Why women love bad boys ... even if they're already dating a vampire

[xssve]

I also meant to add the other day, that in art, the bad boy antihero is often deliberately used as a foil to expose the hypocrisy of society - he or she is often placed in and environment where his or her natural inclinations to "goodness" are stifled or rendered impractical by social conditions: the Femme Fatale is usually the wife of mistress, arm candy for a neglectful industrialist (aristocrat), who is only interested in his pursuit of power - the bad boy often inhabits an anarchic sector of civilization where the detritus of the raw, naked abuse of power prevails: the world of warfare, crime, oppression, etc., where it's the rules themselves that represent evil, as well as the more subtle oppression of role restriction.

 

[3113]

I also meant to add the other day, that in art, the bad boy antihero is often deliberately used as a foil to expose the hypocrisy of society - he or she is often placed in and environment where his or her natural inclinations to "goodness" are stifled or rendered impractical by social conditions: the Femme Fatale is usually the wife of mistress, arm candy for a neglectful industrialist (aristocrat), who is only interested in his pursuit of power - the bad boy often inhabits an anarchic sector of civilization where the detritus of the raw, naked abuse of power prevails: the world of warfare, crime, oppression, etc., where it's the rules themselves that represent evil, as well as the more subtle oppression of role restriction.

You raise an interesting point and I'm in agreement. Yes, in Art and popular culture, the Bad Boy often is stifled and must be "bad" in order to assert his "goodness" and also to expose hypocrisy--and he often is bad because he recognizes the hypocrisy and is jaded by it. Why be a "good boy" when good is a lie. In this light, it's no wonder that said rebels are the heroes of popular culture. If we take your model of society, the one thing that is "unnatural" about it is that it usually sets up a situation where the King, advisors, court and such get to stay in place. In nature, an old ape with a harem can be driven out by a young new ape who take over and sets up a new regime.

But that's not the way it works in most human societies/tribes. Once the King is on the throne, he makes sure it gets passed to his son, and all his advisors and court, wanting their sons to have their stuff, go along with this. This means that the common folk and their children are stuck being common ad infinitum. No surprise if they start to envision a rebel who is going to shake things up and give people lower on the ladder a chance at climbing up to a higher rung.

What I find most interesting is your point about the femme fatal. It is telling that bad girls are rarely the same. She isn't bad because her inner goodness is stifled, or because she recognizes the hypocrisy around her. In fact, the very name suggests that she is fatal, symbolizing sex-as-death, not sex as empowerment. I say this is telling because both bad boy and femme fatal are fantasies, and it's interesting that men and women want their male hero (bad boy) to have some layer of rational and goodness in him for what he does. Getting back to your natural man, he represents the anti-thesis. In popular culture, it's the Bruce Willis, defying the cultural establishment, who acts the part of the young male bringing down the old king so that the world can be refreshed.

But the Femme Fatal seems to stand for a man taking risks, with the same excitement of engaging in anything that might end up killing you, from scaling a mountain to swimming with sharks. If you can engage in sex with her and come out alive, then you score big manliness points. But she is rarely viewed as any kind of independent heroine or redeemable villainess.

May West is probably the closest I can think of to the female version of the Bad Boy in popular culture; I think of her famous quote: "When I'm good, I'm good, but when I'm bad, I'm better..."

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I'll take the bait and give it a shot.

First off, I have a problem with the whole concept of sexual power and exactly how it constitutes a threat to society - sound like the dreaded "freethinking" and it is, but bear with me.

It requires some effort to rid the mind of preconceptions, and here we have several: what and who is society, and how is sex a threat?

Having raised the question at all, put these things in their proper place as abstractions, we don't even need to answer it immediately; However, I prefer to place it in context, and I'll try to keep it brief.

We know instinctively that "society" is something of an artificial construct - our forebears we generally not so removed from nature as we, they didn't have to go to the zoo to see animals, they had chickens in the front yard, goats in the back, sheep in the field, cows in the pasture, they were surrounded on all sides by wild Fauna, and they were in constant daily contact with all of these "cultures" - one cannot dismiss the power of the concept of similitude, the drawing of inferences from examples provided by the natural world. The mind has been described as a machine for making associations, and we make them constantly - descriptive language is essentially a set of associative triggers that call up archetypes not just of things or actions, but their context and associations, and sometimes the context and associations take on a life of their own, overshadowing the thing itself as a discrete symbol.

We've discussed at great length the word "slut" for example, whose contexts and associations vary according to who you're talking too, ranging from the broadest abstraction, a shamelessly sexual woman, to whether that's a compliment or an insult, whether it refers to an abstract behavior or has a more immediate meaning in terms of disparaging the competition - in one sense, it means nothing more than "Brand X" for instance.

