged infidelity.  Not being a celebrity fanboy sycophant, I generally despise the celebrity worship Americans insist on engaging in and all the rabid gasping and moralizing when one of them is suddenly revealed as a mere mortal like the rest of us.  Unfortunately unless I bury my head in the sand I cannot avoid hearing about this one.

A friend forwarded this article to me on the topic of why Tiger or men in general cheat.  As in so much conventionally held psych wisdom (a near universally female dominated field) it moronically misses the point and tries to draw parallels between Tiger’s situation and generic plebeian middle class cheating which is of course on the rise with the emancipation of women and destruction of the last vestiges of the traditional family.

By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

Tiger Woods is the latest celebrity caught up in a sex scandal, which makes people wonder — why do men cheat? And are the famous and powerful more prone to indiscretion, or are they just under the microscope more than your average Joe?

The famous golfer’s admitted “personal failings” have been unfolding ever since his car wreck the day after Thanksgiving. Those who study marriage and work with couples say men who cheat usually do so because they feel something is missing in their primary relationship.

NARCISSISM: It can make people leaders … and cheaters

TIGER’S ‘TRANSGRESSIONS’: That’s ’sin’ to you and me

WOODS: Finds privacy elusive after admission

“The underlying piece is the fact they’re not getting the kind of attention or intimacy they’re looking for within their primary relationship. That’s true for women as well,” says Israel Helfand, a marriage and family therapist in Cabot, Vt.

He says he doesn’t believe adultery is necessarily more prevalent than in the past, but he says it may seem that way because famous people who are unfaithful in their marriages bring attention to the overall issue of why people cheat.

“We’re hearing more about it because of the information age,” says Helfand, who along with his wife, a psychotherapist, conducts marriage counseling retreats. Helfand says whether or not someone is famous isn’t the issue. Rather, he says the “situation is pretty equal across the board these days.” In other words, the incidence of affairs is now relatively equal between the affluent and the middle class. What used to be an upper class phenomenon — concubines or mistresses — has in modern culture become more bourgeoisie.

“They have more opportunity. There is more affluence. The middle class is stronger than it used to be. There is a lot more traveling in the corporate world. There is a lot more quick information with the Internet,” he says.

Helfand says data from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy suggests that 15% of wives and 25% of husbands have experienced extramarital intercourse.

A new data analysis by W. Bradford Wilcox, an associate professor of sociology who directs the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, seems to support that idea.

Wilcox reviewed data from the General Social Survey, a large social science survey of trends between the 1990s through 2000 and from 2000 to 2008. He found that 21% of men and 14% of women who had ever been married (including those who have been divorced) said they had sex at least once with someone other than the spouse while married. Of those currently married, 16% of men and 10% of women responded affirmatively.

Wilcox agrees that it seems we hear more about infidelity now, but the trends have been pretty similar since 1990. Wilcox says that despite appearances, there is a “real premium on fidelity.”

“It’s kind of a testament to the soulmate idea,” he says. “We are much more likely to look at marriage as a soulmate relationship. One indication of a soulmate’s commitment to you is that he or she is faithful to you.”

Additional calculations of that survey data by Wilcox show less tolerance toward infidelity now than in the past. In the decade of the 1970s, 63% of men and 73% of women said marital infidelity is “always wrong.” In the current decade, 78% of men and 84% of women believe that marital infidelity is “always wrong.”

“Infidelity affects people at all levels of the social ladder, but judging from the evidence, it’s more likely to be common among people who are higher up on that ladder,” Wilcox says.

He says celebrities are under a lot more surveillance now, so it’s easier to catch them in their indiscretions.

Helfand says, for celebrities, it may well be a combination of sex and power that draws them into affairs.

“It’s a very complex issue,” Helfand says. “Sex in clandestine places is very exciting. The next piece is being desired and feeling desirable. A lot of rich and famous celebrities have a pretty poor self-esteem. For them, I would agree it’s not so much about the sex as it is feeling about being desired.”

