Episode 603: Bad boys (why women want them)

I'm Dr. O'Royan Teraban, and this is Cycax, better living through psychology, and the

topic for day short talk is bad boys.

So there are a number of masculine archetypes that successfully attract women, but no

archetype is more perennially successful in attracting women than is the bad boy.

And this is actually counterintuitive to a lot of men, especially those men who listen

to women when they describe what they are looking for in a man.

You know what comes out of their mouths?

I want a man who respects me, a man who gives green flags, a man who buys me flowers, a

man who is emotionally available, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and allow me to assure

you a bad boy ain't doing any of that shit.

And yet, and yet he is going to enjoy a great deal of optionality when it comes to women.

So let's talk about why this might be the case.

First and foremost, you have to appreciate that bad boys violate rules and social norms.

Like that's essentially what makes them bad.

However, leaving the moral judgment behind, it's this behavior that makes these men anti-social

and dangerous.

And dangerous men are attractive to women for a variety of reasons.

But danger is exciting.

And excitement, like by definition, is emotionally stimulating.

And any, any effective seduction technique works precisely to the extent that it succeeds

in stimulating a woman's emotions.

However, there's a deeper reason behind why this particular form of emotional stimulation

is so effective with women.

Similarly, it allows the woman to transcend her fear through identification.

Say what you want about anti-social men, but they possess some degree of courage.

It takes courage to break rules and violate social norms, to say the thing that no one

else is willing to say and do the thing that no one else is willing to do.

Most people, especially women, go through life afraid.

They're afraid of the consequences of acting according to their own desires or speaking

their truth because they fear the resultant censure and social judgment.

So the bad boy communicates through his actions that he has the courage to act in line with

his desires and to speak his mind.

This makes him incredibly attractive, as it suggests that he is both strong enough to

exist without the approval of others and resourceful enough to exist without the support of others,

which segues into my next point.

Bad boys give main character energy.

Why?

Because they take what they want from life rather than ask permission to receive it.

Most people are working within the system to scrape together the satisfaction of their

desires.

They wait and they toil and they submit and they obey, but bad boys don't do that.

If they want it, they take it.

Or at the very least, they have the courage to operate within their own systems.

Consider the Disney movie Aladdin, in which Princess Jasmine falls for Aladdin, our

lovable street rat.

Aladdin, first and foremost, is a criminal.

He's a thief.

He exists in the underclass of society and yet he succeeds in seducing the sultans daughter.

He does so under false pretenses granted, but it kind of requires a dangerous anti-social

personality to seduce under false pretenses, doesn't it?

In any case, that's the deeper meaning of the movie's show stopping hit a whole new world.

Down there, on the ground, that society.

The system of rules and laws and social norms where everyone is fruitlessly toiling in

the desperate hope that one day they might be able to earn their hearts desire.

But with a magic carpet, Aladdin is quite literally above all that.

Come with me, Princess, and you will finally, finally experience the life that you have

been too timid and afraid to procure for yourself.

And defy with me, and you'll be able to access vicariously some of the courage, some

of the boldness that you need in order to fly above the rules and judgments and expectations

of others.

You can't do it yourself.

How do I know that?

Because if you could have done it, you would have done it by now.

Identification with me is your ticket out of the labyrinth of rules and self-denial and

an invitation into personal freedom.

Even if that personal freedom is fundamentally anti-social.

If you're interested in taking your understanding to the next level, I would encourage you to

check out the captain's quarters, my members only self-improvement community.

Your monthly membership will get you access to a cadre of like-minded, supportive individuals

by monthly group consultation sessions hosted by yours truly and exclusive content that

you won't find anywhere else.

Click the link in the description for more information, hope to see you aboard.

Now this is a big part of why women are attracted to wealthy men as well.

Wealth, like anti-social boldness, allows people to live above the rules of society.

I don't make the news.

I just report it.

You've all been following the Epstein file stuff, right?

What we're seeing is the unveiling of a global cabal of elites that have long been operating

over and above not only the rule of law, but the dictates of basic human dignity and morality.

Many of the revelations are disgusting and abhorrent if not completely evil.

But none of them should be completely surprising.

People seek wealth and power in order to not be constrained by the forces that bind the

masses, rules for thee, but not for me, kind of a thing.

So that's a big part of why women are attracted to wealth.

Like anti-social tendencies, wealth offers a kind of liberation from the constraints that

most people are resigned by their powerlessness to operate within.

Knowing herself with these types of men allows a woman to vicariously participate in that

freedom.

Still not convinced?

Well, here's another reason why bad boys are perpetually attractive to women, especially

especially if they signal aggressiveness.

Again, this is counterintuitive.

Why are women so much more concerned with their safety than men are?

Because they navigate a world in which the vast majority of men are physically stronger

than they are.

If push came to shove, it would be very difficult for the average woman to defend herself from

even an average man's physical aggression.

Don't let the movies fool you.

Women are aware of this on some level, which is why they say what their mouths that they

are looking for a man who makes me feel safe.

She doesn't feel safe most of the time.

So why do so many of these women then align themselves with aggressive, if not brutal

men?

Because doing so dramatically decreases the number of potential threats to her.

Think about it.

Most men are, at least potentially, a physical threat to most women.

And most men are not going to fuck with the most aggressive and brutal subset of men.

Therefore, if a woman can succeed in aligning herself with the most threatening man, who

no other man is going to threaten, then she has succeeded in reducing her number of potential

threats from most men to one man.

In such a case, all she has to do is stay safe from all men is to neutralize one of them,

which she can do using her feminine wiles.

Of course, a lot of these aggressive, brutal men, shock, end up applying that aggression

to the woman in question.

So it's certainly not a risk-free strategy.

But that's kind of the underlying, unconscious, evolutionarily grounded thought process around

why women seek out dangerous men.

And don't think that this is some kind of rare phenomenon.

The average guy gets like zero attention from women, zero, zero, yet there are literally

murderers on death row for whom women are lining up for a conjugal visit.

Now you might say that these are broken women or unhealthy women or insert negative adjective

women, but let me assure you, they are not all unattractive women.

Too many female true crime podcast fans for that.

So let that sink in.

In any case, those are some of the reasons why women are always going to be attracted

to bad boys.

Aligning with bad boys significantly reduces the number of perceived threats associated

with other men and allows women to vicariously enter into a kind of social freedom that they

are too timid and afraid to procure for themselves.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

What do you think?

Does this fit with your own experience?

Let me know in the comments below.

And please, send this episode to someone who you think might benefit from its message.

I'm thinking a guy who believes most of the things that come out of a woman's mouth

when she says what she's looking for in a guy.

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