Power is the great aphrodisiac. – Henry Kissinger
I’ve been asked on a number of occasions why women are attracted to “bad boys”, even when those men are abusive; sometimes the question is phrased the opposite way around, “why aren’t women attracted to nice guys?” As most of my readers are probably aware, the subject recurs on the internet with monotonous regularity, and has given rise to several stupid theories among self-declared “nice guys”, a number of even stupider responses from feminists and an entire method of girl-getting known as “Game” (which I’m sure works quite well for attracting silly, immature amateur women who don’t know the true value of their favors). So far I’ve refrained from commenting much about the subject in columns, though it has come up in comment threads a few times; however, when regular reader Dean Clark sent me a link to this recent article about an extreme manifestation of the syndrome, I felt it was time to share a few brief thoughts on it.
…James Holmes— the “Dark Knight” shooter who killed 12 people and injured 58 others…at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado…[has a number of female fans and] a Facebook page called “We Care About James Holmes”…[accused murderer] Joran van der Sloot told reporters that he was being inundated with love letters and offers to bear his children. [Convicted murderer] Scott Peterson…received countless letters from women proposing marriage. Even serial killer Ted Bundy reportedly had hundreds of romantic pen pals while incarcerated. And today, a disturbing crop of websites like PrisonPenPals, WriteaPrisoner.com, and ConvictMailbag.com has even emerged for women attracted to inmates…
…the desire to be associated with dangerous men may have evolutionary roots. Back in caveman days, men who placed themselves in dangerous situations (i.e.: fighting a saber-toothed tiger) were thought to have valuable sperm. And there’s a chemical component too: When people engage in…scary situations they experience a rush of dopamine, a feel-good brain chemical that can feel addicting…Then there’s the fame factor…Sheila Isenberg, author of Women Who Love Men Who Kill [says]…”If you want to get together with a celebrity, Brad Pitt won’t answer your letters but Scott Peterson might well”…And finally, for women who have suffered domestic abuse, crushing on a killer could be a victim’s way of…[controlling] a relationship…[psychologist Michael Aamodt says] “When you’re dating an inmate, he needs you more than you need him. You can leverage power over him by threatening to not visit or write”…One recent study…found that men who possess narcissistic qualities and are deceitful thrill-seekers have more…sexual partners than their more stable counterparts. Researchers credit the success of these men to a mating strategy which allows them to increase their reproductive potential by having sex with many women, without bothering to stick around and help with child-rearing…
I’m very skeptical of the claim about fame, and extremely skeptical of the one about power games. Though any celebrity is going to attract women simply because he’s a celebrity, women can’t “choose” to be attracted to someone any more than men can, and a woman attracted to Brad Pitt can’t simply say, “Gee, since he won’t answer I’ll just crush on a famous murderer instead.” Aamodt’s theory relies on a similar belief in women’s power over their own feelings; though I believe his statement that “victims of domestic abuse are among the most passionate pen pals of incarcerated killers,” he has confused correlation with causation. It’s not that a history of abusive relationships causes a woman to seek out incarcerated murderers to love; it’s that her psychology causes her to be attracted to violent men, either in or out of prison.
The true answer is the evolutionary one: most women are attracted to strength and confidence in men, and prefer leaders to followers (which is why celebrity is attractive). Leaders make rules, and followers obey them; therefore many women find “bad boys” who break the rules more attractive than “nice guys” who dutifully comply. In earlier times, there were plenty of ways a man could demonstrate his leadership without being thrown in jail, but due to universal criminality that is less true every year. The plethora of ridiculous, arbitrary laws, rules and regulations which characterize modern societies (especially the US) are extremely emasculating; the more a man adheres to them, the less attractive many women will find him. So while in the past women had plenty of strong-but-decent men to choose from, that pool has been dramatically reduced because men hide their strength to keep jobs and avoid cops and lawsuits; women who are not themselves able to attract a member of that diminished pool will often take whatever strong man they can get, even if he’s abusive or criminal. In other words, it isn’t that they prefer “bad boys”; it’s just that they prefer them to boys they perceive as weak. For any given sexual attractant, however, there are extreme forms; while many men like big tits, some men only like really huge tits. And though most women just want a man who will stand up for himself (and her), a few are only attracted to men who make all of their own rules. This sort of woman tends to be attracted to thugs and criminals, many of whom end up in prison; and since murderers (especially those who kill for no reason) are the ultimate rule-breakers, some women are going to find them very attractive without really understanding why.
