Bad Boys- What Ya Gonna Do?

 We all know that a lot of women love bad boys. It's been this way since the caveman days when Aga saw Grog bonk Thag on the head and take his brontosaurus burger. She knew Grog was a man who took whatever he wanted. He could take her! He was so cavemanly! Women prefer dangerous men, that other men fear. It really gets their ladywood wet! Right?

Yeah- to an extent. I mean, if there's one thing that the world has learned over the eons, it is that people are not all the same. I remember reading as a kid that there were 12 types of people (I think) on earth. This was decades ago, so of course I can't delineate what those 12 types are, but you can probably figure it out yourself based on your own observations in life. Have you ever noticed you keep meeting the same people over and over again in life? Your friends and lovers may fit a certain type. You may or may not consciously recognize it. You may or may not voice it, to yourself or anyone. The rules of attraction are quite fluid. You am what you am and you seek out others that please you. 

Boys love bad boys too. It's probably not in the sexual, practical way that women desire bad boys. It mightcould have homosexual undertones not too deep below the surface, but that's work for another day. Today we are focusing on why men find other bolder, badder men so alluring, just as women do. 

It's human nature and nurture. Simple. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. CD's and t-shirts are available in the lobby!

OK. It's more complicated than that, but that is the answer. I grew up on 1960's television where every other show was about a two-fisted Marshall or a cop who handled things, for himself or for others, with violence, no matter what the situation was. Big, tough men on the side of righteousness battled other big, tough men. The hero always won, despite the odds and the treachery against him. He always got the girl- even if he was Randolph Scott who wasn't all that interested in getting girls off-screen. But I digress. 

Being a hero is actually a desirable trait. Nice work if you can get it. But some guys find themselves favoring the bad guys in film. Actors often say they prefer bad guy roles, considering them "meatier" and more fun to portray than the typical hero, who is really kind of bland at times. Plus, they get to do a death scene on film and really test their acting chops. It certainly can be more fun to be the villain. This brings us to gangster films and, in particular, Tony Soprano. 

Tony, as portrayed by the late, truly great, James Gandolfini, is arguably the greatest character in television history. He was THE quintessential anti-hero. Everybody loved him! Men wanted to be him; women wanted to be with him. Though he was a large, fat, balding man in reality as well as onscreen, Tony's conviction and strength of character, as a character, overwhelmed everyone. It was very believable too. Beautiful women wanted to be adjacent to that power and violence. I totally got that women wanted to fuck him. I've seen that in real life. A guy has money, power, charisma; he's going to get him some. Throw in the aura of danger and violence and a lot of panties get dropped. He can fuck the shit out of them and neither person cares about her orgasm. Women just wanted Tony Soprano, the man. He liked to conquer and he ran across a lot of women who wanted to be conquered. Ladies, you may abhor that sort of woman, but they do exist. Always have. Always will. Just be glad you aren't one of them.

Now, us fellas might not be any better. Some men are drawn to the Tony Sopranos of the world, in a not-necessarily sexual way. A lot of us tend to admire the guy that can not only beat up the world but can beat us up. We may like the man to be reckoned with, but we do not want to do the reckoning ourselves. There are betas even amongst the alphas. A pecking order. It has always fascinated me in the real mob world how old and grandfatherly the real bosses were. Well, I already knew not to judge books based on covers when those covers were old men. The 88-year-old guy with all the medals at your town's Veteran's Day parade did not storm Omaha Beach in his wheelchair as that 88-year-old man. He did it as a 19-year-old kid and lived to tell about it. Same with the bosses. They made their bones back in the day, and though they couldn't out-fight you now, they sure can out-think you. Old age and treachery.

This brings us to Trump, as all things do these days. I want to puke every time someone presents this fat moron as a man to be feared and respected and even desired by men and women. Motherfuckers, we have lost the plot with this shitbag. He has absolutely no bonafides as a tough guy or any kind of an antihero or- God forbid- a hero of any degree. He has no portfolio. He has memes. That's it. Yet the dumbest people on earth- men and women both- think he is to be loved, feared and worshiped as if he were Tony Soprano himself. Why? It makes NO sense. 77 million people could not see through him, probably because he afforded them the opportunity to see the tough, raucous, badass inside of them that they wanted to portray themselves as. Hard to live vicariously through a fictional character like Tony Soprano, but easy with a real live antihero like Trump. It's a real no-brainer if you have no brains. These people really think the world fears Trump. Well, if that were true, why would he need to bomb Iran? Shouldn't Iran (and Russia, Canada, Cuba, Minnesota, etc. and etc.) just capitulate to him immediately if not sooner? He's so fearsome!

People often find their own strength in others. It's in who they choose to admire because it may not be in themselves. This is fine if the object of your strength is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, but it is a human failure if it is a Trump. If you see yourself in Trump, you fucked up. Right there, with history as a guide, you had probably the strongest, most courageous man ever to walk this earth, and you chose a guy who raped children and bankrupted casinos. That's on you. It shouldn't be this hard. Most of you started out in life learning about Jesus H. Christ and still at least pretend to love and follow him yet do nothing to prove it because it is so much easier to punk out and follow the ugly that is inside you. Make better choices, people.