Why are bad guys sexy? - Dissecting the popular trope

We all know “sexy bad guys” from books, movies, and series. You need only to look into any popular contemporary work and I bet you can point out at least one of them. In recent years there is a tendency for them to move from an interesting side character position to the main love interest of a female protagonist in more and more novels.

They share many common traits. They’re often possessive, arrogant, self-absorbed, have power in the society, can be narcissists or psychopaths (we will have another blog post about them later), and – of course – they are insanely handsome. All women fall for them, but the big question is, why? The trope works, just look at the members of TeamDamon from the Vampire Diaries, the fandom of Rhysand from the Court of Thornes and Roses, and the millions of people who bought the Fifty Shades of Grey. How can it be, that these characters are considered irresistible or at least very attractive?

This phenomenon has many different reasons, most of them are rooted so deep in our psyche that we are not aware of them. We must go back in time when human society was very different from today, and fighting for survival was the daily life of our ancestors.

1. Because of evolution

In primates, there are three different family models. One is monogamy where one male has one female, and they are mates for life. Here the male is essential in taking care of the offspring if they are confident the child is from them.

The second is the harem, where there is one dominant male with many wives and the other males either try to fight him or arouse the females while the dominant male is with another female or occupied with challengers. The females take care of the children while the alpha protects the whole family, however, if there’s a change in the seat of power, the new alpha often banishes or kills the offspring of his predecessor.

Yeah, animals are cruel. But so are humans, since this was a common practice for our ancestors for a long time as well.

The third model is promiscuity, where everyone can have sex with everyone, love is free as the wind but there the males have no idea which child is who’s, so it easier for them to dump all the responsibility of making sure they survive on the females.

Gibbons are a good example of monogamous primates, gorillas prefer harems, while chimpanzees voted for promiscuity. We in our modern western society like to think that humans have implemented a monogamous family model, but this is not entirely true. During our history harems were more common, and great rulers often had many (and by many I mean dozens, sometimes hundreds of) wives, and sometimes hundreds of children. Ramses II had 99 sons, not counting his daughters, and millions of people alive today are descended from Ghengis Khan. On the other side, those who always envision the downfall of morality in our society like to point out that we are slowly tending towards promiscuity. (The hippies say hello to them.)

 2. Because of our genes

From a genetic point of view, there are a few things to consider. Males can’t get pregnant, so they value quantity over quality, trying to almost mass-produce children, and if some of them survive they are good to go. Females can only have a limited number of children, so they want to ensure their survival, they want them to be fit, to carry on their genetic data. For this, they need to copulate with the best male, and it’s a generous bonus if that particular male stays to help raise the little devils. The best scenario for a female is when she has the attention of the alpha male, the strongest, the most desired – therefore his child will inherit these qualities. But they also want this male to stay with them not even glimpsing at other females, all the while helping with the children. In contrast, it is a way better deal for males to go on a copulating spree, having as many descendants as possible. And that, ladies and gentlemen, means a clear and visible conflict of interest between the two sexes.

But not every male is as alpha as they come. What about the betas? Hell, even the omegas. How could they pass their genetic data? These little buggers found different solutions, based on which family model they live in. In a harem, a beta has no chance to beat the alpha, so he goes through the backdoor. The alpha can’t guard all his females at once, so the beta has a chance with the neglected females. Also, alphas have higher mortality than betas because they do the fighting. If we think about a caveman tribe, alphas go hunt a mammoth or fight with sabrecats (sadly not dragons, Skyrim lied to us all), and sometimes they don’t come back, leaving grieving widows behind. Here comes the beta male to comfort these poor women, and if he is lucky, he can make a few offspring along the way. Because he doesn’t fight, he can help the female with the children, so they will have a higher chance of survival, and are more likely to pass on the beta-gene. Yeah. You heard me. Some of us are beta by birth.

In monogamy, the females are stuck with their beta mates and the only way out is kind of risky. The females must decide whether they should take the risk and cheat on the beta with the alpha. If they do, the children will be more fit, but if they are caught the beta will leave the female alone with the children and won’t ensure their survival. Why would he? Those are not his descendants. Let Mr. Alpha sleep in the bed he … well, probably slept in with the aforementioned female. When the males can’t guard their females and have no idea whether those children are from them or not, there is a high chance that they won’t stay in the first place. That way all the females and all the males can have sex with whoever they want and now our family model changed to promiscuity.

 3. Both? Both. Both is good.

Now that we understand the system of alphas, betas, omegas – my biology teacher called them “casanovas” and “clerks” – and the age-old conflict between sexes, how is all this related to the main question, the sexy bad guy trope?

If we think of the traits of our bad-guy in question, we can clearly see that he must be an alpha, a Casanova-type male. Power to ensure a safe home and food for his lady? Check. Handsome and desired so his children will also be top of the class? Check. Is he strong so he can protect the female from sabrecats? Check. Does everyone else know that he is the best? Of course, he shows it every moment with his arrogant behavior, there is no question.

Another thing that complicates the picture is how authors tend to make the bad guy sympathetic. How can they ensure readers don’t have the urge to hit these Alpha-holes in the face? They give them a tragic backstory! They are never bad because they are… well… bad people, but because they were neglected, they have childhood traumas and so on, and they are just waiting for the female protagonist to heal them.

And THIS, my dear readers, is the ultimate hook.

If we have a caring female that ultimately saves the bad guy, her prize will be an alpha male who stays with her and only her. She gets what all our ancestors wanted since we as a species grew a spine: the alpha male who gives her the best children ever and  also stays to help raise them.

This also elevates her above the other females who also longed for this male. The protagonists in YA fiction are mostly introverts, bookworms, outcasts, rejected by their environment, so being desired by the “Casanova” serves as social justice as well.

 

 4. In practice

I may sound judgmental, but this trope is not from the devil in itself, even we use it in our WIP. Given that, it can be executed both in a good way and a very, very bad way, depending on the compromises the author makes and how far they go to make the guy bad. He needs to be bad otherwise there is no redemption plot, there is nothing the female needs to save him from, but he can’t be so evil, that the reader thinks there is no saving him.

The threshold for this is not the same for every reader. For example, I draw the line at abuse. If the bad guy is abusive towards the female, then he doesn’t deserve to be saved, but I am aware, that there are tons of people who glorify abusive relationships – I saw many posts about the Joker and Harley Quinn being relationship goals for example. Another interesting example is Kylo Ren and Rey from Star Wars. Kylo is a mass murderer but ultimately, he managed to redeem himself which I quite liked, although I totally understand that some draw the line there.

Just be aware, that this is fiction. Something that resonates deeply with our instincts, but in real life if someone wants to save the bad guy they will fail miserably in most cases and come out from an abusive relationship with deep wounds and traumas.

Here is the question for you: where do you draw the line? What makes you think the bad guy cannot be saved no matter how sexy he is? Comments are welcome!

Join us next week when we shove men under the microscope and analyze why damsels in distress appeal so much to the most viral hero types.

Lory