Sounds like the sort of person who expects the courtship to match RomCom tropes to a T, decided that prom was the "most important" night of her life, lives life on social media so she can craft a narrative of success and "personal responsibility" and chastises anyone who doesn't follow her path in every way or through birth and circumstance has to take either a different route around things or is made happy by things she can't abide by.

So very miserable, I wish there was anything a person could tell the LW but if it wasn't the Cialis, it'd be an assortment of other false metrics she lives life by to bludgeon everyone around her (not that she could live up to any of her absolutist standards.)

Don't have kids with someone who doesn't respect you :(

Great answer, Dan.
Initially, I thought this was about the wife's insecurity that she wasn't "enough"to get her husband hard, but it sounds as if there's something much deeper and more problematic involved.

As far as I'm concerned, Cialis and Viagra are the best things ever and since I date men in my own middle-aged age group, I'm very grateful to them. Yet so many women seem to see them as a referendum on their own attractiveness. They get offended if their partner needs to use a pill but I can only assume that they accommodate their own aging bodies' needs and use lube if it's required to make sex feel good. I recently had sex with a 53-y/o guy who felt compelled to assure me that his hard-on was "100% natural, no Viagra required." I wasn't sure if he was bragging about not needing it (yet) or assuring me of my attractiveness (I think it was the former). I said i was happy if he was happy about that, but that I really don't care how a dick gets hard, so long as it is hard enough to have fun with. Better living through chemistry, I say!

DTMFA. D! T! M-F-A!!!

"Now about your kids: If they have issues—medical or psychological issues—and would benefit from treatment and/or medications that they're not getting because your wife is an irrational asshole, DIVORCE YOUR GODDAM DAMN WIFE, go for custody, get your kids they help and meds they need, SAD, and get yourself a girlfriend who appreciates hard cock and modern medicine."

When. Not "if." WHEN.

Divorce isn't the magic cure in order to get children the medical treatment they need. I divorced my terrible first husband when our daughter was a baby. Years later she showed severe symptoms of ADHD. He was able to block cognitive behavioral therapy to help my daughter learn to manage her ADHD. He will also block her ever trying any medication at all not matter the academic consequences for my daughter.

Hello LW, here's the deal. Your wife is hurting your feelings and your sex life is not good enough but you are grown and can take steps, or at least talk about it.

Your children are children, actively growing and developing, and untreated conditions are affecting them RIGHT NOW and they are powerless to do anything about it.
Would she not let them wear glasses if they couldn't see? Not get cavities filled? Not cast a broken leg? This is no different.
And who cares what side of the family it 'came from'? My guess is she has tried to insult you by saying your children's deficits are your fault. Who cares?
You are their parent.
Don't wait for a divorce, get them the help they need, RIGHT NOW.
Do it, pick your kids up from school and take them to whom they need to go, talk to their teachers and coaches, fill their prescriptions.
Not getting them the help they need may have forever consequences. And boy may you regret it. Stop being passive to an asshole/insane person.

This seems like an excerpt from a lost manuscript of the sequel to Jane Eyre.

@4 I'm so sorry that you haven't been able to get your daughter the care she needs.
Is your ex blocking insurance, or what? I can't imagine that he can legally block you from getting your daughter medical help if you have even partial custody. My ex tried that with my son, and we were in court within the week. I had backing from the school and the pediatrician. The judge noted that I'd always had the right to have my son treated, and warned the ex off of pestering the Dr.

Similarly, LW, you can and may take your kids to the Dr without getting your wife's permission. So DO it. The kids need you as their advocate.

Marriage counseling before divorce while being honest with your wife.
And independent trip to a doctor for the kids while being as dishonest as necessary to get them the medical treatment they need even before divorce.

@9. In most states, the family law judges change all the time. That means you could try again, and it might be worth it. I had a friend with a similar situation and it took three times in court but she finally got medical decision making. Good luck.

Yikes. I am 66 and feel as if I may be one of the older listeners / readers, and this letter hits home more than anything so far. In our house, we have resigned ourselves to being a little less spontaneous than back in the day, because I have to take a pill. She doesn't shame me over it, though, just as I would never mention how she doesn't get wet like back in the day (she's 63). She knows I always want her, even though it's a different party if something unplanned starts -- likely not a piv party. I should also point out that I get generic Cialis from Mumbai for under $2 per pill. It works, and the "waste a pill" problem becomes moot.

George Burns has said: Sex after 60 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.

Can't address the asshole wife, but I have a hot money saving tip....