So he’s unfulfilled in his marriage?  Maybe, though I think this is far more likely an affliction of the middle-aged and middle classed.  Narcissism?  That’s more likely, as some degree of narcissism is a pre-requisite for the Alpha male or any successful hard driving person for that matter.  While I know little about Tiger he doesn’t strike me as overly narcissistic, but I have little to go on here.  What about self-esteem and needing admiration?  These are of course, needs of every man, but if anyone should be getting those needs filled it’s the first Billionaire athlete in history and arguably the world’s preeminent golfer.  He has the adulation of millions and more money than god as well as a peak career.

I will propose the reason I think Tiger cheated and what should be the more obvious question.  Both are likely to be presumed heretical by mainstream America and are founded in Ev-Psych.

Tiger cheated because he can, and because it’s the prerogative of any successful and dominant male.  All sexually reproducing life forms have a biological imperative to find the strategy that will best represent their genes disproportionately in the next generation.  The clear strategy of a peak Alpha, the possessor of a Super-Y, is to bed every willing chick they can find, and believe me, they will be everywhere, because their own reproductive strategy is hypergamous.  Better to be the mistress of a Super-Y than the wife of a Dilbert, particularly in a culture such as our own where an offspring by such a man can ensure a lifestyle far superior to that to be gained by marrying Joe the Plumber and will be solely hers to spend as she sees fit.  She can have control, a superior lifestyle and superior genes for her offspring which particularly if male and taking after his father, could improve her representation in the gene pool more than a dozen daughters would.  Better yet the stigma of the gold-digging whore has been wholly washed away in our culture today, she won’t even be viewed as damaged goods by the potential Dilberts she may deign to let pamper her later in life.  From the biological perspective its win-win for everyone involved.  This is all the more true for Tiger if he manages to keep all this on the down-low, however these whores hold the trump card if impregnated in that the legal system and celebrity worship franchise will benefit her for coming out with the story and pursuing Tiger for some egregious child support.  To say that a man like Tiger cheated due to deep-seated insecurity or an unfulfilling marriage is at best grasping at straws from a feminine and emotionally-centric place of denial of the truth.  The truth is that monogamy is a cultural, not a biological invention and it serves the purpose of keeping the beta-underclasses pacified and contentedly giving the bulk of their production to maintaining the status quo.  The upper classes have rarely adhered to monogamy in their private lives if not their public lives.  The Alpha-Dogs of society don’t have to live by the rules of the broke-ass bitches, they have the means to attract harems of women and most will avail themselves of the perk.  We need no further explanation and we all know this on a subconscious level, yet the puritanical legacy of our country keep us tiptoeing around the truth and playing at fidelity rather than being the unrepentant cads our biological legacy has made us when we are the top-echelon males.  I’m frankly quite tired of the empty apologies, we need more of these men to come right out and say what they do and offer no apologies.  All the pathetic sycophants will revere them more for maintaining this congruency between their avowed beliefs and actions.  Why pay this lip service to an outmoded morality?  Please.

Now let me reframe the debate in terms of the question we should be asking in two parts.  Why would such a man as Tiger marry in the first place and if he does, why would his wife have any reasonable expectation of fidelity?  He stands to lose much by marriage, but if he wants a lifelong committed companion, and is intellectually honest with himself, he will do so with the explicit understanding that if you choose to marry a billionaire Super-Y you relinquish any reasonable expectation of fidelity.  If he chooses to give it to you, count yourself lucky, if not, hey, you get the perks of a devoted spouse who can provide an unparalleled opportunity to your potential offspring and a life of luxury and decadence.  Isn’t this enough?  Why throw out the baby with the bathwater.  You know his wife likely expected road-bumps like this to come up, and from the allegations it sounds like the precipitating event, his infamous mini-crash, resulted from their confrontation over his philandering.  Bitch please; are you really arrogant enough to think you’ve got a vagina that golden?  Unfortunately this is a rhetorical question as they all seem to be.  She’s been given the world in the opportunity to marry someone like Tiger and she’s gotta stamp her little heels and demand that he be faithful on top of it all?  Who are we kidding?  Wives of politicians, celebrities, business titans and the like should enter these marriages presuming the infidelity of their husband and value the relationship for all it does provide them, or don’t enter it at all.  When you marry Tiger Woods, you don’t call the shots, period.  Be forewarned ladies, and men, just be upfront about what you want and are willing to give.  It’s all valid so long as you are honest from the beginning and willing to walk if the terms are not satisfactory to you.