Valentine's Day Special: The Return of the Cave Man, or Why Women Prefer Bad Boys

Earlier in the day, my friends Joem and JV were discussing the question as to why women prefer the so-called "bad boys".

They had been exchanging theories, ranging from "women want bad boys to nurture into good boys" to "women want one wolf to drive away the other wolves". While all these theories are plausible, it does not explain completely why they go for "bad boys". After all, a shy good guy can be nurtured into something better too (quite akin to how many snazzy-dressing husbands are actually dressed by their wives), and a good guy can be as good a deterrent of "other wolves" as a bad guy. In fact, I think a good guy would be a more motivated defender. After all, bad boys often "fire and forget".

So, when I joined the discussion, I chimed in with the missing piece: sex. A 'bad boy" is an aggressive, hypermasculine (or faux-feminine, depending on taste), confident animal whose biggest charm is the ungodly amount of sexual appeal he can muster. This is his sole advantage over the good guy, who is generally nicer, more respectful, harder working and often richer than the bad boy. Sure, there are rich bad boys, but most are of middling income and none the worse for wear in the women-hunting game. Women go for bad boys because of sex.

One thing the "game" theorists got right is that women have changed, and the rules governing the relations between men and women have changed.

Historically, women have entered relationships with men for three primary reasons: marriage (the creation of a stable environment for the raising of offspring), romantic love (emotional fulfillment) and sex. Their reasons have always been a mix of all three, with one aspect predominating depending on the cultural milieu.

A brief summation of this development is implied in this excellent essay by conservative Australian blogger Mark Richardson:

Relationships can be oriented to sex, to romantic love and to marriage. In most cultures, there is an element of each, but the balance can change.

For much of Western history, culture was directed primarily toward marriage. A man in such a culture will be looking for a woman to be his life partner and a mother for his children. He is therefore likely to value a woman for her beauty, her intelligence and her good nature. In upper class culture it was also important for a wife to be of equal social standing, of good reputation and to be suitably accomplished.

...

By the end of the 1800s, Western culture was more oriented to romantic love than it had previously been. What does a man focused on romantic love look for in a woman? An idealised feminine beauty, grace and goodness.

By the 1970s, second wave feminists began to demand sexual liberation. What this meant, in its historical context, was the pursuit of relationships by women without regard to marriage or to male expectations of romantic love.

One may ask how men figure into all this. I have always maintained that when it comes to the pursuit of women, men have always been reactive. Even those pick-up artists who claim to be "proactive" in the woman hunt are only reacting to a set of presuppositions and calculations about the wants and desires of the women they pursue.

For all the feminist belly-aching about the lack of power they have relative to men, it is the women who have always had the power when it came to setting the terms of a relationship. Men simply react to them. Even the worst cases of abuse of women by men can be seen in light of this reaction. Wife-beating, for example, can be seen as a manifestation of "investment protection": he agreed to the terms and expects the bargain to be met. If not, he responds with violence.

Where women are taught to seek marriage, men had to make themselves marriageable: gaining status, wealth or some form of economic or social stability before winning the hand of the woman he is courting. Some cultures manifest this expectation in practices such as forced servitude (think the biblical Jacob), or the payment of dowry. Even where the payment of dowry is to the husband, it is in expectation that the dowry is necessary for his achievement of social or economic stability for the sake of his wife.

Where women are conditioned to seek romantic love, men are compelled to match the female masculine ideal with the male feminine ideal. After all, a woman expects the full force of her idealistic love to be returned with a similar force. I am reminded of Whittaker Chambers' observation of his father's marital failure, which was rooted in his inability to match or accomodate the force of his wife's devotion.

Where women are conditioned to seek sex, men react by reverting to the cave man. You know, the guy who hits his prey over the head and drags her to the cave. And the woman who is thus encultured loves every burn mark.

Why did the balance of feminine motivations shift from predominantly marriage to predominantly sex? There are many factors. To name just a few...

The rise in the quality of life and, more importantly, the economic independence of women brought about by the great social shifting of the 20th century ensured that women would find marriage less and less necessary to their well-being. The rise of the modern welfare state ensured that the state could replace the loss of a husband's income. Thus, there is no need to search for marriageable men. Why settle for the paunch and the balding head just because he works hard? She doesn't need him anymore.

The romantic ideal was untenable precisely because it was an ideal. The weakening of romance in the three-way balance is the result of a billion little disappointments, from forgetful boyfriends to the failure of most men to look like Fabio the Scottish Laird (or a sparkly vampire). Men often found themselves feeling the same loss, but have often been castigated and ostracized when this resulted in abandonment. However, things were different when the abandonment became mutual.

With the loss of the ideal and the obsolescence of the necessity, the major factor left is sex. Now, men have always had sex at the top of their motivations when it came to relationships. It was because women wanted something different that the complimentary natures of the genders came into play. After all, men have always been economically independent (widespread "failure to launch" is a more recent phenomenon), and are not built for emotional ideals. (How many men watched "Failure to Launch"?)  When women themselves wanted sex, then all the man had to do in order to satisfy his most pressing want is to revert to his old state, stripped off centuries of politesse and social obligation, and become the "bad boy".

The result is the complete and utter triumph of men (as seen in this bit of satire). At least, of some men. Not all men can easily strip themselves of civilized behavior.

The result is that women end up competing sexually for the attention of roughly 10% of the male populace. The competition is not even close. For every Samantha (Sex and the City) who manages 41 hook ups in the span of a decade, there are several Tucker Max types who can score twice that number in one-tenth the time. And when these women have been used and discarded like so many play things; as they lose the youthful beauty that had been their best bargaining chip, they will settle for the balding guy with the paunch who works hard and meets his obligations. What's even worse, she will have lost the ability to form strong emotional bonds with her sex partner (something the "bad boys" have either never had or have long discarded), which is patently unfair to the poor, hard-working schmuck who married her (and probably still nurses that highschool infatuation of her) and the children who will expect to be raised by parents who love each other.

While this post is not to excuse the part men played that led to our current state of affairs, it is an attempt to expand the blame to the other party in this mess. The modern woman is unhappier. The cave man, be he the CEO, the pool boy or the jobless biker deviant, is back and is here to stay. Chivalry and the ideal are dead. And modern women, I believe, have lost the right to complain. Far too many of them are actually enjoying it, and the complaints of those who cannot anymore ring with the hollowness of sour grapes.

And they said feminism would save women. Advanced Happy Valentine's Day!