Cialis is super expensive, and viagra (Sildenafil) until recently was even more expensive. But Sildenafil just became available as a generic, and it is cheeeeeeep now. Viagra doesn't work for everyone, but perhaps the LW should ask his doc for a prescription to generic Sildenafil. I recall it being something like 5% of the cost that it used to be. Cheap boners for everyone!

LW I'm horrified your more annoyed about your boner then worried about your kids. Your wife has already shown she's willing to hurt you and them to nurture her belifes, do you children have to die for you to realize you need to end this?

Divorce now. Get a good lawyer, get custody, make it clear their Mom is a danger to their well being and find a woman who doesn't care about boner pills.

Biology is brutal and unfair. All functional adults know this.

I agree with what everybody wants, but talk to a family law specialist to find your best strategy and what you can likely get. Sometimes family law is shitty, and you should have a plan going in. And don't listen to anybody who's not a practitioner in your state.

Forget the pills for a moment. It's a complete asshole maneuver on general principles to promise date night and then yank it on a last minute excuse, or swap out for Family Movie Night. Pills or no pills. (That said, I'd be willing to bet she is doing it on purpose to burn up your pill supply because she's so goddamned opposed to medical help.)

Tell her she has to cut that shit out right fucking now. The technical term for what she is doing to her date (i.e., you) is standing you up, and you won't stand for it. In non-marriage relationships doing that more than once or twice is grounds for getting dumped. Next time she pulls that shit, tell her that she can stay home with the kids and the babysitter if she wants, but you were planning to have date night, and if she won't go you will have it with someone else.

msa @13 He probably isn't more annoyed about his boner than worried about his kids. He is writing to a sex advice columnist so he asks about the sex problems in this particular letter.

Wonder if she's an antivaxer too.

Emma @17: That was my first thought. I sure hope these kids have been vaccinated!

As a middle school teacher and a natural birth proponent (when it's safe), I want to add a couple of suggestions besides divorce:

A lot of women who want natural births see C-sections as a "failure" and blame themselves (and, in this case, the husband). My friend has struggled with PTSD from her birth for the past year and is seeing a therapist. Has SAD's wife talked to anyone about the experience? Friends or professionals? A professional may help her process the birth and related attitudes towards medical intervention. Of course, she may resist a therapist for the same reasons, but the midwife may be able to refer someone.

Secondly, as a teacher I can say that it often takes YEARS for parents to try medication for their kids. SAD didn't say much besides, "Both of our kids have issues—including some bad OCD from my side of the family—that could possibly be helped with psychiatric medications but she is dead set against considering that option." How long have these issues been known? Have you worked with psychiatrists and teachers who are documenting everything? Maybe his wife is blaming herself for these issues too and would see medication as further acknowledgement of her "failures." Parents often resist because they're dealing with their own guilt and childhood issues. Does she have a history of mental illness? It can take a lot of feedback from a lot of people. If your kids are in school, they may be happy to work with you to give your wife the feedback that she'll listen to the most. If she cares about disciplinary action, teachers could send a behavior report every week. (We were doing this for one boy who was really suffering from unaddressed issues.) Even then, it may take a long time.

Thanks for the information about courts--I didn't know that was an option and will keep that in mind now!

@4 has a good point about divorce not solving the problem of the children's medical treatment. LW will get much more traction with murder. And if the victim refuses medical treatment, it can't even be that hard.

It's a little weird that he had to e-mail his own wife over a personal issue... but yeah, she sounds like an controlling soul-sucker. I can readily imagine that LW has to walk on eggshells over a myriad of issues, not merely some specific medical ones. I dated someone who insisted that I respond in specific ways in response to her boorish behavior, and that anything less than complete support and backing was a betrayal. I'd bet donuts over dollars that wife accuses LW of not being attracted to her, doesn't like it when he spends any social time apart from her (including before-kids time), and a bunch of other controlling behaviors.

"Women do not understand that erections are delicate things. They come, and they go. A women will stand there, yelling at you, 'Get it up! Get it up! Get that goddam thing up!'

"Well, guys, do not stand for it. Retaliate. Tell her to get those nipples up! Get 'em up! Get 'em up! Get those goddam things up!"

~ some stand-up comic in the '80s

When I was in grad school back in the 80's, my officemate was surprised when she complained to our academic advisor about a lack of research ideas, and the advisor said, "Ideas are like erections; if you think about them too hard, they go away again." :-)

In the absence of Aunt Zelda I take it upon myself to nominate Undead @ 1 to the “comment of the thread” award.

@ 23
What could pass as a joke in the 80's may be considered harassment nowadays.
Being the whiner that I am someone told me years ago while maintaining a philosophical look on his face: “Life is not a penis- it’s always hard!”

