Sunshine Mary proposed an interesting question in a comment thread last week:
Knowing what we know about hypergamy – that it’s inborn and does not give a crap – and also what we know about women’s attraction cues swaying toward much more alpha men during ovulation…can men deal with the thought of living with someone who is having to fight against (presuming she’s fighting against it) a general innate desire to trade up and a specific desire to stray with an alpha male during ovulation?
The short answer to this is yes, in fact men have socially and psychologically evolved contingencies to mitigate hypergamy since our hunter-gatherer beginnings. You could even argue that much of our cultural and species-level achievements were the result of men’s latent drives to deal with women’s innate hypergamy.
The common mistake Mary is making here is to presume that hypergamy’s natural state is in a vacuum. Hypergamy is not static. The capacity an individual woman possesses to optimize hypergamy is specific to that woman. There are many complex variables that affect what contributes to a woman’s self-perception of her sexual market valuation.
For a general instance, a hot 22 y.o. coed will generally be more predisposed to her hypergamous impulses because she has the capacity to capitalize on it better than a 44 y.o. divorced mother of two. Too many guys think that hypergamy requires this endless attending to, but with the exception of outlying women, women will should regulate their hypergamy based on their self-perceived capacity to optimize it.
Simply because a woman’s natural state is hypergamy doesn’t mean she is able to optimize it. She may lack opportunity (i.e no Alpha men in the right place or at the right time), she may lack the physical appeal, she may have internalized beliefs that cause her to be more self-conscious, she may have self-esteem issues (over and under inflated), or she may simply be acculturated in a society that enforces limits upon her capacity to optimize hypergamy. All of these limiting conditions contend with her innate hypergamous impulse.
This is the primary struggle women face; managing these limiting factors in the face of a hardwired hypergamy, while facing the constant, inevitable, progression towards the Wall. Cash in too early and face the nagging doubt she could’ve consolidated with a better man’s commitment. Cash in too late and live with the consequences of settling for the man her looks, personal conditions and societal influences allowed her to consolidate on (Alpha Widows). Remember, all of this occurs within the framework of the varying personal limitations (or benefits) she has a capacity for.
Hypergamy Unbound
One common misunderstanding I think most guys have about hypergamy is that it requires a constant attention. Most MGTOWs follow this logic to some degree, thinking that the effort necessary to contain women’s hypergamy means this endless mindreading and jumping through vaginal hoops in order to maintain some balance and harmony in any relationship with a woman. They think the pay off isn’t worth the effort, and by their individual case they may be correct, but what they don’t account for is the natural balance between the genders that is already existent. Hypergamy is far easier to contain the less a woman is able to capitalize on it.
Imposing limitations on women’s hypergamy is really a matter of application. Why is our reflexive response to label possessive men as ‘insecure’? Because underneath his overt controlling we believe a man lacks the capacity to inspire genuine desire in his woman, thus prompting her to self-regulate her own hypergamy. Yet, we still consider Mate Guarding to be wise in a measured application. So there you have the line in controlling hypergamy – like virtually anything else in Game, apply it overtly and you appear ‘insecure’, apply it covertly and you seem confident and in control.
To really grasp this you have to also take into account the Alpha/Beta response dynamic. Women’s hypergamy will predispose even the woman with the most secure attachement to her mate to shit test him. When men become aware of this their rational minds see it as insecurity and a nuisance that they will constantly have to deal with. However, nature has engineered into our own psyches the means to deal with these tests in ways we’re not really aware of. I’ve experienced even the most beta of men put their foot down after a particularly mean shit test and basically tell their wives or GFs to STFU. It came from exasperation, but that provokation and the response their woman got for it was exactly passing the test. They didn’t realize they were doing it, they were just pissed, lost their temper and later maybe apologized for acting so brash, but this was exactly what their women’s hypergamy needed to confirm that he isn’t a pushover.
Mate guarding is another of these subliminal efforts to contain hypergamy. Most (generally beta) men don’t realize that they are manifesting mate guarding behaviors at exactly the time his woman is ovulating and more aroused by the sperm of the unfamiliar Alpha. Her disposition manifests in behavioral cues that his evolved psyche registers and reflexively triggers his own subconscious mate guarding behaviors – all in a naturalized effort to contain her innate hypergamy. Nature is already aware of hypergamy and has evolved contingencies to limit it.
Another aspect of limiting hypergamy is the inter-sexual competition women subject each other to in the sexual marketplace. Amongst women, hypergamy is essentially a race to the top. The higher value resources (high SMV men) drive down the cost (effort) for the lower value ones. The highest value men cascade down in value by the frequency of lower value men, but hypergamy doesn’t seek its own level, it always defaults to a better optimization. For a woman, the biological jackpot is to secure a commitment of genetics and resources from a mate who registers higher than herself in SMV valuation.
The very nature of hypergamy has a culling effect amongst women. As if the pressures to optimize hypergamy weren’t urgent enough in the light of her personal conditions and the impending Wall, add to this an unforgiving inter-sexual competition that mitigates hypergamy.
Thwarting Nature
If a guy swings drastically toward the beta chump side of the bell curve, this may well trigger a new self-perception for a woman and reinvigorate her hypergamous impulse. Likewise social media is contributing to new generations of women who lack a realistic self-image with regard to SMV and thus a false perception of their capacity to optimize their hypergamy. Women’s overinflated sense of SMV and all the contributing factors to it is a manosphere meme now. All of these factors and more upset the balance of the feminine imperative with the masculine and demand new social and psychological adaptations
Many a manosphere commenter will tell you how unbound women’s hypergamous nature has become since the rise of feminism, fem-centrism and the multi-generational push to feminize every aspect of western culture. While it’s true that hypergamy doesn’t care, and many a man suffers the unprepared consequences of outdated expectations of relational equity, I don’t believe the cultural shift towards the primacy of the feminine imperative is the doom of modern society.
To be sure the sexual revolution and feminine-ubiquitous hormonal birth control has radically shifted primacy to the feminine imperative and its prime directive of hypergamy, but what this means is a readjustment of the masculine imperative is now necessary. With the rise of the internet and the meta Game that is the manosphere I think we’re seeing this adjustment in its beginnings. In our past, society and nature evolved ways to contain hypergamy in ways we’re only peripherally aware of today, but they were serviceable contingencies that kept hypergamy in check. That balance will return eventually, either by men opting out of the traditional measures or women coming to a generational realization of the predicament unbridled hypergamy and the consequences of the falsehoods fem-centrism has brought to their mothers and grandmothers.