one can be attracted to ”bad boys” on a fantasy level,but be prudent enouph to stay away from them in real life.id be damned if i actually got myself involved with someone who might treat me like shit,but i adore sexy vampires on films and tv shows(the dangerous variety,not the twilight variety).
Totally true, but there’s a male analogy: hot crazy chicks that most guys lust after, but many are wise enough to avoid.
There was an episode of 30 Rock guest starring Jennifer Aniston that nailed this analogy (by taking it to the extreme).
Maggie,off topic but do you wanna hear the most stupid remark a ”feminist”made about prostitution on a tweet?”if prostitution is the oldest profession,then were clients other prostitutes too?”coming from a woman who makes plays and films,Sabrina Mahvouz that worked for 4 years as a strip club waitress in Soho,made a play ”dry ice”about a stripper,with a loser coke addicted boyfriend,who doesnt know what she wants in life and where every client is a sleazebag and girls are determined to become jaded and sad.in there she apparently threw in a few good parts about the job but in the end the sad truth was revealed that strippers dont have a free choice because they wouldnt be stripping if women were equal to men(the whole wrong judgement of sex workers again).she also participates in a ”stop page 3”campaign(the british newspaper pages with naked girls in them).shes also very critically acclaimed for her strip club expose and how talented and smart she is(the geniuses,the intellectuals of today make such ”smart”statements).i dont know if youve heard of a more stupid remark(i havent)but what i say is we need actual sex workers making plays and films about their experiences,not waitresses who probably spent too much time,justifying their work in a place,to which they are morally opposed to,to themselves and who in my opinion get treated far worse than the dancers are(while serving at strip clubs or not)but yet write about the sad lot of the ”poor”sex workers.
Yeah, that’s a pretty stupid comment all right; she obviously equates “profession” with “job” or “means of survival”, and while the concepts are certainly related they aren’t synonymous.
In a way, it’s good many women feel like her because we need maids and waitresses, and if every woman had what it takes to do sex work the bottom would drop out. The problem isn’t their attitude, it’s that they’re given the power to restrict other people’s behavior. If there were ironclad protections against people controlling others’ choices at gunpoint, people like her would be like street preachers at Mardi Gras; amusing or annoying, but not dangerous.
since you mentioned marti gras,the tradition of the samba girls in g strings that orriginates in Brazil existed in Greece for many years,they also used to appear in tv shows,dancing during that time of the year.nobody ever had a problem with them,even though they appear in front of children,but ”feminists” in the council that controls ethics in tv programmes ,threatened the channels that bring them in their shows with fines(those people also fine comedians for using swear words).they are also rare in the celebrations on the streets as well(maybe feminist council women are responsible there). i really feel bad because apart from being beautiful,they brought everyone to such a cheerful mood,some of the women felt even brave enouph to flash their own ”goods”,but now everything is more restricted.maybe i should now head to New Orleans to show my tits bravely.
Evolution plays a big role. Isn’t it a similar subject as why woman like rich men? Money is also a symbol of power and power gives a feeling od safety and confidence. I don’t know why some women are sexually attracted to men who abuse them. I will write about this subject soon on my blog as well. Well, men who break law are associated with strength and if they run away from consequences it means they are smarter than people who are chasing the, So intelligence too. Evolutionally this is what is required from men and somehow evolutionally needed features makes us attracted to men. As same as men are attracted to women with wide loins. Because it means they are well prepared to born children.
What kind of man helps a woman and her descendants to survive? A powerful man.