The second-best advice columnist (besides Dan) Carolyn Hax addressed similar questions -
http://www.chron.com/lifestyle/advice/ar…

I went over my so's head and put my kid on medication for ADHD. It runs in my family and the shrink who evaluated her called it cold. While so was unhappy, he realized what a positive effect it was on her.

I do NOT recommend doing it that way. I think I'd have a conversation with a counselor or a psychiatrist specializing in kids with her present. I'd also recommend some impassioned discussion of what you struggled with for years. My so changed directions when brought face to face with the consequences of ADHD in my family.

BiDanFan, I ordinarily wouldn't respond, but the assertion you made to HUSBAND's letter in the Respect column can not go unchallenged. Specifically, Only fools use the terms "alpha male" and "beta male". Disregarding the implied personal insult, your comment displays not only bias, but more importantly ignorance. In making that statement you are calling the entire academic/professional community fools. A simple Google search will disabuse you of your ignorance. I don't mind being corrected when I'm wrong or ignorant. I don't even mind being insulted by informed individuals, but before you use pejorative language make sure that you know what you are talking about. Such a benighted statement calls in to question any comment you make, even when you are entirely correct. This is the type of comment I would expect from the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania (ITMFA), I expect much more of you.

Even when I have disagreed with them, most of the time I have found your comments to be interesting and at times informative.

Dark Horse, I suspect that any woman who would shame other women for having C-sections (often enough a matter of life or death) would be unmoved by even the most impassioned testimony on the effects of ADHD - which she may not even believe is a real thing.

LW - I can testify from a woman's perspective that it can be very discouraging when the man you are having sex with doesn't get/loses his erection. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that he doesn't find you as sexually attractive as he used to do. I think a typical woman could worry about losing her appeal, or get mad that her man is losing his virility, or both, which makes sex a higher stakes proposition. Your wife seems both more judgy and more passive-aggressive than the typical woman, leading to the unpleasant situation you describe.

A variety of sexual activities appeal to me, and I can climax with or without piv, but I was pretty taken aback when my sweetie of a couple years standing began losing his erection during sex. He gently pointed out that I was not getting as wet as I used to, either, and that he was not taking me to task for that. I had not even considered these two things to be in the same realm. Not getting wet had nothing to do with whether I wanted him or not - at least 98% of the time, I said. The same was true for him and his dick, he responded. It has taken a few rounds of that conversation for me to relax and trust in our mutual attraction (supplemented by some nice silicon lube, patience, and variations in technique). We tried boner pills a couple of times, but so far prefer to go the lube/patience/variation route.

Your wife seems pretty stuck in her philosophy, though, and it's manifesting in a bunch of unhealthy ways - for you, for her and for the children. I think all the members of your family would benefit from some counseling and/or medical help.

Omly @27: "Beta male" is pejorative language. I bet the current occupant of the White House uses such language on a daily basis. And I appreciate the compliments, but they won't make me show respect for people who use such misogynistic terms. (How is "beta male" misogynistic, you may ask? It implies that some men are weaker than others. It reinforces the patriarchal premise that men must always be competing, not co-operating, and that men have the right to revoke other men's "man cards" by asserting they are "less manly," ie more feminine, and any "feminine" characteristics are Bad, which is misogynistic.)

I do not believe in gender essentialism, yes that is my bias and I stand by it. I judge people as individuals. I do not mark them down as alpha or beta, more or less worthy.

To give you the benefit of the doubt, I did google "alpha male in scientific research" and the top results are:
Are Alpha Males a Myth or a Reality? (Psychology Today)
Do alpha males even exist?
A Cultural History of the 'Alpha Male' Concept
The Myth of the Alpha Male
Is the Alpha Male a Myth?

So, clearly, there is no consensus in the scientific community, the way there is in the MRA community.

If you accept the concept of "alpha" and "beta" males, it follows that your self esteem will suffer if you see yourself as a "beta" male. Which means you'll probably spend at least some of your time trying to be seen as "alpha," activities which could include aggression, attempts to seduce other men's partners, attempts to (unsafely) have sex with multiple women not because you want to, but to prove your "manliness." The concept of the "alpha male" is toxic and the sooner the general public follows the scientific community is questioning it, the happier we will all be.

(Top Google hit for anyone interested: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hea…)

[Test to see if my previous post has posted]

I have only ever heard men use the "alpha" and "beta" distinctions and it is almost always wrapped up in PUA language or MRA stuff.

Here are the top 4 hits I got when I googled "alpha males":

Alpha Male Characteristics - To Be Alpha
tobealpha.com/alpha-male-characteristics…
You can become alpha. But first you need to know what an alpha male is. The problem most men and women that want to be alpha face is a lack of knowledge ...