Competition is part of the "natural order", and going back to Fauna in general, mammals in general display particular patterns of behavior in which courtship figures, as does Alpha status, and various ways and means around that including subterfuge - early historical human behavior patterns indicate patterns very similar to basic mammalian patterns, i.e., Alpha males keeping harems (polygyny), and the rest sorting themselves out in various ways, from casual encounters to monogamous, and/or socially monogamous social units - the Biblical Rabbi's, from what I can glean, were essentially monogamous, occasionally polygynous, but appear to have had concubines, mistresses, slaves they slept with , etc., all of which is somewhat predictable both in terms of imitation of animal behavior, but also practical if you figure in a high male attrition rate, a distortion in the sex distribution ratio favoring women.

In essence, this is the definition of "society" at that point in history - skip ahead a couple of millenia, and we have Mormons trying revive this particular social pattern, only this time, they're deviants, getting kicked out of every settled state and eventually being forced to emigrate to the desert boonies in order to create their social order.

I mention them, because while I usually pin erotophobic social "standards" on Xians, significant deviations from these standards are often also religiously inspired.

It is true, I believe that erotophobic superstitions and the whole aura of "moral horror" surrounding sex is largely a Calvinist convention - Calvinism was born in and from a somewhat desperate political conflict with Libertines, who at that time simply rejected all standards as "unnatural", and advocated sex with anything or anybody at whim.

I believe that this conflict still informs the evangelical approach to debate on sexuality, i.e., they still associate homosexuality with pedophilia, in spite of the fact that in the more general liberal tradition, these things have long been relegated into separate categories. Similarly, the Libertines were a largely aristocratic group (De Sade), and in general their behavior was lees than admirable - they were really bad boys, sexual sadists, sociopaths who recognized no checks on their whims, which they likely inherited from the Romans, which was for all practical purposes, a Libertine civilization where sadism was the norm.

It's difficult to assign a shelf life to an oral tradition, particularly when abetted by the printed word - it can be re-read and revived after decades, even centuries of quiescence, and the whole thing treated like it happened yesterday - that Xians themselves are typically hostile to any form of literature that smacks of Libertinism argues that they are well aware of this particular phenomena.

Augustine was born into Roman civilization, and his reticence made him the deviant, in that he appears to have suffered from possessing a natural conscience, and was repelled and disgusted at his own bloodlust, aroused upon attending the Circus, leading him to formulate the doctrine of total depravity, which later inspired Calvinism and Puritanism as mass movements.

But, going back the original question, even a complete lack of sexual compunction or any regard for human rights did not appear to greatly inconvenience the growth and prosperity of the Roman empire, and the whole argument that it is bad for society appears spurious - depending on how you define society - civilization it was, civilized, not so much.

The danger then, must lie elsewhere - I have my suspicions, but I promised to keep it short, in in that spirit, the "bad boy" archetype itself, I think, has not evolved so far from what was probably it's original conception of what is essentially the natural man, or "man in nature", in anthropological terms, in an artificial environment - society, insofar as it represents "civilization" is itself something of an unnatural construct to begin with, it represents a set of rules and restrictions, promulgating behaviors that facilitate large groups of people living together. Probably extrapolated from older tribal norms, but abstracted into categorical caste systems - the Chief becomes king, the council of elders his advisers, his petitioners the court, shamans priests, war chiefs generals, and all the rest, servants slaves, merchants and vendors, etc., etc., according to their particular talents and inclinations, origin, birth order, etc.

In all of this, a certain order arises where one's identity as an independent entity, archetypal "man" or "woman" becomes sublimated into ones role - one becomes a function, a part in a vast machine, locked into a role over which one may not have much if any input into the conceptualization of that role.

This is closer to a definition of "society" it is that which categorizes and assigns roles in a tribe, a culture, a civilization - in some sense, one must consider that it is probably and extension of the Alpha hierarchy, although it almost necessarily includes women, who after all, have a long history of political involvement in defining the standard by which we identify what is within society and what is without.

The natural man is anarchic, he is essentially, raw sex appeal - his presences erases social boundaries, unnatural order evaporates - and we must also admit, that this social "system" is often self serving, particularly to those who take it upon themselves to define it, as somehow or another, they always seem to manage to define "it" in a way that entitles them to skim all the cream off top, and this is in some sense, what the bad boy threatens: your daughter may be "ruined", and won't get married to that wealth merchant you've had your eye on, etc., as one example.

How you get from here to Calvinist erotophobia in general, and moral horror in particular, is whole 'nother analysis, into which dualism figures highly, but I've already broken my promise to keep it short.

There are whole lot of rabbit trails from here, republicans for example, try very hard to synthesize that "bad boy" archetype with elitist social restrictions - they are deeply in love with the "natural man" archetype, but represent largely elitist and fastidious aristocratic and mercantile values as a practical matter - not having sex as an outlet, they have to confine themselves to bombing small countries into the stone age and torturing convenient targets to assert their manliness, and spinning it into an act of rebellion against what they see as unnatural "elitist" social restrictions on their (sublimated) testosterone driven compulsions.

Not being particularly literary, I am tempted to ask whether that is an actual set of 'archetypes' you are describing or a late 18th Century Romantic conceit?

The entire twaddle of the 'natural man' that Jean Jacques Rousseau put forth has been repeatedly rebuked in the centuries since but it still manages to fascinate artists, especially writers. Why is this so? I don't buy into Freud, either, but are Romantics living their Oedipal delusions, pretending to be that sexually magnetic rebel they portray because of lack of societal approval? That hardly seems logical, given the 'literary lion' treatment.

