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Hi! Just wanted to share a bunch of random thoughts that I had related to my dominance theory. The quizzes that will help you identify your dominance level and threshold are finished, and after beta testing and edits they will be posted to the sub. Things have been busy since the flood but as things return to normal, I will be back to participating regularly in the community :)


General Thoughts

  • Remember that the descriptions in Part I are generalities, and they only apply to long term relationships. There is also an intentional, more extreme representation in the hypothetical descriptions that are used to explain the concepts. It is easy to see the dynamics in action when describing a man who is an 8+ on the dominance scale, with a woman who is a 2 and prefers a 4. That doesn’t mean that all HLL dynamics will look exactly like that scenario.

  • Every dynamic has the potential to be harmonious, some require more work from both parties than others. No relationship is inherently RP; if a woman doesn’t respect the individual man it doesn’t matter if they are LLL or HLH. Even LHL dynamics can by RP, yes this is rare, but it is possible!

  • Men don’t really have a dominance threshold (or submission threshold), they overwhelmingly prefer a woman who is less dominant than them in general, and psychologically feminine towards them. This means that L men pair well with L women. H men can work with either H or L women, but since most low dominance women also have a low dominance threshold, there are more HHH relationships than HLH.

  • I estimate that 80% of women are low dominance, and 20% of women are high dominance. Of course it may not seem like this because there are a lot of L women with bad character, and L women who act as if they are H because they think it is superior (thanks feminism!). This of course does not mean that all H women have bad character, just that the traits that L women tend to adopt in order to seem less feminine, make them unpleasant! Naturally high dominant women can be lovely.

  • I believe that 80% of women have a low dominance threshold, most of them preferring men with 30% - 50% alpha traits, and 50%-70% good beta traits. This means that 20% of women have high thresholds, and an even smaller proportion are suited for long term relationships with men who have the greatest amount of alpha traits.

  • H women are more likely to have high thresholds because they need a man who can command their respect.

  • A lot of women who are LL think they are LH because they assume that good beta traits = alpha traits. While I do think that there will be more LH women on RPW simply because of the nature of this subreddit, most here are LL and in LLL dynamics with greater betas.

  • Edited to add: Don't confuse someone's disposition with their dominance level! A man can be laid back and high dominance, he can also be boisterous and low dominance. Similarly high dominance women can be reserved, and low dominance women can be bold. Hopefully the examples below and in future posts can clarify the matter further.


Dominance levels and thresholds are just one aspect of what makes a couple compatible and successful. This system isn’t meant to replace any other means of assessing compatibility and it works very well in combination with looking at the MBTI and love languages of each person.

It also meshes nicely with the female archetypes theory that Dr. Toni Grant developed*. She believes that women have a primary and secondary role that they naturally operate in. The archetypes are:

  • The Mother (The Nurturer): "The Mother is a caretaker, a woman who thrives upon her attachments to others. She nurtures not only her own children, but other relatives and female friends, as well as the men in her life."

  • The Madonna (The Counselor): "The Madonna is reflective. She embodies the quintessentially feminine virtues of patience, silence, and faith... men enjoy her because she is so reflective of their own moods and feelings... she inspires the man in her life to greatness, supporting him unconditionally in his quest"

  • The Courtesan (The Lover): "The Courtesan... operates primarily in personal relationship to man on intellectual and emotional as well as sexual levels."

  • The Amazon (The Warrior): "The Amazon Woman is highly focused, ambitious, assertive, goal-oriented, and self-sufficient. She relates to the men in her life as companions, co-workers, and competitors."

Low dominance women are more likely to be nurturers and madonnas, high dominance women are more likely to be warriors and courtesans. Low threshold women are more likely to be nurturers and madonnas, high threshold women are more likely to be warriors and courtesans. More specifically, I believe these pairings are accurate when it comes to the roles each type of woman naturally fills:

  • LL = Mother and Madonna
  • LH = Madonna and Courtesan
  • HH = Amazon and Courtesan
  • HL = Amazon and Mother

*= The four archetypes were originally shared with this community by /u/readlovegrow in an awesome post! I will see if we can get that post on this sub, it will lead to so many great discussions :)


Examples in Fiction (Spoilers Below!)