Signs You're Not An Alpha Male - AskMen
www.askmen.com/top_10/dating/top-10-sign…
Jun 9, 2016 - Women want to go out with them. They're alpha males. An alpha male has certain unmistakable characteristics. A natural leader, he is a pack-builder. He leads, provides for and protects his pack (his significant other, his buddies, his teammates, and so on).

10 Qualities Every Alpha Male Should Look For In A Girlfriend
elitedaily.com/dating/10-qualities-every…
Mar 23, 2015 - Finding an ideal girlfriend is never easy... but for alpha males, it's even more difficult.

25 Characteristics of an Alpha Male - Chad Howse Fitness
chadhowsefitness.com/2012/11/25-characte…
Nov 1, 2012 - Characteristics of a Real Man. The Alpha Male, the real man, a man's man, a warrior, a stand-up guy. It doesn't matter what you call him, he's a leader, the guy others look to for motivation, inspiration, and often with a hint of jealousy. He's the man women want, without inention the center of attention.

Here's what I got when I googled "beta males" (interestingly, the site tobealpha.com came up in the top 4 positions more than once):

Urban Dictionary: beta male
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=…
Pete knew he was losing the girl he'd just met at the bar to the guy who bought her a drink, but he was too much of a beta male to do anythigng about it.

What Is A Beta Male? - To Be Alpha
tobealpha.com/what-is-a-beta-male/
Beta males usually lack an alpha mentor like a father figure or a good role model. The masculine father figure was replaced by a women that raised her boy into a beta male. This caused boys growing into men to believe that a women's definition of a man was right. And any other idea of a man was wrong.

Alpha vs Beta Males - To Be Alpha
tobealpha.com/alpha-vs-beta-males/
A common question To Be Alpha gets is “What is the difference between an alpha and beta male?” To a lot of people that don't know the characteristics of an alpha male or the traits of a beta male, they assume an alpha male is just a jock or a jerk.

Beta Male Traits and Characteristics - The Popular Man
thepopularman.com/beta-male-traits-and-c…
Apr 4, 2017 - Most beta males are passive or passive-aggressive. They take insults or criticism lying down. They will tell a woman everything is “fine” when it ...

Beta male (slang) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_male_…
Beta male, or simply beta, is a term for men perceived as weak and emasculated. The term has been frequently used in manospheres and was later adopted by ...

So no, no scientific credence to alpha and beta males, at least where humans are concerned. If you're talking dogs or wolves or baboons, or lions, or other non-human mammals that live in social organizations, that's another story.

@27 Omly, echoing others, the only academic context I have seen "Alpha male" used as a scientific term in is studies of some species of pack animals. And there, "alpha" doesn't refer to a personality type, but to a position that can only be occupied by one animal - or animal couple - at a time.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the professional community", but the only group I've seen use "alpha male" and "beta male" for professional purposes are people who make a living writing for the PUA community, with occasional overlaps into MRA and MGTOW.

Rather than argue about if Alpha/Betas exist, let's just accept that aggressively assertive men exist, and passive men exist.

@34 As do Slytherins, Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs.

It's easy to tell the difference. True alphas wear fedoras. Wannabe alphas who are merely betas wear trilbys.

There are alpha males in wolf packs. And betas. It's a thing. With wolves.

People--although still mammals, and subject to a lot of the same bullshit (more than many of us think, in my opinion)--are a bit more nuanced. It's that pesky frontal lobe.

About the letter--two things. One, it sounds to me like the wife is over sex, and using various passive-aggressive tactics to avoid having it, including avoiding it, and making him feel bad about it when they do have sex (since she knows a pill was involved).

Two: I'm a big fan of modern medicine, but it's also real that a lot of it is overused and people are not sufficiently aware of side-effects. We've gotten to where we think you can fix anything that isn't quite right with the right drugs, and it's not true. Again, this is my opinion, but brains are hella complicated, and growing brains even more so; medicating your kids for psychological issues should be something you do when you feel you absolutely have to, not because it "might help."

Doesn't mean the wife's not a bitch.

I just want to know what insurance the guy has that'll PAY for Cialis. Mine won't. Even the otherwise gold-plated Microsoft insurance my wife had before she quit didn't: it was out of pocket, baby.

And @37, as for the kids, I think it's a case of "moderation in all things", right? Don't stuff meds in kids on spec, but also don't rule out the possibility entirely. Have the evaluated by a qualified child psychiatrist or several, and go from there. But if spousal unit is opposed to any sort of treatment a priori, that's a problem.