In the earliest times the strongest male was the best bet, then as language improved, social power became important as a group of three or four men could take down the strongest male. Wealth allowed a man to hire others to overcome his enemy, and finally, more structured authority gave proto-politicians the use of even larger numbers of men.
Some women will be more attracted to one type of power than another, and the circumstances she finds herself in will also have an effect.
I think the part that upsets or even angers many men is that when asked for a description of an “ideal” man, women generally respond with answers that describe “nice guys” rather than “bad boys”, while their actions indicate the exact opposite.
Even if women are genuinely conflicted about what they want, it would be nice if they would admit to it rather than giving dating advice that patently does not work and which gives the impression of bad faith on their part.
That’s only YOUNG women. Young women want to experience the world – they want to know what it’s like to ride on the back of a Harley with a big guy that people are afraid of.
Had a girl tell me once … “Krulac, you’re the kind of guy that women want to marry.” Kiss of death … I knew I had totally fucked it up with her when I heard those words. She was one of those attracted to “bad boys” but … even in her own mind, she knew that it wasn’t going to last forever and she’d have to look for a decent guy to marry.
Try picking up a woman in her 30’s (or beyond) with the “bad boy” approach and see how much success you have. It won’t be very much.
Wow, you really sold me! Young girls are so gross, hopefully some day with a lot of work I’ll be able to become worthy of menopausal ladies.
They aren’t gross, they’re actually kinda hot … that’s just the way they play the game at that age.
And 30’s women aren’t “menapausal”.
Oh, man. That “you’d make a good husband” thing was always like a kick in the gut. I remember one woman I went on a few dates with. Thought things were going well. I sent her a casual email. She responded with a page-long thing about her ex-boyfriend. And I’m reading it, trying to be nice and supportive, and all the time thinking, “Man. I am never ever going to see this woman naked. Like ever.”
Ironically, I was recently talking to an ex-gf who had been very attracted to me and she said, “I have a hard time seeing you as a dad.”. So, it works the other way too.
Dear Singer,
What do you expect? That a woman will tell you she prefers a murderer or bad guy rather than an attentive, gentle, loving, respectful and fun partner??? As Maggie writes: a woman can’t “choose” who she becomes attracted too…
What scares me a bit is the impression you give that you might actually be ready to change into a bad guy, if that is what it takes to find a date…
Just be yourself, show that you are happy with whom you are, whether you are super sweet or have a rough edge and the right woman will come along one day! Respect yourself for whom you are, just like you would respect your date for who she is…
Just so you know, I’m a woman, I’m attracted to nice guys and NO I’m not an exception!
And please, forgive me for any weird writing: I’m in my bed since Friday with the most horrible flu ever and still slightly feverish… but I could not not reply to this comment.
I was referring to dating advice in general, and I believe the original reference was to “bad boys” and not necessarily death row inmates.
There is nothing wrong with revealing that a man who is strong and assertive, (preferably with a well endowed wallet) will catch a woman’s eye, just as a nubile physically attractive woman will catch a man’s eye. Neither case means that such initial attraction will lead to a long term realtionship, but it does facilitate the initial approach.
As for me, I am an extreme introvert and have never been interested in dating or marriage. All my sexual encounters without exception have (by choice) been with well paid escorts.
With regard to becoming a “bad boy”, my fictional hero is Matt Helm (from the books, not the stupid films). He addresses people as “Sir” and “Maam”, and is nice to dogs. He is also a cold blooded government assassin. My favourite quote of his is – : “Always call them ‘Sir.’ They aren’t any harder to kill later!”.
I’m told that I seem “nice”. I’m well past the first blush of youth, so I’m unlikely to change now 🙂
I think there’s something else going on there. “Liking” and “wanting” are two separate brain circuits; there have been experiments in rats (or maybe mice, I forget) that did interesting things involving switching off one and not the other. So a rat might enjoy a certain stimulus (food or drugs, say), but not go out of its way to acquire it, if the “want” circuit was switched off. Or the other way around, a rat with the “like” circuit disabled would continuously eat a sweet food without showing any of the usual signs of enjoyment.