Beauty and the Beast

The Cosby Show

The Office

  • Roy and Pam are a great example of a non extreme HLL relationship. It is not abusive or violent, but Roy cannot make Pam happy by simply being himself.

  • Jan and Michael Scott had a dysfunctional LHL dynamic. The episode "Dinner Party" highlights everything wrong with the pair, and the clip I selected is just a small sample of how controlling Jan can be.

  • At the start of the series, Ryan and Kelly are in a dysfunctional HLH dynamic that suits their unstable personalities. I couldn't find any great clips online but this fan made video is just so fun!

  • There are a lot of LLL relationships such as Jim and Pam, Holly and Michael Scott, Phyllis and Bob Vance, or Erin and Andy.

Goodfellas


Hope all of that was interesting and made sense! Looking forward to discussing it all with you guys, definitely suggest more fictional examples of the dynamics if you can.


[–]tintedlipbalm3 points4 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

Didn't know about the female archetypes! On these I definitely fit madonna + courtesan.

Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann embody a LHL on Knocked Up and This is 40. Example that also displays her mother + warrior characteristics.

Paul Rudd is routinely typecasted as the L guy. In I Love You, Man he and Rashida Jones embody a LLL couple, I am looking for clips right now but can't find any that show it.

[–]Camille11325[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Awesome examples with Paul Rudd! I will definitely include more examples from film, TV shows, and literature in future posts so if you find anything else be sure to share then :)

[–]eliza_schuyler 3 points3 points [recovered] | Copy Link

This is a great post! I'm very excited for this and further updates. I love how you've linked these to female archetypes and fictional examples. It makes the relationship dynamics very easily relatable. Thank you!

[–]Camille11325[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Thank you I am glad that you enjoyed the post!

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

I am so Claire Huxtable it hurts!

[–]Camille11325[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Haha I can picture you doing the rant in the second video :)

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

The third video of Karen and henry describe my former life. So much tension and arguments and anger and D R A M A!! However, after finding you guys I am more like the second video than the third one. Thank you for posting this. I love it. We should do this more often. Show examples in video form. :D

[–]Camille11325[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Yes I'd love for us to do this more often, and that's great that RPW has helped you so much!

[–]liftinginthemoment27 | LTR | 3 years2 points3 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

Great post! I'd never heard of the female archetypes before. I would say I best fit Madonna and Courtesan which makes sense since I consider my relationship to be HLH :)

[–]Camille11325[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Thank you and yay I am also in an HLH dynamic and identify with the Madonna and Courtesan archetypes :)

[–][deleted] 2 points2 points | Copy Link

[permanently deleted]

[–]Camille11325[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

You are welcome! I do love the archetypes; there are definitely times when we fill every role, but our primary and secondary types are the most natural for us. So glad you could apply this to your own life!

[–]littleteafox1 point2 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

Sweet! I'm loving this series. I think I'm also a combination of Madonna/Courtesan. I'm still unsure if I'm in a LLL or HLH, though! We haven't really fit any examples yet.. hmm!

[–]Camille11325[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Thank you! Hopefully you can identify where you lie on the spectrum more precisely after reading future posts :)

[–]conotocaurius0 points1 point  (1 child) | Copy Link

beta testing

hah!

[–]Camille11325[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

:D

[–]L1vewarePr0blem30 / LTR 4yrs0 points1 point  (6 children) | Copy Link

Thanks for the elaboration! I love these posts.

I'm with /u/littleteafox in that my relationship occasionally teeters between LLL/HLH. There are harmonious times where he's feeling open and kind and I need nothing more than that, quite a lot of those times, and then I would definitely say it's LLL.

Then there are other times, in the past (I'm almost totally cured!! lol), when I've pushed him to beta up and get me flowers/marry me/whatever else, and man does the asshole alpha come out at those times. Yelling, throwing things...I've certainly never feared for my safety, but the man will not be whipped even a little bit. It's really hot, honestly.

Another thing that makes me question my previous guess of LLL is that Madonna/Courtesan are practically my only two energies, with the Amazon coming out infrequently in my man's defense. There is practically no Motherly energy or nurturing in my being (one reason I will not be having my own children).