 

[xssve]

Not being particularly literary, I am tempted to ask whether that is an actual set of 'archetypes' you are describing or a late 18th Century Romantic conceit?

The entire twaddle of the 'natural man' that Jean Jacques Rousseau put forth has been repeatedly rebuked in the centuries since but it still manages to fascinate artists, especially writers. Why is this so? I don't buy into Freud, either, but are Romantics living their Oedipal delusions, pretending to be that sexually magnetic rebel they portray because of lack of societal approval? That hardly seems logical, given the 'literary lion' treatment.

The example that usually springs to mind for me, being American and not having been exposed to Rousseau particularly, is Enkidu, the co-protagonist in the epic of Gilgamesh: Enkidu is Animal and Man, Gilgamesh is Man and God - Gilgamesh, upon hearing of Enkidu's existence, send a prostitute out from the city to seduce him, after which he no longer feels attuned to nature, the animals now run from him instead of with him - something of a prefigurement of the Adamic mythos, woman as seducer, the ender of innocence, although in the case of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the whole business is not quite so overwrought, and it isn't the whole point of the story, like it is in Genesis, in fact the whole thing has an air of the routine, i.e., it's a short coming of age parable that is merely a device to introduce Enkidu to Gilgamesh.

They go on to slay the bull of Heaven, etc., which may represent the goddess religions - similar to the golden calf, i.e., a fertility symbol representing pure, primal virility - probably arose around the time that animals began to be domesticated - previous animism usually involved wild animals, beer, bears, etc., i.e., the Celtic "Horned God" who also represents the cuckold - the idea being similar to Pan, who cavorts with the Nymphs of an evening, but they always desert him and he wakes up alone.

The whole business is, I think and elaborate metaphor for the conflict between the practical need for the restrictions of monogyny, vs. the more "natural" sort of ad hoc couplings that are more typical of most mammalian species including the Great Apes - in this, the woman needs to be tamed, but in a sense, in the taming, one is oneself tamed - to indulge the wild side of ones own nature is to relax ones vigilance and invite the converse, or something along those lines.

In short, if it's a romantic conceit, it's a very old one, dating back the invention of written language.

i.e., it all speaks of a fairly complex pattern of social adjustments in early human culture, that not surprisingly, continue to present themselves.

Sorry for the digression, but in a sense, a lot of religions center around the whole concept of a return to some state of anoetic innocence, certainly Western religion, which is really borrowed Eastern religion - redemption through "Grace", for example, which is really and idealized state in which all moral ambiguities, inherent in the human condition, are somehow magically resolved - again, not surprisingly, "Grace" is often associated with virginity and/or celibacy, since many of those moral ambiguities arise from the political, biological, and emotional complexities of human sexuality, i.e., we are all possessed of a dual nature: half anoetic animal, half Godlike reason - half id, half superego - pick you metaphor, but generally women seems to have borne the blame for what is really the evolution of the analytical senses, the "knowledge of right and wrong", as in Genesis, consciousness, which leads to conscience and self conscience, which leads to guilt: knowledge of ones wrongs and the agonizing tortures of the conscience.

Note that a central plank of the right is the rejection of "liberal guilt", they too desire the abrogation of the conscience, the pleasure principle - conscience is pain.

In this sense, "Man in Nature", which is only peripherally related to Rousseau's idealization, is an term used in anthropology to describe the idealized man of animistic religion, whose life revolves around the animals he hunts and worships.

Rousseau's "Noble Savage" is closer to the religious concept of grace, he's just managed to include sex, based on the easygoing sexuality of South Sea Island culture, in which jealousy is the taboo, but at the price of venereal disease, which wreaks a lot of havoc when it reaches Europe, and tends to lend weight to the arguments of the nominally Erotophobic Calvinist puritans, who themselves, in spite of this, flirt with concepts like spiritual marriage etc., and are, for the most part, unable to entirely suppress their own erotic fantasies, but instead try to incorporate them into their own concept of a state of grace, and continue to do so in spates.

Fascinating, because Calvinism, in opposition to Libertinism, is the the most elitist and Libertine philosophy imaginable: in predispensationalism the "elect" are saved through predestination, and can do no wrong - they are automatically forgiven for anything they do, and the rest of all mankind is similarly damned regardless - i.e., it's through Calvinist doctrine that American Protestantism rejects works as means to salvation, the damned are damned, period, and the elect do not risk their immortal souls by easing their suffering, or even by adding to it.

It's really a pretty sociopathic theology.

Anyway, no, it may represent in some sense, a desire to return to the womb, Oedipal by extension, but this too represents a state of primal grace, carefree childhood, which is itself a metaphor for the anoetic state of grace - a signal aspect fo Calvinistic religion is their insistence that while all mankind is innately depraved, children are innocent.

Not sure how they resolve that particular viewpoint with predestination, or the doctrine of innate depravity in general, but this is pretty much where they go erotophobic, i.e., that it's all to be left unsaid, for fear of corrupting the innocent child.

