Everyone knows women love bad boys and their romance novels, a.k.a. pornography, is full of them. There is even a search bar on Amazon which helps female readers locate books which feature various romantic leads, with titles such as criminals, outlaws, alpha male, biker, etc.
Many people would like to believe that women only like these men because of a patriarchy where bad behavior in men is normalized and gets them success.
But if women weren’t naturally attracted to bad boys, they wouldn’t feature so frequently in written erotica written by women, for women. If women sought out criminal men in the world because a patriarchy fored them to, they would at least fantasize in the privacy of their minds and written stories about men who are kind and good and are in no way criminals.
What we see in reality is the exact opposite.
Another assumption is that there is nothing but bad men out there and so few good men that women must choose a bad guy. Yet what we see instead is that in a sea of good men, women will seek out the bad boys.
In fiction and movies, even if good men are presented as the most attractive romantic choice, women will find a bad guy and make up additional character traits to place him in the light of a viable romantic choice.
Such was the case with Draco Malfoy, Barney Stinson, Eric Northman, The Joker, and many others.
So what is so attractive about bad boys?
Engaging in behavior that flouts society’s rules, if successful, certainly would indicate an intelligent and powerful person. It’s no wonder that top criminals have been able to make a lot of money and exert a lot of power, some would say more power than anyone else. If a criminal can evade the power of law enforcement, the power of governors and presidents, if those people fear the criminal rather than the other way around- then that is undoubtedly the most powerful person. Women are biologically wired to seek out men with high levels of resource-attaining skills and power because those traits will provide a position of safety for her children. So many women will go for men who display these traits in societal-approved ways: politicians, doctors, lawyers, etc. But the ones who gain power and resources through illicit means can display an even greater ability to gain those things, thus signalling better genes and a “safer” match.
This idea is demonstrated explicitly between the male romantic leads of Gone With The Wind: Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes. Ashley is a noble, chivalrous man who always does the socially-approved act, even when that means fighting in a civil war which he opposes on moral grounds. Rhett Butler is an opportunist, he chooses to make money off of the war as a blockade runner, and doesn’t fight in it until the 11th hour when the confederate side knows it has lost. This same opposition of actions between the two men is shown again and again throughout the book, each time displaying how Rhett survives and succeeds because of his willingness to capitalize without regard to morality. Ashley is deemed weaker because of his inability to succeed, either with or without morality.
You’ll also see this played out in the female fans of the television show The Walking Dead, who greatly favored motorcycling lone wolf Darryl over former sheriff and noble good guy Rick. It is precisely because of his goodness that Rick is a less reliable option for a woman in a zombie apocalypse, he’d give all of their food and resources away to other people out of his niceness. A selfish man, so long as he shared his resources with his woman and children, is a safer bet for surviving.
Another way of putting it is that in a stable society, both moral and immoral men can succeed. In an unstable society, immoral men tend to succeed better than moral men.
Another branch of this is the extreme popularity amongst women in supernatural dark creatures such as vampires, werewolves, and yes, even weredragons and werebears. This isn’t a new interest amongst women as the trope stems all the way back from Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villaneuve’s Beauty and The Beast written in 1740, which also has ties to the story of Cupid and Psyche, a famous Greek myth.
A supernatural creature can beat any human man and many other threats easily in a fight, certainly when presented as they usually are in women’s fiction. As the most powerful, he can provide the most protection and is therefore the most attractive. But note that it is not just supernatural strength women want, otherwise women would be just as interested in morally good superheroes as men are. A dark creature is most definitely preferred, for reasons you’ll see below.
One of the most interesting reasons women find bad boys attractive is because of the psychological manipulation it allows her over him, at least, theoretically. In the typical plot of a female romance, the bad man meets the good woman, is instantly attracted to her, seduces her into a relationship, then does a Big Bad Thing which makes her end the relationship. He then has to change his behavior and work all the harder to get her back until she accepts and they live happily ever after.
Although we may at first be inclined to view these events in a positive way, largely because it is about a man changing himself for a woman and not the other way around, what we’re really seeing is emotional abuse. After the man does the Big Bad Thing, the woman thereafter gets to use it whenever she wants as a tool for manipulation. Not only that but she will use his past bad behavior to belittle him and get him to do what she wants. The story ends with her having full control of the relationship, with him ready to do anything she asks for and placing her on a pedestal for the rest of their lives.
Happy ending, indeed.
Although an innate badness is enough on the part of the man to merit this storyline of her redeeming him, it gives a female character all the more power if he does something bad to her. With Pride and Prejudice, it was that Mr. Darcy proposed in an arrogant and insulting manner; with Rhett Butler, it was that he told Scarlett O’Hara he hoped she’d have a miscarriage; with Twilight, it was that Edward Cullen chose to leave her at one point; with Fifty Shades of Grey, it was that Christian Grey went further in a BDSM scene than Anastasia expected, even though she told him to do his worst.
One of the most popular erotic romances situations used to be that of the rapist who falls in love with the woman he raped. Apparently, the scenario involved a completely non-consensual rape, yet afterwards the man and woman fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. Over the years, this changed to a slight modification of the man raping the woman, but with her solely in her mind giving consent because he was just so good in bed. Now, it is typically a man strongly seducing her, but with it all being consensual, though the woman usually exhibits an attitude of “you shouldn’t have listened when I said yes last night!”
Again, our minds want to immediately jump to the interpretation of this as a self-protection women have clung to in the face of a rape-happy patriarchal world. But, surely we would not find it shocking if men fantasized about an exquisitely beautiful woman finding him so sexually attractive that she must have her way with him, whether he wants it or no. In fact, it would be easy for feminists to view it as an aspect of male’s overpuffed egos. So why think of it in any other way for females?
But there is an added aspect which is solely particular to women which is that they can capitalize on martyrdom, hence the man must do something horrible, whether it was well and truly raping her in a way that wasn’t pleasurable at all or saying something that hurt her. Our reaction to women hurting is to want to eliminate it as much as possible, and so these female characters in our minds have full ability to demand anything they want from the man who did her wrong, as well that he must do everything he can to make up for it.
Men do not have access to martyrdom as a power, they will not be seen as victims and people will not give them sympathy just because something bad was done to them. At least, not if it comes at viewing a woman in the villain light.
It is not the case, as some might think, that you can take the most villainous man and he will automatically become the hearthrob of all women. You don’t find women going after all villains, just the ones who are attractive and have some kind of explanation for their badness, usually a tragic past. In this way, they can rationalize to themselves that he’s not really bad, he was made that way from extenuating circumstances. But women really are attracted to his bad behavior. What we see over and over again is that women will take a bad character and give him a few good traits to make him a viable romance partner. They are not interested in the reverse: taking a good male character and making him slightly more of a bad boy to give him a bit of an edge. They want the badness, they just want to temper it a little so that they will be the exception to his bad behavior.
Unapologetically Anti-Feminist 