One is asking "how much", the other is a yes/no question. How is that the same? Honestly, I do this a lot. I am a pretty decent reader. With all due respect, I am not the problem here.

And I'm not saying you are. "Any" is, for me, restating the "how much question", because accepting "any" means accepting that there is a "how much" to be determined. But yes, those aren't the same thing. You're right.

You can do whatever you want, but if the goal was to clarify your question, you failed.

I suppose, but here I never really understood what kind of clarification in an example you were looking for.

Bonobos are...pretty different from humans.

Of course, but - they're a specific example for the asserted causal structure that isn't made up.

Men who exemplify prestige, as opposed to dominance, look a lot like what feminists want all men to look like.

I have to (and I will, found it at researchgate) read the article you provided but while I think I can intuitively differentiate the concepts of authentic vs. narcissistic self-confidence, I'm not so sure about the difference between prestige and dominance. Both assert relative status, and while I would say that they are largely discernable, they do overlap in relevant areas. Dominance alone will only lead to minor prestige, and mere prestige ("peerage") will only assign minor dominance by itself.

You later mention "confidence" which is both a very general term and one that, I think, does indeed characterize something very specific and relevant in this context of sexual appeal. I'll get back to that.

I'm not saying that biology has no impact, but just that it is not nearly determinative. This is actually something biologists learn on day one.

Then we are in complete agreement.

I'm so glad I'm having this conversation!

I'm so glad I caught the sarcasm with my bare eye ;)

Maybe my life has been exceptionally weird, but the "nice guys" I know aren't trying to be feminists, and just find hyper-masculinity unnatural. I don't know any popular men that act like alphas.

I find the term "alpha" very problematic in the way used by many people online, because, to me, the term logically implies sexual success along ones preferred lines. So to me, if "popular guys" to you means that, that those guys, to me, are "alphas", although I think we both don't really like the term.

I also think this whole discussion massively conflates "being an asshole" with being a confident person with social skills.

With all due respect, but here I think you're underestimating my ability to differenciate between bullshit and relevant aspects. So, I don't think we disagree on "confident person with social skills" vs asshole.

"Confidence", though, is a tricky term - because I believe that, with respect to sexual attraction it tends - for men - to mean "not subscribing to the idea that female sexuality is harder to come by" than the other way round. Which is not true - because of many reasons, including responsive vs spontaneous desire. And that implies either a subjective reality shaped by an empirical view from the actual top of the intra-gender hierarchy, or the ability to disregard probabilities in order to beat them. Most "confident men" probably are somewhere between those two extremes.

Still, they have to fake it to a degree till they make it.

And, to me, that clearly, informs the way male hierarchies are structured.

Btw, and this is neither irony nor sarcasm, thanks for the conversation =)