This family unit sounds like it has broken down. Wife avoids sex with husband, who has ed @49, and kids are jumping all over the place because the parents are hiding from each other.
Truth time LW. Call your wife on her date night bull, tell her to stop messing with your head.
I'm with ciods@37 on this one. There seems to be such a heavy reliance on medications, that people forget the body is a very delicate machine. Especially the bodies of children. Check for other variables before jumping straight to the meds.
In this situation, maybe the parents need to get away for a date weekend. Leave the kids with babysitter/ relative. And find a way to meet each other erotically, again.

@29

You are likely entirely correct, but considering this man communicates via email with his wife I think communication is an "issue," and perhaps a mediator can help. I tend to side with the husband on this. He seems articulate. Resorting to email due to fear of his wife's reaction is a rational decision.

In re beta-alpha stuff, I tend to shy away from biological explanations for things, especially those picked up by shitty people and puas. Such explanations turn into "just so" stories. And very damaging ones at that. After I saw all the cherry picky done mmmm in Sex at Dawn, I really turned against it. While I do think there is a biological component in our mating rituals - mate selection changes by women on birth control as an example - I think we are MILES away from anything more than a vague understanding of the biological forces. And yet those forces are trotted out to pigeon hole people into damaging social constructs. No. If there is one place we should treat people individually in our own lives, it's in relationships.

Great post Dark Horse.
Alpha is a word to describe male leaders of animal packs. Human groupings aren't so clear cut. Human male behaviour like human female behaviour is on a continuum, so variations in expressions can't be denied.
Those words Alpha and Beta, are too constricting for the abundance of ways humans live their power.

Sportlandia @34: Yes, aggressive men exist, and passive men exist. And some women prefer aggressive men, and other women prefer passive men. Just like some women prefer beards while others prefer clean-shaven. So there should be no pressure from other men to adopt personality characteristics one does not innately possess, nor to deem one characteristic as superior to the other. Instead, men should be who they are and trust that the women who appreciate those characteristics will match up with them.

Omly, are you still there, and do you have any of your so-called scientific support for such immature name-calling available for our perusal?

To follow on from @42. We live in a society where some have labelled "aggression" as "alpha" and "passivity" as "beta." No value judgments there, no sirree. Imagine if the values were reversed: if being nurturing, patient, a good listener, and compassionate made a man an "alpha" and uncontrolled aggression made a man a "beta." If only there were some way of implementing this experiment to see how society would change as a result.

I was married to a woman like this. I assumed it was narcissistic personality disorder. I'll never know - I divorced her and she killed herself. Yeah - worst case scenario, but I'm still better off not in that relationship.

This is why I get so annoyed with the folks who think all food should be organic and medicine is scary and dangerous. Technology is not always bad or always good. Nature is not always bad or always good. Using fungicides that were in use 150 years ago, like copper sulfate because old ways of doing things are more "natural" and thus more blessed than using synthetic organic (in the chemical sense, not the religious sense) fungicides is bullshit. The copper compounds are persistent and have demonstrably worse environmental and toxic risks.

The natural is good/man-made is evil religion is exactly what leads people to reject vaccines. Now we know that it also applies to boner pills and needed psychiatric medication.

How about we decide what's dangerous by scientific studies of risk instead of a faith-based system of beliefs? Smallpox, the plague, cyanide, cancer, and aflatoxin are all completely natural and can kill you. Flush toilets, psychiatric medications, vaccines, and treated water are all more or less unnatural, but they save hundreds of millions of lives.

How about I eat some corn chips made from GMO corn and you eat the seeds of a bunch of peaches, which contain cyanide, and we'll see who lives a long and healthy life?

Chuckathon, Sorry. That must have sucked.

@BiDanFan: So, clearly, there is no consensus in the scientific community

And you arrived at this conclusion by scanning the top hits of your Google search? Wow. That's not much different than concluding global warming doesn't exist because "look how cold it is outside today".

Alpha/beta is a scientific concept that describes how access to mates, resources, and social influence are distributed among the males of certain social species such as wolves, chimpanzees, and gorillas.

Take a look at the relevant science on humans, and what does it show? On aggregate, bigger, more assertive men with dominant body language and verbal communication styles have sex more frequently and with more partners, are more likely to assume positions of leadership and power, and end up with more wealth/resources than smaller, less assertive men with submissive communication styles.

Obviously, the affairs of modern humans are vastly more complicated than those of a dozen gorillas living in the mist, but alpha/beta does appear to be a real thing in humans that has statistical consequences for male reproductive fitness.

