Post by Rankkor
Yesterday while I was walking into the gas station, a skuzbucket said "Hey baby those heels make your ass look FINE!" Why do men think that being that incredibly blunt and rude will get them laid? Boggles my mind.
Because (and don't get this the wrong way) There are women stupid enough to be turned on by that crap.
I'm SO not kidding. If fan reactions to twilight and shades of gray are anything to go by, the slimiest, creepiest, crassiest a man is, the more chances he has to get laid.
There's a trope about this too:
All Girls Want Bad BoysIt boggles my mind why would a woman being capable to choose between a nice, decent, honest man, and a cheating, scoundrel, dirtbag, they'll go towards the dirtbag (on account of the nice man being "boring" and the bad boy being "exotic and exciting".)
Thankfully, not all women are like this, but some of them are, and its these types of women the ones to get more focus on the media, enough to make genuinely nice guys act like pricks in order to try to get laid. They seem to think this is what they want.
To quote part of the article of TVTropes:
Maybe Hollywood is tapping into the supposed ancestral female animal instinct to choose the mightiest, strongest, toughest genes for their offspring. Maybe they're tapping into teenaged rebellion: girls are most likely to like the boys their parents are most likely to hate. Maybe it's because the more tanned, muscular, and scarred the actor, the better the shirtless scenes.
Maybe the trend originated in a time when leather jackets, sunglasses, and motorcycles were in fashion. Maybe it's the thrill of danger being mistaken for love. Maybe it's just because Evil Is Sexy. Maybe "good girl and great guy get along great and are perfect for each other" is really boring. Maybe the writers are just bitter about the girls they didn't get. Whatever the reason, sorry, good boys — in Hollywood it's the bad boys the girls want.
The "bad boy" targets the strongest womanly instincts: the stoic, silent guy is a mystery waiting to be solved; the Troubled, but Cute youth with a tragic past is a woobie needing comfort; he's tough enough to be a girl's protector, but vulnerable enough to need her to redeem him as well. Add to that the fact that Evil is Cool the Anti-Hero ranks as Bachelor of the Month.
However........
All this, of course, glosses over the fact that bad boys are............ well, bad, meaning criminally inclined, not good as friends, probably not too mentally stable, potentially abusive/physically violent, might have trouble keeping a legal job, and will most likely be more interested in the physical (read:sexual) aspect of a relationship than anything else.
He's also probably not going to be that concerned with fidelity, either. Depending on the nature of the Bad Boy and whether he's redeemed (or even redeemable) or not, use of this trope may give cause for the viewer to question the character's sense or intelligence, particularly if it's immediately obvious to everyone from the outset of the relationship that the man is a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
And of course, most people (specially youngsters) behave the way the media tells them to. So if every big hit romance these days is the sweet innocent girl, with the nasty borderline sociopath, then that's what most people will tend to emulate.
Reina made this mistake BTW, she's divorced. Her first husband was a NASTY piece of work, alcoholic, violent, rude, foulmouthed, narcissistic, and egomaniac to boot. I had to prove to her over several years that I had not one of these traits before she agreed to date me. Experience is a harsh mistress.