I have a suspicion — unsubstantiated by studies, as far as I know — that it’s these separate brain circuits at work when women appear to be lying about their preferences. They may be turned on by “bad boys”, yet claim they want “nice guys” and be really, genuinely telling the truth.
As always, an intelligent and thought-provoking column.
I think this is all off the mark. Women attracted to “bad boys”? A lot of “nice guys” complain about this but I think they are just looking at the sexual “success” of bad boys. First, “bad boys” don’t give a damn – so they throw their lure in the water A LOT more than the, usually, shy “nice guys”. More casts in the bayou mean more fish in the boat – if you’ve got a decent lure.
Second – “bad boys” don’t care about what is between the ears – only about what’s between the legs … 😀
“Nice Guys” care about what’s between the ears.
I was always an “in between” guy. Dumb women were easy marks. I realized this when I was hitting on a beautiful girl who also had BRAINS – and I’m thinking … “damn, this girl has me outflanked no matter what angle I try!” It was unusually hard to get to her no matter what I tried – and that’s because she had brains … she wasn’t easily impressed and she was looking for a guy who had intelligence, stability, drive, and whatever. Soooo … she took a pass on me! LOL
The evolutionary thing is all a guess and I don’t believe that women see jailbirds as “leaders”. I mean look at Manson … all those women … but they were all stupid weak women. Seriously empty headed women.
No shit, I was in a bar once and I was talking to a girl and I asked her what kind of man she was looking for? Her answer … “I’m looking for someone flawed – like me.”
I got away from her fast!
In my time in the Navy – I got a chance to see a lot of relationships – including some pretty abusive ones. In every case, aside from the problems the guy had, the woman had pretty severe mental / emotional problems of her own. Believe it or not – some men and women are just “attracted” to drama in any form. Put them in a stable environment – and they’ll work as hard to break out of it as they can to get back to the drama and abuse.
That’s the most reasonable & logical explanation, and is most easily seen in terms of real life examples.
What some guys also often clearly forget, and I’m including myself in that statement, is that some women are just screwy in the head. We get blinded by her looks and/or the fact that we want to bed her, and don’t consider that just because she looks good doesn’t mean she’s wise, or emotionally stable.
Think Fatal Attraction.
It’s that thing that men do sometimes by pedestaling women. Ascribing to her qualities that you are just projecting from your own head because of your desire for her, but women do that too of course.
krulac wrote;
Believe it or not – some men and women are just “attracted” to drama in any form. Put them in a stable environment – and they’ll work as hard to break out of it as they can to get back to the drama and abuse.
I had a newly married friend stay at my house while they looked for a place to rent. He was from a class behind me – I didn’t know him really well, but between family connections and such, we let them stay with us for a while.
Without fail, every evening after work, his wife would pick pick pick at him. Now Jim (name changed to protect the put upon) was a slow burn guy. He didn’t lose his temper right off, but he’d store it up and when it blew, well, Boy Howdy!
After the 4th night of witnessing this, and after Jim had blown out of the room, I looked at his wife and asked, “Just how clueless are you? I don’t know Jim all that well, I’m not married to him and even I can see that this is a really stupid thing to be doing.”
Her reply?
giggle, “Yeah I know, but the makeup sex is so great!”
I looked at her, “Anna, you’re one fucked up person. Hope that works for you.”
Whatever it is about dangerous men that women find so attractive, I’m betting it’s the same quality that men find so electrifying about them too. Men might not write marriage proposals to convicted murderers, but they’re equally fascinated and prone to idolizing them.
How many movies have been made about sadists and killers? How much of their fanbase is male? I think Stanley Kubrick once claimed that his depiction of Alex the psychopath rapist in A Clockwork Orange was the human id taken to its ultimate extreme – taking what you want and damn the rules. Everybody watching gets to live vicariously as Genghis Khan for a couple hours.