@47: Most people who defend the alpha/beta concept of human socialization start out with, "But it's a real thing in the animal world!" That is not correct. I'll let Cracked's David Christopher Bell take this one:

"The concept of an 'alpha' and 'beta' is based on a study of male wolves which theorized a pecking order to each pack. In the mid-2000s, the terminology was popularized by professional pickup artists teaching insecure men (or 'betas') how to lay women using a series of transparent tricks and manipulation techniques. In other words, it was a way to justify being an asshole by believing it was within your nature to be dominant.

"But what this group didn't realize is that when observed in the wild, there was actually no evidence of an 'alpha' or 'beta' leader in wolves -- simply a family structure like our own. The original study has since been deemed flawed because it was observing male wolves that were forced to socialize in captivity. In other words, this entire philosophy of masculinity is hilariously based off of wolf prison rules."

And that would be correct. The studies which gave rise to the alpha-beta pack structure concept have since been debunked, as they do not even remotely describe the natural social structure of wolves in the wild. From Time's article "Dog Training: Animal Experts Debunk the Alpha-Dog Myth":

"As it turns out, this research was based on a faulty premise: wolves in the wild, says L. David Mech, founder of the Minnesota-based International Wolf Center, actually live in nuclear families, not randomly assembled units, in which the mother and father are the pack leaders and their offspring's status is based on birth order. Mech, who used to ascribe to alpha-wolf theory but has reversed course in recent years, says the pack's hierarchy does not involve anyone fighting to the top of the group, because just like in a human family, the youngsters naturally follow their parents' lead."

If you want to organize your human social structures around other species', then respect your father and always obey your mother, because they're your alphas. Otherwise, just forget that nonsense completely because it's simply bullshit.

Fascinating. I've mostly seen alpha and beta males referenced in romance - talking about fictional men. I had no idea the concept was used by PUA types.

And yeah, I'm not a fan of alphaholes in fiction or reality.

(And then there's shape shifter romance, with many variations on pack structure, alphas, betas, etc. Not to mention the crazysauce alpha/omega pairings in mm shape shifter romance)

Ah, memories. You wouldn't think getting so involved with talking about sex online was my thing, but I first signed up on this comment list long ago when some sincere person made an all wrong statement about evolution and I couldn't resist setting the record straight. This wasn't a creationist provocateur. It was someone who had learned a little about how evolution works and had come to some wrong conclusions. I was howling in indignation. I see a little of the same at work now.

Cracked's David Bell is correct.

Let me back up. Most of us learn a little about genetics and evolution starting with Mendel's white and purple pea plants. The we learn about Darwin's survival of the fittest and conclude that there is one survival tactic that is best with all others falling by the way. We miss the interactions of many traits and the possibility-- actual likelihood-- of there being many survival tactics, sometimes ones that would seem to be in direct conflict with another. Maybe one in a species survives because he's the biggest and fastest and can kill more prey that way. Maybe another in the same species survives because he's the smallest and doesn't need that many calories.

Thus with the whole alpha and beta business. We on this group have talked about some guys who are the stereotypical 90 pound weakling whose wife adores him, and they have sex 10x a week, and a bunch of children, and they live happily ever after. Meanwhile there's a tall, dark, and handsome-- and muscular, confident and rich-- guy who's also getting laid a lot. These guys can BOTH be alphas according the way the word is used. Change a few details, and both these guys could be betas.

It's much safer to notice what kind of hat the guy is wearing-- fedora or trilby.

Oh, I hate those people. I have had friends tell me my husband got cancer because of his diet and I was told to take, "Chinese herbs", for my infected gallbladder. The first example was from a friend who is a Physical Therapist. The latter is a Harvard Educated environmentalist. This awful reversion with regard to medicine is infuriating. Anti-vax assholes spreading measles but they don't eat gluten! Climate change activists who are against GMO food. Environmentalists stuffing their face with bacon. A pox on all their houses.

@29 (and also LW)...it can be disappointing when a guy loses his erection, but it's also disappointing when the forecast calls for rain and you get showers for 5 minutes and that's it and you really could have used more rain (obviously I do not live in Seattle) but you're not going to bitch about only getting 5 minutes of rain. But, assuming it's not Super-Drought, you can get the hose to keep your plants happy for 3-4 days until the next forecast storm and you can do plenty of other Fun Things without a rock-hard dick. And sometimes the nitrogen from the beans/compost isn't enough and you need some fertilizer to make the garden happy/ED-drugs and lube to make the sex work out. That's just life.