Problem being that after ones mid Twenties or so, innocence increasingly resembles ignorance, and purity is less a virtue than a neurosis.

 

[NoJo]

I dunno about anyone else, but I'm hooked on the HBO series, True Blood (Fantastic casting, great dialogue, and fabulous storylines). We were recently watching Season 2, Episode 9, "I Will Rise Up" and about halfway through the episode is a love scene between innocent, darling Sookie and cold, man-eating, but sizzling-hot Viking vampire-machine, Erik. To me, the events leading up to this scene and the scene itself epitomize the attraction that women have to bad boys and, vice versa, the attraction that men have to innocent good girls (I will focus only a little on the former, but feel free to add your two cents on the latter or both and in any scenario).

It's hard for me to write this without wanting to recount the whole series and specifically the scene in question, but I'd be ruining it for anyone who hasn't watched this episode and excluding everyone not familiar with the book or series. With this said, I will summarize the scene by "suggesting" that as innocent, moral and good as a character like Sookie can be, she doesn't want to be naughty (which seems a premise for much porn and even Hollywood scenarios), she wants someone to recognize that she already IS naughty and the bad boy does know this (the hero doesn't in this scenario) and that is one attraction.

What are your thoughts on the attraction to bad boys and/or good girls? Opinions on True Blood are also welcome.

I only like bitches and witches, evil through and through.

 

[xssve]

If I haven't already worn out your ironic sensibilities, here's another one: Libertinism probably has less to do with philosophy than with with brain damage, inherited from Roman aristocrats who painted their faces with lead white, drank water from lead pipes, etc., and overall, probably had very high rates of exposure to neurotoxins, particularly heavy metals.

The real irony being, our modern prudes tend to defend the same industries, in the name of Mammon, who are pumping that shit into the environment as we speak, and will blame the results on the symptoms.

 

[xssve]

You raise an interesting point and I'm in agreement. Yes, in Art and popular culture, the Bad Boy often is stifled and must be "bad" in order to assert his "goodness" and also to expose hypocrisy--and he often is bad because he recognizes the hypocrisy and is jaded by it. Why be a "good boy" when good is a lie. In this light, it's no wonder that said rebels are the heroes of popular culture. If we take your model of society, the one thing that is "unnatural" about it is that it usually sets up a situation where the King, advisors, court and such get to stay in place. In nature, an old ape with a harem can be driven out by a young new ape who take over and sets up a new regime.

But that's not the way it works in most human societies/tribes. Once the King is on the throne, he makes sure it gets passed to his son, and all his advisors and court, wanting their sons to have their stuff, go along with this. This means that the common folk and their children are stuck being common ad infinitum. No surprise if they start to envision a rebel who is going to shake things up and give people lower on the ladder a chance at climbing up to a higher rung.

What I find most interesting is your point about the femme fatal. It is telling that bad girls are rarely the same. She isn't bad because her inner goodness is stifled, or because she recognizes the hypocrisy around her. In fact, the very name suggests that she is fatal, symbolizing sex-as-death, not sex as empowerment. I say this is telling because both bad boy and femme fatal are fantasies, and it's interesting that men and women want their male hero (bad boy) to have some layer of rational and goodness in him for what he does. Getting back to your natural man, he represents the anti-thesis. In popular culture, it's the Bruce Willis, defying the cultural establishment, who acts the part of the young male bringing down the old king so that the world can be refreshed.

But the Femme Fatal seems to stand for a man taking risks, with the same excitement of engaging in anything that might end up killing you, from scaling a mountain to swimming with sharks. If you can engage in sex with her and come out alive, then you score big manliness points. But she is rarely viewed as any kind of independent heroine or redeemable villainess.

May West is probably the closest I can think of to the female version of the Bad Boy in popular culture; I think of her famous quote: "When I'm good, I'm good, but when I'm bad, I'm better..."

I'm not sure I agree entirely, although you do have a point in that the woman who falls for the bad boy isn't always "ruined", and it often ends in both their salvations, whereas the victim of the Femme Fatale is usually broken - not always though, La Femme Nikita is a complete reversal of the usual gender roles, and while there are fewer historical examples, modern examples abound where the "seductress" succeeds in luring the man away from a life of successful, but boring and predicable monotony.

Seeing her skin feeling silky smooth
Colour of cafe au lait
Made the savage beast inside
Roaring till it cried More, More, More
Now he's at home doing 9 to 5
Living his brave life of lies
But when he turns off to sleep
All memories keep More, More, More...

Gitchee gitchee ya ya ya!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

If I haven't already worn out your ironic sensibilities, here's another one: Libertinism probably has less to do with philosophy than with with brain damage, inherited from Roman aristocrats who painted their faces with lead white, drank water from lead pipes, etc., and overall, probably had very high rates of exposure to neurotoxins, particularly heavy metals.

The real irony being, our modern prudes tend to defend the same industries, in the name of Mammon, who are pumping that shit into the environment as we speak, and will blame the results on the symptoms.