Women aren’t all that mysterious. We like the same things about men that other men like about men. It’s just that we don’t want to be him, we want to be with him.
Men idolize the dangerous man who is virtuous, the soldier that kills the enemy, the criminal kingpin who rises above the thugs. Holmes is a sick loser, not a leader of men.
Everybody thinks their personal heroes are virtuous. But with men as well as women, a small minority are severely mistaken about their idols or just have their moral priorities on backwards with the tag showing. They end up fascinated by sick losers. The literati who were charmed and fooled by Edgar Smith and Jack Abbott were largely men, for instance.
And I can’t imagine how a criminal kingpin rises above the thugs.
Exactly wrong, we (men) don’t idolize bad guys (by the way change “bad boy” to “bad man” and it doesn’t sound so glamorous all of a sudden does it?)…we fantasize about taking them down. The fantasy is to fight and beat the monster, not be it.
I mean…geez…the last generation died in droves fighting the Nazis…and this generation is essentially arguing why Nazis (or their equivalents) are attractive…. A civilization in decline, definitely.
A sane man thinks of women who ally themselves with bad men in the same way they think about bad men. They don’t think “oh (whine whine) how can I be as attractive to woman as that bad man? (whine whine)”, they think “That woman is repulsive, like the bad man she’s with, beneath notice.”
Change “bad boy” to “bad man,” say it in the right tone of voice with the right kind of smile, and it doesn’t sound that bad all of a sudden, does it?
Men and women are both fascinated with bad men. The people who made American Psycho, Scarface, and Taxi Driver were largely male, and so are the people responsible for the vast majority of gangsta rap. Or try reading some of the audience reactions to this film reviewed by Roger Ebert. Human nature can be nasty and predatory, and it’s not that hard for us to end up sympathizing with despicable people.
What I’m saying is this: people of both genders make heroes out of sick losers, because they mistake certain sociopathic traits for strength or talent or specialness. This is an excellent example. The Austrian serial killer Johann Unterweger is an even creepier one.
I’m not sure what Nazis have to do with anything, though.
Excellent post! And throughout the theories that I read, I do believe you hit the nail on the head when you stated “In other words, it isn’t that they prefer “bad boys”; it’s just that they prefer them to boys they perceive as weak”….Mixed in with some (lol) “Daddy issues”, and a few other deep-seated issues I have finally been working on over the last three years, this has been my problem most of my life. Finally, I no longer need or want a man whose proclivity for breaking the rules include dealing drugs, robbing houses, or beating up cops, I just want a want a man who is strong enough to believe in himself, right or wrong, and has no problem sticking up for those beliefs. Yes, you are right, this “pool” has diminished over the years, but in the future, I refuse to fish from any other pond:) Great job!
Thank you, Lisa! Your story demonstrates a point I often make: pretending the problem is men, or “rape culture”, or “society” or whatever doesn’t help real women to escape from the bad situations their unconscious drives get them into; only informed introspection can do that. I’m glad to hear you’ve taken that hard look at yourself and are moving toward a happier future!
OT: Pakistani female journalist bullys into “massage parlor” brothel, urges women to “confess” and brings along the police.
Apparently the broadcaster isn’t happy about her, either.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fpanorama%2Fgesellschaft%2Fpakistanisches-fernsehen-moderatorin-jagt-prostituierte-a-881333.html&act=url
Here’s an original english article
http://newsexcuse.blogspot.de/2013/02/maria-khan-new-vigilante-after-maya-khan.html
This should be a link to the show
http://www.awaztoday.com/News-Talk-Shows/32810/Baat-Say-Baat-1st-February-2013.aspx
Question “why are some women attracted to bad-boys?”
Answer from honorable and moral grown-up man: “Who cares?”
The big issue here is that women don’t understand their own motivations, which is why dating advice given to men by women is usually wretched and achieves the opposite effect.