IOW, LW, your wife is being an asshole. Things change. If she wants a fulfilling sex life with a partner with a nice hard dick AND she does not want you taking medications that alter your bloodflow enough to have a nice hard dick, then one way or another she will be disappointed. If she is insisting on no medication, then she doesn't get laid. Simple as that. If she balks/whines, you point out to her that you're doing what she wanted you to do, and you're respecting her stated wishes (and have a nice wank).

As for not giving your kids appropriate medical care, though, that's a "call a family counsellor" combined with "call your family doctor and ask for a consultation to discuss options." Your children are not able to make decisions for their care on your own and it's horrifying to me (a person where pediatric mental illness also runs in the family) that she point-blank refuses to give your kids appropriate care.

@51 Chrissycrunch, Crisse sur la Calisse de l'osti du fucking tabarnak I HATE those people.

I hate them in all their forms. "Well, if you would just eat right and exercise and lose weight, you won't need XXX medication." Oh really? I do eat well and I just rode my bicycle 70 miles yesterday (when some of these folks can't even ride 7 miles without falling off) and my weight is between me and my doctor and please tell me again how eating right and exercising will make me not need an Epi-pen? Tell me how diet and exercise will make my immune system not mistake something mundane for mortal poison. Tell me how if only I spend 30 minutes at the gym 4 times a week and eat more vegetables that I won't need this lifesaving medication. Tell m. I dearly want to know.

Touché Fichu @50.
Western medicine has been/ is miraculous, who here is saying otherwise?
I've used western and eastern medicine in my life, and feel very thankful for both. Obviously we have to use our common sense and medical practitioners' knowledge re our health and our children's health, and what approaches to use and where.

what approaches to use and when.

Western medicine is absolutely fantastic--for catastrophic medical situations. You have a brain tumor? Hell yes, get that thing out. You need a C-section? Hell yes, do it. But if you have slightly high blood pressure, or a tendency to feel plooky right before your period--these things probably don't need medication, and yet drug companies have a huge incentive to make us think they do, and to downplay (or outright lie) about the side-effects, often worse than the thing they claim to cure. To pretend that medicine isn't a billion-dollar industry, with all the resultant interest in manipulating us, is just as blind as thinking veggies will fix cancer.

Again, I'm totally for western medicine a lot of the time. But you know that thing about seeing everything as a nail when all you have is a hammer? My issue with our current medical system is basically that.

Just to be clear, slinky, a tendency to go into anaphylactic shock is exactly what I mean by "catastrophic medical situations". Epi-pens absolutely ftw.

P.P.S. Vaccinations are also awesome.

Woof @47: I was testing Omly's challenge @27 that "A simple Google search will disabuse you of your ignorance."
Unsurprisingly, it did not.

To those who point at what animals do as a guide to what we as humans should do, I look at the clothes I am wearing, the fact that I can take birth control to prevent pregnancy, and various other improvements humans have made over animal behaviour. Rejecting notions of "alpha" and "beta" go onto that list.

Funnily, I am not so offended by the concept of an "alpha male" or an "alpha female" as being the more aggressive and dominant members of the human species as I am by the categorisation of non-aggressive people as "betas." That language specifically implies that people who are more laid-back are inferior, a value judgment with which I do not agree. And the only people I've ever seen using the term "beta males" are manosphere types desperate to prove that they are not the dreaded "beta," mainly by calling other men "cucks" and other choice terms. No, I have no time nor respect for such toxic attitudes toward masculinity.

I know I'm really late to the party here, but I hope the OP sees this: I too had trouble with ED starting in my mid-40s, and the doctor prescribed me first Viagra and then (at my request) Cialis. Both worked well but neither were covered by my insurance and were therefore hella pricey. As we also have kids, more than a few times the pills went to waste as family life can be unpredictable.

Fortunately, a few years back I tried liquid tadalafil—the generic name for Cialis—and it's been a life-changer. It's less than 50 cents a day and if I'm not quite the way I was back when I was a teenager, it's not far off.

For those interested in the subject of alphas and betas as applied to human males, this old article (not scientific research, but it does have citations) talks about related concepts, particularly with regard to what our anatomy may suggest about how much male humans historically have mated with more than one female and how much female humans have mated with more than one male. Since the topic is reproductive sex, there isn't any real reference to gays.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and…

I wasn't overly impressed with the author's thesis, but I did find his references to apparent facts (I didn't check his references) pretty interesting. It is well known that size differences between males and females correlates pretty strongly with males competing for mates in species that are not monogamous. Human males are pretty significantly bigger than human females, which is suggestive that throughout our history some males have had offspring with multiple females and some men have had none. That's the incentive that makes it worth the cost of being big. There is also a correlation between size of testicles and the frequency that females mate with more than one male. Our testes are big compared to gorillas where the females in the groups generally only mate with the one dominant male (you can call it the alpha if you like), but not very big compared to chimps where males compete a lot for mates.

