When a famous rapper writes lyrics about fucking a new girl every night, no one bats an eyelash. In fact, in many cases women are these rappers' biggest fans. Why is it then, that when a scientist wears a mildly provocative shirt, he gets lambasted by the media as a creepy misogynist?

(Article about the shirt- http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-shirtstorm-rosetta-scientist-matt-taylor-shirt-20141118-story.html)

When Aziz Ansari was mildly pushy on a date, society decried him as a sexual deviant who should face sexual assault charges. Yet, that same society has no problem giving Floyd Mayweather a multi-hundred-million-dollar payday, even though he's been convicted of assaulting his wife in the past.

Mayweather, who owns a strip club and lives a frat boy lifestyle well into his 40s, is deified, while Ansari is demonized (even though he did nothing illegal).

Why is it that society has such a double-standard? Why do we treat certain men as gods, no matter what they do, but we treat other men as the scum of the earth when they do something mildly offensive? Because of beta male shaming.

 

Beta Male Shaming

 

Beta male shaming is a gut instinct that causes us to treat men completely differently when we categorize them as alpha males versus when we categorize them as beta males.

When Trump brags, "Grab 'em right by the pussy," he gets elected president a few weeks later, but when Al Franken simply kisses a woman in a way that made her uncomfortable, he ends up losing his job.

Trump is an alpha male, Franken is a beta male. The categorization is unconscious and obvious, we all instinctually know that Mayweather is an alpha male, and Ansari is a beta male. We all know that rapper G-Eazy is an alpha male, and the "shameful" shirt wearing scientist, Matt Taylor, is a beta male. And we treat these men completely differently because of their categorization as alpha or beta.

Although this beta male shaming instinct has interesting implications for celebrities, it has much more concerning implications for us as individuals.

Most of us guys have been categorized as beta males throughout our lives, and thus we've been subjected to the same shame that Aziz Ansari and Al Franken recently faced.

The consequences of this are vast. In fact, beta male shaming is a major factor in most men's struggles with attracting women.

Understanding how beta male shaming has affected you personally can help you realize that many of your beliefs and feelings about sexuality are based on beta male shaming and aren't a genuine part of who you are.

 

Me, The Beta Male

 

When I was sixteen, I was at a new year's party sitting next to my high school crush, Cindy. Cindy was a tall, slender, red headed model, I was a shy, awkward nerdy kid.

When she leaned in to give me a new year’s kiss, I didn't know how to process what was happening. So, I acted on instinct. By that, I mean I turned away from Cindy and literally ran out of the party.

I avoided Cindy for weeks after that incident. I didn't really believe she wanted to kiss me, I figured that it was a prank of some kind. I didn't see myself as sexually desirable in any way, so when a girl leaned in to kiss me, I panicked.

When I was in my teens, I got uncomfortable whenever my friends talked about sex, I felt guilty about watching porn, and I was afraid that if I made a move on a girl I liked, it would offend her more than excite her.

I wasn't ashamed about sex because I was religious- my family was atheistic. And I also wasn't ashamed about sex because of some traumatic experience I had. No, I was ashamed about sex simply because I was a beta male, and people had the same gut reaction towards me that they had towards Aziz Ansari and Al Franken.

An Unconscious Bias

Unconsciously, I learned to be ashamed of my sexuality, and to fear facing consequences if I were to do anything bold or assertive with a woman. Beta male shaming helped shape my behavior to be in line with what is expected of a beta male. I was timid and afraid of sex.

We evolved to shame beta males because as a species, we survive best when alpha males pass on their genes and beta males don't. Although our society is vastly different than it was hundreds of thousands of years ago when our brains evolved, that unconscious bias against beta males doing anything sexual (outside of a long-term relationship) persists.

If you are a beta male, people treat you differently; women treat you differently. You learn to be afraid of rejection, you learn to keep your sexual desires to yourself, and you learn that your best chance for sexual success is by getting in a long-term relationship with a girl in your social circle.

The way you think about sex and the way you act around both men and women is molded by this label of alpha or beta that is prescribed to you.

The determinants for being labeled as alpha or beta are complicated: your upbringing, your genetics, and a variety of environmental factors all play a role.

You probably know which of those categories (alpha or beta) you belonged to growing up, and which you belong to now. It should be obvious based on your life experiences.

 

The Power to Change

 

There is a bright side to this phenomenon. As humans, our status is flexible, so even if you've spent your entire life labeled a beta-male, you can still change and become an alpha male.

Research has shown that when men get a promotion, their serotonin levels also increase. This shows that status is something that is deeply flexible.

I've experienced this in my own life. When I learned game, I started as a guy who was definitively identified as a beta male.

It was a struggle at first, I got labeled a creep. Hell, I even got 86'd from a bar just for making a sexual comment about a girl.

But, over time, by approaching women, learning to assert myself, and becoming increasingly confident, people began to make different assumptions about who I was, and women started treating me vastly differently.

Just last night I was out at a club and an attractive girl approached me, started asking me questions, and within about ten minutes leaned in to make out with me before she led me out the back door of the bar to the alleyway for some more "intimacy".

Things like that didn't use to happen to me, and now they happen quite frequently. Now, women treat me like a sex object, whereas before they treated me like a harmless little boy.

(You might be thinking that I've gotten better looking and this is why I get better responses, but if anything, my level of physical attractiveness has gone downhill. Back when I was scared to kiss a girl I was in athletic shape, now I'm about 20-pounds overweight.)

Women treat me differently because they can sense that I'm an alpha male, they can just feel it, the same way that you can feel when a woman wants you to kiss her.

 

Conclusion- Beta-male shaming

 

Beta-male shaming is a big part of the reason that game is so hard to learn. In my teens, I was ashamed that I was even learning game. I thought learning how to have sex with women was immoral and wrong (because I was a beta male).

When you've lived your life as a beta male, it feels like learning game is pointless, you're just not attractive to women, so why even try? It feels like game is creepy, "Who would put effort into learning to sleep with girls, that’s fucking weird." And it feels like approaching women is doing them a disservice, "I don't want to bother her."

Here's the important question: Are all these beliefs about sex and game that we have the result of some genuine value we share, or are they because we have been subject to beta-male shaming?

Maybe when we think we're unattractive, it's because of beta-male shaming. Maybe when we think it's creepy to learn game, it's because of beta-male shaming. And maybe, we're afraid that approaching a woman will bother her because of beta male shaming.

If that's the case, wouldn't we be doing ourselves a disservice to let a label - beta male - determine the quality of our sex life? Wouldn't it make sense to defy the loser identity that society wants us to accept?

Just some food for thought.