Your information on Roman aristocrats isn't supported by archeology. Those lead pipes people constantly go on about quickly mineralized up on the interior, effectively sealing the lead out of the water supply. That's a sort of urban legend that pops up about once a generation and has to be quashed again. I'd also like to point out that the alleged libertinism of the Romans only affected the later courts of the Augustinian dynasty. Augustus himself was a strictly moral man as were the more important emperors in later Dynasties. As for it having any effect on the Fall of Rome, as alleged by the ignorantii, by the time Rome fell, the entire empire had been Christian for a couple of centuries. The Libertines of the French courts may very well have been poisoning themselves with their makeup, but not the Romans.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

There are far more intriguing and alluring female examples of the 'bad/femme fatale' than Mae West and La Femme Nikita. Some of the better ones, in my view, are:

--Angelina Jolie, whose "bad"-girl roles, leather dresses, wicked tattoos and wild streak are enough to make most women and men shake in their boots. (Though married now and one-half of the infamous Brangelina with a parcel of young'uns, she still looks like she could kick some serious ass.)

--Asia Argento: The ultimate "bad" girl--Italian, hot as hell, scary in her honesty and choice of film roles, and as inclined to devour women as men. Outspoken, sometimes violent. HOT. She looks as though she might kiss you or kill you and it's difficult to tell which it might be. (Married and a mother now, but still wild, wild, wild in her ways.)



--

 

[3113]

Fascinating, because Calvinism, in opposition to Libertinism, is the the most elitist and Libertine philosophy imaginable: in predispensationalism the "elect" are saved through predestination, and can do no wrong -...and the elect do not risk their immortal souls by easing their suffering, or even by adding to it.

It's really a pretty sociopathic theology.

You're missing an important point of it (not to say that this idea isn't wacky and it's no surprise it didn't last long): no one knew for sure who was saved and who was damned. So, how could you be sure you were one of the saved ones? Beyond just saying that you knew it? The idea was that the way you acted would show everyone that you were one of the saved ones. Thus, a Calvinist acted righteously (and that included helping out their neighbors, though not sinners), as that was the way you showed everyone you were saved. To act otherwise was to put others and yourself in doubt of being one of the saved.

It was a little like the idea of noblesse oblige. The idea that if you were born a noble, you would naturally conduct yourself with nobility. How could you help it? Similarly, those who were saved would conduct themselves righteously. How could they help it?

 

[xssve]

Your information on Roman aristocrats isn't supported by archeology. Those lead pipes people constantly go on about quickly mineralized up on the interior, effectively sealing the lead out of the water supply. That's a sort of urban legend that pops up about once a generation and has to be quashed again. I'd also like to point out that the alleged libertinism of the Romans only affected the later courts of the Augustinian dynasty. Augustus himself was a strictly moral man as were the more important emperors in later Dynasties. As for it having any effect on the Fall of Rome, as alleged by the ignorantii, by the time Rome fell, the entire empire had been Christian for a couple of centuries. The Libertines of the French courts may very well have been poisoning themselves with their makeup, but not the Romans.

Lead was used for more than pipes, something made them fucking crazy, because crazy they were - the circus predates Augustus by quite a margin, and it was in distinct contrast to the more conservative Italian husbandmen living in the countryside.

Two established causes of psychopathy are heavy metal poisoning and deprivation of affection in infancy.

I had heard the fall of Rome was largely the result of a Malaria pandemic.

My entire argument here (with Verdad) has been that people having to eat, civilization is not so easy to destroy for practical reasons, and where you have civilization, you have society - in fact, most of these people were half drunk all the time too, since the water was unsafe to drink unless disinfected with alcohol.

 

[xssve]

There are far more intriguing and alluring female examples of the 'bad/femme fatale' than Mae West and La Femme Nikita. Some of the better ones, in my view, are:

--Angelina Jolie, whose "bad"-girl roles, leather dresses, wicked tattoos and wild streak are enough to make most women and men shake in their boots. (Though married now and one-half of the infamous Brangelina with a parcel of young'uns, she still looks like she could kick some serious ass.)

--Asia Argento: The ultimate "bad" girl--Italian, hot as hell, scary in her honesty and choice of film roles, and as inclined to devour women as men. Outspoken, sometimes violent. HOT. She looks as though she might kiss you or kill you and it's difficult to tell which it might be. (Married and a mother now, but still wild, wild, wild in her ways.)



--

Madonna specialized in the role for a while there early in her career.

 

[xssve]

You're missing an important point of it (not to say that this idea isn't wacky and it's no surprise it didn't last long): no one knew for sure who was saved and who was damned. So, how could you be sure you were one of the saved ones? Beyond just saying that you knew it? The idea was that the way you acted would show everyone that you were one of the saved ones. Thus, a Calvinist acted righteously (and that included helping out their neighbors, though not sinners), as that was the way you showed everyone you were saved. To act otherwise was to put others and yourself in doubt of being one of the saved.

It was a little like the idea of noblesse oblige. The idea that if you were born a noble, you would naturally conduct yourself with nobility. How could you help it? Similarly, those who were saved would conduct themselves righteously. How could they help it?

