There is no such thing as an alpha wolf

[lliira]

I just found this out! http://io9.com/why-everything-you-know-about-wolf-packs-is-wrong-502754629

Wolves live in families. So-called "alphas" are actually just parents, and they "dominate" their pups the way the parents of any species "dominate" their children. I am fascinated (and happy) to find this out, because I bought into the "alpha" stuff, and of course I shall be referring to it when I discuss LKH and her biology degree and her calender research again. Also, all the werewolf books I know about that purport to be based on that outdated alpha wolf research write males as far more "alpha" within werewolf society, purportedly because of wolfiness; but even said outdated research did not claim alpha male wolves outranked alpha female wolves. There is obviously Something Going On among the urban fantasy writers and readers who enjoy this myth, and it's not love of wolves.

Comments

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Yup! I don’t mind per se if werewolves are running on the Alpha/Beta/Omega system if they are, like the wolves in the experiment, a bunch of strangers thrown together by circumstance rather than a family in the wild like most real wolf packs. But I *do* mind if this isn’t acknowledged, and especially if it is instead presented as being ‘how real wolves really behave’ which is indeed bollocks, as you know now.

And yes, ugh, fucking hate the gross gendered shit. It’s just an excuse, in my experience, for ‘romance’ of dubious consent, unacceptable behavior, and of course the typical UF ‘female exceptionalism’ where the heroine is the one woman who is better than all the rest for no real reason. It’s one of the big reasons I just couldn’t get in to the first book of the Mercy Thompson series.

[lliira]

I had no idea that this was reality until I followed a link from a comment on a totally unrelated blog. (Some MRA jackholes were bloviating about "alpha" shit in the grossest possible way and a woman linked this... which of course didn't stop their bloviating, because they were paying no attention whatsoever to anyone with a feminine screenname.)

I can kind of understand how the group of women drawn to rape fantasies and the group of women drawn to werewolves might have a greater-than-chance overlap. Werewolves are dangerous, after all. But I hate hate hate stories in which the rape isn't clearly labeled as rape, in which it's seen as okay, as I've already gone on about way too many times as it pisses me off royally. And urban fantasy is crammed to the gills with it. I also don't understand why the rape fantasies in urban fantasy I've seen always have as a necessary element that ALL women are lesser than ALL men, except for the Exceptional Heroine of course. It's pure Gor without the honesty. And that isn't at all a necessary component of rape fantasy. A character squashing another character who is severely outmatched below their heel isn't something I find interesting in the slightest, let alone sexy.

[guardians_song]

Yep. Namely the... strange... joy of being abused, violated, and dominated by some UberManly asshole while simultaneously being higher-ranking than all those other peons.

It's really the same shit that's in Twilight, 50SOG, and probably shittons of non-paranormal romance novels. The popularity of the narcissistic desire to put everyone else down at least makes sense from a cynical perspective. It's the popularity of being abused that doesn't make sense to me.

[lliira]

I don't get it either, and I enjoy BDSM and rape fantasies. I think maybe I don't get it even more because of those things. IDK, it's just entirely weird to me.