Re: The Office examples...do Dwight and Angela defy categorization? I can only find fan vids set to music but there's quite a bit of huffiness and pushback from both of them. :)

[–]Camille11325[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

I agree with /u/tintedlipbalm and I wrote a response to her that you should check out. Re: Dwight and Angela, I wanted to choose a few clear examples from each source, no dynamic is beyond categorization, they are HHH.

[–]tintedlipbalm4 points5 points  (4 children) | Copy Link

I understand your confusion and I think it's common in the sub.

The reason there's a constant confusion between HLH and LLL self-assessment to me would be twofold (my opinion though, not the original author's view, which would be much more insightful):

  • LLL sounds like the man is low or even equal in dominance to her. But this isn't true, it just means the man is low in dominance on an alpha-beta trait scale. It doesn't mean he is pure beta, but that beta qualities are more prevalent than alpha qualities. Remember Beta doesn't mean "bad" and Alpha doesn't mean "good". And being lower in the scale wouldn't mean that he's completely devoid of masculine behavior such as physical outbursts when being pressured.

  • Women who are observing their own behavior and have it externally affected by RPW could be adapting to the idea of more dominance, artificially. This might not considered in the original theory, but honestly it would make sense to me that naturally LL women would grow to see themselves as LH after changing behaviors and allowing the man to display more dominance in function of the relationship. (This point is worth analyzing further)

It's my belief that when women comfort test more than shit test it could mean their threshold is naturally lower. If your relationship is more harmonious at LLL, it would mean your threshold is lower.

Another thing that makes me question my previous guess of LLL is that Madonna/Courtesan are practically my only two energies, with the Amazon coming out infrequently in my man's defense. There is practically no Motherly energy or nurturing in my being (one reason I will not be having my own children).

I get this too. I also fit Madonna+Courtesan and suspect most of the women here will identify themselves as such. I don't think it necessarily means that all Madonna+Courtesans would be LH, I think it was just a way to exemplify how it fit nicely with the theory.

[–]Camille11325[S] 2 points3 points  (3 children) | Copy Link

Yes this is perfect and basically everything I was going to say! I will also add that /u/L1vewarePr0blem seems to be in an LLL relationship with a man who has an even mix of alpha and beta traits, and who knows how to respond appropriately to various situations.

(Note: none of what I am saying at this point is applying to a specific individual) I feel like a lot of women want to be LH and Madonna Courtesan as if that is the ideal, when really they are LL and Nurturers and Madonnas. Of course you can be LL and both a Madonna and Courtesan but really I think that a lot of women fixate on the labels and an invented identity that maybe represents their "best" self that they aspire to be like.

Honestly LH is the least prevalent type. LL women still want men who are more dominant than them, they just don't need more than 50% of alpha traits in a man to feel arousal. The personality traits that go along with being low dominance just make you more likely to not need or want an greater amount of dominance in a man. And that is fine. L men can still be masculine and command respect. I will emphasise these ideas in my next post!

[–]tintedlipbalm5 points6 points  (1 child) | Copy Link

LL women still want men who are more dominant than them, they just don't need more than 50% of alpha traits in a man to feel arousal.

This is key! The confusion is supported by a subjective assessment of what alpha behaviors are.

I think that a lot of women fixate on the labels and an invented identity that maybe represents their "best" self that they aspire to be like.

Yes, and this is a risk that comes with every self-assessment. But I also think it is influenced subconsciously by taking in RP theory, specifically. I think being here makes women notice dominance and power differentials more overtly, which results in an overestimation of their own threshold.

[–]Camille11325[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Agreed completely :)

[–]L1vewarePr0blem30 / LTR 4yrs2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

Thank you for all the clarification; both of you!

This:

LLL sounds like the man is low or even equal in dominance to her. But this isn't true, it just means the man is low in dominance on an alpha-beta trait scale.

and this:

naturally LL women would grow to see themselves as LH after changing behaviors and allowing the man to display more dominance in function of the relationship

were the most helpful in clarifying. The last point does need its own post! :)

I believe that some confusion may be arising from the typical media portrayal of an LLL relationship. The men in such dynamics usually display no alpha whatsoever, so when our L partners have a nice mix of alpha and beta, we find them relatively H.

You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

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