I beg to differ, Calvinism is alive and well, it's called Dominionism, and presumably the elect are chosen with respect to the level of campaign contributions. See Kevin Phillips, among others.

Clearly, the Irish were damned, since Cromwell practically eradicated them - is that the sort of "righteousness" you're referring to?

 

[Elianna]

I admit that this thread has gotten very "writerly." That's awesome! I was just going to add in my own two cents.

I am a good girl. Maybe you don't believe me because I hang out here, but, actually it's pretty true. If you knew my friends, they'd all say that I'm a really nice, good, girl. And... I have a thing for bad boys. I know. In my mind I know exactly how bad they are. Irresponsible...who the hell would get that tatoo, I mean really... so NOT a good idea... but, drool!

I don't know why that is. I've met some really nice guys and dated them and dumped them. They were all too needy, too lovey-dovey, too...whimpy. Maybe it's just the ones I dated. Maybe there are some really nice strong-willed good guys, too. Haven't found him yet. Somehow I fall head over heels for the bad ones all the time. I'm not stupid. I recognize the badness. I realize they're not good for me, but I'm more intrigued, challenged, excited, whatever, over the bad ones.

I've never been in an abusive relationship, so I don't go for that kind of bad, but still. You can debate why good girls go for bad guys all you want, but here I am. Good girl. Likes bad guys. KNOWS how bad the bad guys really are for her, but...just can't resist.

Is there a 12-step group for that?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I admit that this thread has gotten very "writerly." That's awesome! I was just going to add in my own two cents.

I am a good girl. Maybe you don't believe me because I hang out here, but, actually it's pretty true. If you knew my friends, they'd all say that I'm a really nice, good, girl. And... I have a thing for bad boys. I know. In my mind I know exactly how bad they are. Irresponsible...who the hell would get that tatoo, I mean really... so NOT a good idea... but, drool!

I don't know why that is. I've met some really nice guys and dated them and dumped them. They were all too needy, too lovey-dovey, too...whimpy. Maybe it's just the ones I dated. Maybe there are some really nice strong-willed good guys, too. Haven't found him yet. Somehow I fall head over heels for the bad ones all the time. I'm not stupid. I recognize the badness. I realize they're not good for me, but I'm more intrigued, challenged, excited, whatever, over the bad ones.

I've never been in an abusive relationship, so I don't go for that kind of bad, but still. You can debate why good girls go for bad guys all you want, but here I am. Good girl. Likes bad guys. KNOWS how bad the bad guys really are for her, but...just can't resist.

Is there a 12-step group for that?

Both good and stubborn? Gee, there ought to be plenty like that around somewheres. Heck, that more or less describes my whole family!

 

[3113]

IClearly, the Irish were damned, since Cromwell practically eradicated them - is that the sort of "righteousness" you're referring to?

Righteousness in such religions is always among one's own, as those are the only people you have to convince.

Understand, I'm not defending the Calvinists, far from it. I'm just pointing out that there is an explanation to the question of why a Calvinist ought to behave, well, like a Calvinist rather than a libertine. After all, logic wise, if only some are saved and the rest are damned, and it's all pre-determined, then everyone should be able to act like they want, yes? This was the "loop-hole"--abet a really poor one--for saying why one should not act like a libertine. Because if you acted like a Calvinist rather than a libertine, then your fellow Calvinists would know you were one of the saved.

And yes, of course the Irish were damned. They were Catholic and viewed pretty much as many viewed Native Americans, as savages. I'm sure Cromwell had not a qualm of conscience about what he was doing. But far from practically eradicating them, he left enough behind to be almost wiped out by the potato famine a century later.

 

[3113]

Is there a 12-step group for that?

Alas, no. But getting older *sometimes* helps. Sometimes.

 

[Verdad]

I also meant to add the other day, that in art, the bad boy antihero is often deliberately used as a foil to expose the hypocrisy of society - he or she is often placed in and environment where his or her natural inclinations to "goodness" are stifled or rendered impractical by social conditions: the Femme Fatale is usually the wife of mistress, arm candy for a neglectful industrialist (aristocrat), who is only interested in his pursuit of power - the bad boy often inhabits an anarchic sector of civilization where the detritus of the raw, naked abuse of power prevails: the world of warfare, crime, oppression, etc., where it's the rules themselves that represent evil, as well as the more subtle oppression of role restriction.

You make great points as always, this one in particular. Let me first respond to that thing about 'threat', though.

You replied, I think, to the part where I speculated about how we get from "sex" to "evil" in a couple of steps, and I already said there's no doubt in my mind puritanical legacy reinforces the connection. Where all pleasure is viewed as suspect, it doesn't even have to be sex—it's enough that the character has a "sensual mouth" and savors a grape, and already we know he's up to no good. His dedication to pleasure, in accordance to a certain moral system, alerts us to a moral flaw.