It's interesting to me how different the types of competition for mates has shaped the bodies of gorillas (the physically dominant male does all the mating, so male gorillas are pretty huge, but their balls are small because typically nobody else mates with the females in their harem) and chimpanzees (because females frequently mate with more than one male being bigger is less important and putting out the most and healthiest sperm is more important). There are dominant chimps and they do mate more often than lower-ranked males, but that hasn't produced the same huge size differences you see among gorillas.

So, while the comparisons to possibly erroneous beliefs on wolf mating patterns may be pointless, it's also pretty clear that human males have been shaped somewhat by the lower reproductive success of less dominant males. This is still ongoing in the form of serial monogamy, although it is probably not as influential as it was when infidelity more often resulted in children.

I'm also intrigued by research showing the women prefer the scent of high-testosterone males when they are close to ovulation and do not exhibit the same preference when menstruating. This is suggestive of a reproductive strategy of mating with the fittest males when it is likely to result in conception, while perhaps having settled down with a less dominant male. That's speculation on my part, but it doesn't seem like an irrational hypothesis to me.

Chrissycrunch @51, Keep your indignation. These people are assholes elevating their faith-based belief system over actual facts and other people's health. The are no better than climate deniers.
Slinky @52, Good analogy, especially for your fellow gardeners, like me.
Lava @54, Some Eastern/culturally traditional medicines do work. When they are tested and work they become part of Western/evidence-based/"conventional" medicine, which is also sometimes confusingly called "traditional." Like artemisinin, which is a life-saving malaria drug. So-called "western" evidence-based medicine, some of it developed in the east, and so-called Eastern medicine, some of it coming from the traditional treatments of non-eastern cultures, are not equivalent. Things that are proven safe and effective have an inherent advantage over things believed to be effective based on faith in the authority of the person recommending it.
Ciods @57-59, I agree. Over-prescribing is a real thing, particularly in relation to prescription drugs advertised directly to consumers. I wouldn't want to ban those ads, but I hope doctors resist the pressure when the medication is inappropriate.

Late to the party as per usual, but Dan's right, LW. Your wife is an asshole. This part really struck me:
"Is there anything else I can do to get her to respect my feelings and the fact that taking Cialis is a medical decision between my doctor and me, not a negative judgment on her desirability?"
I mean, that sentence alone should be enough for any reasonable person. I'm not fond of ultimatums generally, but in this case I think it would be more than fair.
CMD @24 "In the absence of Aunt Zelda I take it upon myself to nominate Undead @ 1 to the “comment of the thread” award." agreed. Great comment to start a (mostly) great thread. Loving the pro-science, anti-bullshit all around.
Nocute @2, "I said i was happy if he was happy about that, but that I really don't care how a dick gets hard, so long as it is hard enough to have fun with." YES!!! Same.

Important question: are the kids vaccinated? Wife sounds like she could be an anti-vaxxer, as that crowd is big on the naturalistic fallacy as applied to medicine. If not, they need to be ASAP.

DCP123 @62: It is interesting, but bears little to no relationship to Omly's reason for bringing up "alpha" vs "beta" males in the first place, which was the letter from HUSBAND in the weekly column. In his comment, he postulates that HUSBAND is a "beta male" and Friend is an "alpha male," in which case HUSBAND is genetically required to let Wife "mate" with her friend. Ridiculous advice given that none of the participants involved is, as far as we know, an ape.

Their problem as a couple sexually seems to be that any other form of sex is second-best--especially to the LW's wife--to PIV sex. Does the wife not like being licked out? Can they not switch effortlessly between penetration, which may be erratic or fail, and tonguing? Without any sense of failure on either side, of blaming, or loss of erotic excitement? It is surely a mark of how good their relationship is generally if it's difficult for them to do so.

I would think his wife sabotages the date nights, calling 'family movie nights' instead, because she dreads his wilting erection. It connotes shame and failure to her. I have to sympathise with her; but she's wrong--it shouldn't. She is holding their bodies to an impossible standard.

dcp@123. You saying eastern medicine hasn't proven safe and effective? Think the Chinese might disagree with you on that assertion. As would many of us who have used it.

@68: "Eastern Medicine" isn't practiced in hospitals. That which is safe and works is known worldwide as "medicine".

OCD is a nightmare and the kids should get help immediately. The good news (?) is that the first approach to treatment seems to be cognitive behavior therapy rather than medication... maybe the mom won't push back as much against that.