When women are younger and in their sexual prime, the most fertile with the largest number of fertile years ahead of them, it makes sense to go after the bad boys. As owmen age out of this period, both wisdom and experience as well as hormonal changes push women into looking for different mates.
One thing to note: As society has freed women to choose whomever they want, withoit regard to parenting ability or investment, many women have chosen to chase bad boys, … forever. The shocking increase in reproductive success among the thug and delinquent classes of males is unusual; in previous times, the rich and powerful actually did have lots of kids (usually by several women, in fact), and those who were thugs and criminals usually got left out.
This reversal absolutely must have an effect on the next generation on a genetic level. It’s a reversal. Controling female sexuality is the other side of the coin to controling male labor and sexual expression; once one is released, so is the other.
You now see a direct result: Millions of men just dropping out. In some places, like Japan and China, this is wholesale and complete for many men. In others, it represents a general dumbing-down of everything men traditionally do.
All of these things are linked, and there are unintended consequences to altering tven the least savory elements of the human social ecosystem.
It’s not that we shouldn’t change thigns – women voting isn’t so bad, right? – it’s that not admitting that there will be changes throughout the social ecosystem, some of which were unintended, and some of which might be undesirable, is foolhardy.
As far as sex goes, by breaking the (restrictive) social compact our societies worked under for millenia, if not hundreds of thousands of years, we’ve not just freed women.
We’ve freed men, too.
And this … minor but critical aspect of the sexual revolution may have escaped notice for a while. reformers had no intention of doing this, … and actively discourage it, I’m sure. Especially on the left.
But nevertheless, when one is freed, so is the other.
It’s kind of like a race away from civilized restraint and moderniity. The ultimate upshot will be an ueber-class that operates with relatively stable, traditional rules, but is effete and whose numbers are shrinking, and a larger, more sociallt chaotic lower class, increasingly less easy to govern, whose culture slowly decays.
Both groups will cease being able to interact on any meaningful level.
Playing with human sexuality and its social norms may be necessary, but this represents the single most powerful transformative element in human society: Anything that changes reproductive success of individuals in a discernible pattern affects the next generation, … genetically.
There was a reason certain male and female behaviors were rewarded and others punished, on average. Change this, and you literally change us.
We must have made the right changes so far. Poverty is declining worldwide, in the US and many other countries violent crime is at historic lows, in the US at least high school graduation is at forty year highs, and today’s young people do more volunteer work than earlier generations did.
Today’s world is far from perfect. But we are not declining. We are getting better. A lot of people hate that, but it’s true nonetheless.
I’m totally digging what your layin down. I have a lover who is a very sweet man, yet he’s a warrior. He’s been in 104 hostage/rescue situations and killed 18 very very very bad men.
TURNS ME ON TO A DEGREE I CAN BARELY UNDERSTAND MYSELF!!
I had a woman tell me once (I was still a little boy and yes, she was a relative), “I think if Jesus Christ stood me up in the middle of a football stadium and said, ‘There are fifty thousand men in these stands. Forty-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine of them are fine, decent men, but one of them is a son of a bitch,’ I think I’d knock Jesus down trying to get to that son of a bitch. And I don’t know why.”
It was my first brush with the bad boy thing. So if I were going to become a bad boy in order to improve my chances of dating, getting laid, etc., I had plenty of time to do it. But the truth is, I just don’t have it in me to be an asshole. I can be strong or weak, depending on the situation, but strong or weak, I’m a nice guy. I’ll show you my last place trophy some time.
Fortunately I ran into Laura, who prefers a nice guy. Lots of women SAY they want a nice guy, but Laura really does.
Well put. Most of the Women who are attracted to bad boys aren’t attracted to abusive behaviour, but to certain personality traits such as confidence, assertiveness and some air of adventure, which unfortunately sometimes correlate with being an asshole. However, being nice doesn’t mean being unable to stand up for oneself. Also, I’ve noticed that many self-declared nice guys simply tend to be physically unattractive. They can’t deal with it and so instead start buying into the myth that they don’t get women because they’re too “nice”.