However, there's something important about fiction we mustn't forget. In fiction, almost nothing happens without a reason. Fiction chooses what to portray. While we all enjoy grapes, when a fictional character does so, it's not the ordinary activity it is for us. It's likely a part of characterization. If it bespeaks "hedonism", it bespeaks a notable hedonism. And your mention of Romans illustrates just how notable (i.e. truly decadent) hedonism can get. Puritans do go to ridiculous lengths in avoiding it, but they haven't invented the potential connection. It's real enough. One can become callous, unscrupulous, and decadent in pursuit of pleasure. The fictional grape, then, borrows some of its meaning from their value system, but by no means all, and in any case, the grape isn't there to condemn all pleasure. It's there to say, "Watch out—there's a Caligula lurking in this guy."

Fiction also chooses how to portray things. When I said the connection between hedonism and corruption is real, I didn't mean to say it's the only one. "Inherent" doesn't mean "exclusive", much less do "potential" or "plausible" or "intuitively acceptable" mean that. The act of enjoying a grape, for instance, doesn't have a fixed meaning until you give it one. In mentioning it here, I've already done so; I've already guided your perception in a certain direction. Presented and contextualized differently, the same act, with the same basic connotation of "hedonism", could have been a part of a super-positive character. A say, jovial type. Big man, bit heart, big laughter, loves food, loves sex, loves life. That association is as 'inherent' and believable as is the first one. An author can successfully draw on either, depending on what he wants to portray, and moralizing needn't be on his mind in either case. The potential of the act to be seen as life-affirming or grape-destroying (or for that matter, trivial) is his to use.

In either case, though, we will see what is presented to us. 'Substance' and 'presentation' are as impossible to divorce here as is Bruce Willis' face from a character played by Bruce Willis.

That's what's behind that circular statement, "villains are erotic because they're portrayed as erotic." (When they are, of course.) When I go in the other direction and look at why it might often work well to portray them that way, I see the moralist element at play, but I maintain also there's more than that to supply the association with resonance.

I think you also balked at the "threat to the society part", so let's clarify that too. Let me remind you, again, that every society puts some restrictions on expressions of sexuality, not only Xian ones. Rape and incest, at the very least, have been almost universally prohibited, sex was rarely an activity to conduct in public, and usually there are other rules, too, concerning who's a fair game, under what circumstances, etc. Granted, puritanical and otherwise authoritarian societies tend to go crazy with the rules and show little tolerance to those who slip up, especially to women, but not even in that Rousseauian state you describe would you get to jump whomever you want in broad daylight, just because the inspiration came upon you. Libertines didn't get to do so either, unless maybe inside de Sade's head. In 'innocence' as in 'corruption', sex is a social game (meaning it involves at least two people, against the backdrop of a social context), which makes it inevitably subject to some rules.

Let's remember the rules of seduction, too—in contemporary terms, even if you spot a willing, legit, available target who's giving all sorts of come ons, you're not supposed to just walk up to her and grab her tits.

In short, some of the rules are pretty sensible, but we needn't get into which ones are and which ones are not. The point was just that they are rules, and so they're something a character can break. As a regulated area of conduct, sexuality provides a terrain for showing a rule-breaking character's nature. If he does walk up to a woman and says, "How about you and I fuck?" it says something about him, which can be generalized to other areas. Conversely, even when a story doesn't address sexuality, we make a backward inference. "If he does so and so in such and such a way, imagine how he'd be in bed." Of such inferences most of the erotic appeal is made.

But it's not at all puritanical to say that violating sexual rules poses a threat. Instead of something laden with moralism, think of simple threats, such as "intruding in another's sense of physical safety" or "introducing a disturbance in a circle of family and friends." That, as anything, can be ultimately done for good or for ill, but the threatening potential is there. When you want to associate it with a villain, you can draw upon it and it will have resonance.

In the hands of a hero, of course, the coin flips and "threat" becomes "liberation." You've made a most brilliant observation by pointing out the rebel defies the existing structure of the society because the structure is corrupt. That is indeed why we sympathize with him. As James said too, he breaks the right rules; the ones we ourselves perceive as constraining or unjust. Presumably, that too works on a sexual as on a social level, so there's another thing a bad boy does: He 'liberates' the girl from the constraints. He gives her a 'permission' to be 'bad' herself.

I'm, admittedly, not enamored of this explanation, as it seems to imply a woman needs a special permission to be sexual, yet it makes sense in this particular context, and it makes sense when we switch the sexes around, too. Being with someone 'wild' facilitates our own pent-up wildness: a general principle enough.

When we look at femme fatale to test the hypothesis, though, it doesn't work. It doesn't work, though, because femme fatale isn't a proper antipode to the bad-boy hero. More often, she's a villainess—truly bad. That she usually gets the ending reserved for villains isn't due only to the double standard, though that certainly plays a role. It's at least in part because she does tend to be the villain, too. Lesbia's mention of Angelina Jolie, however, is spot on. Her characters tend to be bad girls in the sense that truly corresponds to bad boys—rebellious, wild, even troubled, but (mostly) lovable and (mostly) not evil. Their effect is as dizzying and ultimately liberating as that of bad boys.

