Clicks on flashlight and points upwards into face…
Betaization – The Alpha lone wolf naturally studly male meets girl. Mr. Alpha likes girl, seduces girl. Alpha and girl move in together and have lots of hot sex together. Girl pouts. Marriage happens. Sex decreases and girl starts bossing the male around. Pretty soon he’s her bitch and for all intents and purposes may as well be locked into a CB3000 The transformation from Alpha to Beta Male is complete.
The full ghost story version then progresses to whatever mixture of terror the individual story teller most identifies with; cuckolding, divorce, child support, alimony or how discovering her shrieking in pleasure under her lover both devastated him and turned him on.
Scared? Well you both should and shouldn’t be. There is an element of ghost story in there, but also an element of truth as well. Accepting that that dynamic seems to generally happen to some degree, the real question is why it happens.
My feeling is that multiple factors are at work here, and that Betaization is a cluster of symptoms rather than one simple factor.
Testosterone Decrease – In married men testosterone decreases 20% compared to single men, and then decreases even further to 50% once a baby enters the picture. Testosterone is the dangerous edgy risk taking Alpha Male hormone. It actually makes a lot of sense for testosterone to decrease in married men. Much of young male risk taking behavior is an effort to actually attract a willing female partner. I mean lets be honest here, we’ve all done a few extremely dangerous and/or stupid things to attract female attention at some point in our life. (Those of you currently in arm slings don’t have to raise your hand.)
Having actually achieved a willing female partner the need to continue risking life and limb is no longer in our best interests. From a Time Before Writing point of view, there’s no point dying or getting seriously injured and not being able to pump your willing female full of semen. So we take it down a notch. When baby comes along we’re even further into the reproduction game and we can reduce risk taking further as the sexual strategy is paying off. Plus aggressive daddies are slightly dangerous to baby, and being a little safer with baby is generally good. (Even so, fathers play much rougher with kids than mothers do and that is probably both social and biologically based)
So a good deal of that aggressive, physical, Alpha based aspect to personality actually switches off to some degree because of the males own Body Agenda – not because of something the female is doing to the male.
Oxytocin Increase – Welcome to Pair Bonding 101. Touch and especially sexual touch and very extra especially orgasm results in oxytocin increases in your system. Oxytocin is the hormone that just gives you the cuddly-wuddlies. (Cuddly-Wuddlies is the technical term.)
Women have naturally higher levels of oxytocin hence their generally more nurturing outlook, plus it has a multitude of other effects on women include lactation and uterine contractions for childbirth and it’s closely related to the ability to have an orgasm (in both sexes). For men though it gives us the Cuddly-Wuddlies and huge spikes of it (orgasm!) makes us want to either “take a nap” or “flee the scene”. Seriously, it can do both. This explains 99% of male post-coital behavior. Isn’t science fun.
Oxytocin is a strange little drug. Most drugs require ever increasing doses to get the same initial effect. Oxytocin seems to become magically more sensitive the more you get of it. From
“Binghamton University psychology professor Diane Witt says that since the release of oxytocin can be classically conditioned, after repeatedly having sex with the same partner, just seeing that partner could release more oxytocin, making you want to be with that person all the more.”
So this is where the pair bond comes from. Incidentally, oxytocin is the reason physical touch escalation is so effective in PUA Gaming. Constant touching releases oxytocin in the person touched and enough of a oxytocin spike can result in… a testosterone surge kick starting the sex drive.
And again it has to be noted, the whole oxytocin thing is because of the male’s own Body Agenda – not because of something the female is doing to the male. These effects are what naturally happens when you repeatedly have sex with the same woman. There is on a biological level no such thing as casual sex.
The third factor in Betaization is pregnancy and child birth. Now imagine you actually have a new born and or a few other kids. That less risk taking Daddy is going to continue to provide for the young into the future much better than a dare devil crazy Daddy will. And all those Cuddly-Wuddlies are going to be just great for child raising and attention. It’s still typically a more physically playful interaction, but women just love seeing men playing with kids and get serious gina tingle from watching it.
Now toss some modern birth control into the picture… You’ve been with Miss Sweet Young Thing for a couple of years now and “you’re just not ready for kids”… except no one told your Body Agenda… and your testosterone has stepped down a little and you’ve got the Cuddly-Wuddlies…
… so you naturally Cuddly-Wuddly on her. She doesn’t hate it, but it doesn’t turn her on.
And that’s how you get Betaized by your own frakking body. The woman does very little to cause it, but she does change in how she reacts to you because you have changed. When you stop the more Alpha Traits and simply exchange them for Beta ones you net a loss of attraction in exchange for a gain in comfort. A heartless pure Alpha that has no ability to bond with the woman loses her because he can’t create comfort. Switching into a pure Beta Male role you lose her because you can’t create attraction. Remember you need BOTH Alpha and Beta skills in a LTR. Seriously read that linked post, it’s key.
Tomorrow – What to do about it.