And maybe that's the part of the bad boy's appeal Charley hinted at in the beginning. "He already knows you're bad" is a lot like saying "With him, you're free to be who you really are." Or so a fantasy goes.

 

[xssve]

Righteousness in such religions is always among one's own, as those are the only people you have to convince.

Understand, I'm not defending the Calvinists, far from it. I'm just pointing out that there is an explanation to the question of why a Calvinist ought to behave, well, like a Calvinist rather than a libertine. After all, logic wise, if only some are saved and the rest are damned, and it's all pre-determined, then everyone should be able to act like they want, yes? This was the "loop-hole"--abet a really poor one--for saying why one should not act like a libertine. Because if you acted like a Calvinist rather than a libertine, then your fellow Calvinists would know you were one of the saved.

And yes, of course the Irish were damned. They were Catholic and viewed pretty much as many viewed Native Americans, as savages. I'm sure Cromwell had not a qualm of conscience about what he was doing. But far from practically eradicating them, he left enough behind to be almost wiped out by the potato famine a century later.

IT may have been that way at one point, maybe it still is for some, but predestination is definitely an anomaly in Christianity in general, where everybody is supposed to have a chance at salvation in more egalitarian fashion, that's always been it's appeal.

Predestination leave open the high probability of abuse, like the Catholics sell indulgences - if nobody knows who the elect are, then technically you should treat everybody as if they were, but human politics just doesn't work that way.

In 1641, one of the periodic wars in which the Irish tried to overthrow the English misrule in their land took place. As always, this rebellion eventually failed. As a result, in the 12 years following the revolt, known as the Confederation War, the Irish population fell from 1,466,000 to 616,000. Over 550,000 Irishmen were killed, and 300,000 were sold as slaves. The women and children who were left homeless and destitute had to be dealt with , so they were rounded up and sold, too.

It wasn't for lack of trying, that's almost 2/3rd's

In 1652, Cromwell instigated the Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland. He demanded that all Irish people were to resettle west of the Shannon, in arid, uninhabitable land, or be transported to the West Indies. The Irish refused to relocate peaceably, for the most part, since they couldn't survive if they did.

The Irish Slaves: At the Beginning

Perhaps you should be wondering why they only had Potatos to eat.

In 1843, the British Government considered that the land question in Ireland was the root cause of disaffection in the country. They set up a Royal Commission, chaired by the Earl of Devon, to inquire into the laws with regard to the occupation of land in Ireland. Daniel O'Connell described this commission as perfectly one-sided, being made up of landlords and no tenants.[15] Devon in February 1845 reported that "It would be impossible adequately to describe the privations which they [Irish labourer and his family] habitually and silently endure . . . in many districts their only food is the potato, their only beverage water . . . their cabins are seldom a protection against the weather... a bed or a blanket is a rare luxury . . . and nearly in all their pig and a manure heap constitute their only property." The Commissioners concluded that they could not "forbear expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the labouring classes have exhibited under sufferings greater, we believe, than the people of any other country in Europe have to sustain."[16]

In 1845, 24% of all Irish tenant farms were of 0.4 to 2 hectares (one to five acres) in size, while 40% were of two to six hectares (five to fifteen acres). Holdings were so small that only potatoes—no other crop—would suffice to feed a family. The British Government reported, shortly before the Great Hunger, that poverty was so widespread that one third of all Irish small holdings could not support their families, after paying their rent, except by earnings of seasonal migrant labour in England and Scotland.[20] Following the famine, reforms were implemented making it illegal to further divide land holdings.[21]

The 1841 census showed a population of just over eight million. Two-thirds of those depended on agriculture for their survival, but they rarely received a working wage. They had to work for their landlords in return for the patch of land they needed in order to grow enough food for their own families. This was the system which forced Ireland and its peasantry into monoculture, as only the potato could be grown in sufficient quantity. The rights to a plot of land in Ireland could mean the difference between life and death in the early 19th century.[14]

Wikipedia: Great Famine (Ireland)

 

[xssve]

Righteousness in such religions is always among one's own, as those are the only people you have to convince.

Understand, I'm not defending the Calvinists, far from it. I'm just pointing out that there is an explanation to the question of why a Calvinist ought to behave, well, like a Calvinist rather than a libertine. After all, logic wise, if only some are saved and the rest are damned, and it's all pre-determined, then everyone should be able to act like they want, yes? This was the "loop-hole"--abet a really poor one--for saying why one should not act like a libertine. Because if you acted like a Calvinist rather than a libertine, then your fellow Calvinists would know you were one of the saved.

And yes, of course the Irish were damned. They were Catholic and viewed pretty much as many viewed Native Americans, as savages. I'm sure Cromwell had not a qualm of conscience about what he was doing. But far from practically eradicating them, he left enough behind to be almost wiped out by the potato famine a century later.

I'm not sure that constitutes an argument since nearly 2/3rd's were either killed or sold into slavery under Cromwell, other than that by century later they had recovered enough to kill them again.

Note: double post since they weren't showing up the other day.

 

[CharleyH]

I only like bitches and witches, evil through and through.

LMAO. Glad to see your head rise from the ashes.