The Psychological Reason Why Bad Boys Are So Attractive
Ever wondered why bad boys are so attractive, here is why
Why are bad boys so attractive? Is it the way that they carry themselves, the way that they talk? Is it their abilities in the bedroom, how fun they are, their raw sex appeal? Is it the danger factor and all that other stuff?
There are gazillions of posts out there saying that it is all of the latter and more, but all those traits are simply ways of identifying bad boys as bad boys. They don’t tell us why those traits are attractive.
For example, imagine a man who loves fast cars, ask him why and he will list many reasons, ranging from their appearance to its engine, to what they are like to drive, on and on he will go.
None of those reasons tell us why he likes fast cars, all they tell us are the traits that the cars he likes have.
Confusing I know, but bear with me, let’s say one of the reasons he likes fast cars is that they go fast and that is what he says draws him to them. The question we are left with is why does he like cars that go fast?
He may say because fast cars are fun to drive. Why are they fun to drive? He may say because they go fast. No doubt you get the point. Asking such questions leads us to end up going in circles never finding the true answer.
What we need to know is what makes him a person that finds things that go fast fun. Only by answering that question can we ever have a hope of understanding why he likes fast cars.
The same rules apply to attraction, we list all the things that we like about a person, but we never consider why we like those things on an instinctual level. Only by considering why we like those things on an instinctual level can we ever hope to understand why we are attracted to some people and not others.
That means to understand why bad boys are attractive we must look at things from a different perspective. Specifically, the subconscious perspective. So our instincts. Why do the instincts of women — and all those attracted to men — tell them that bad boys are attractive?
The simple answer is they don’t, that’s because technically there is no such thing as a bad boy. The term is an oversimplification of an extraordinarily complex reality and was created for use of narrative in films and TV along with other mediums. That means before going on, I need to first define what a bad boy is. Or at least the interpretation of bad boy that I’m going to use for this piece.
What is a bad boy?
Ever heard the term, it’s cool to be bad, or it’s fun to be bad. That doesn’t actually mean it’s cool to be bad or it’s fun to be bad, it is typically what most people use as a means of playacting normally in an effort to make themselves feel edgy. For example, arguably the guy in the picture for this post is a guy playacting as a “bad guy.” In reality, he is probably a nice guy.
That is one iteration of an attractive bad boy, a nice guy playacting as a bad guy. Here is another iteration of an attractive “bad boy.” A guy who is actually a nice guy but is a bit rough around the edges. Think James Bond, he clearly is the ultimate good guy, but he also is a womaniser and a macho man. Everybody knows this, he doesn’t hide it. Yet he is seen as highly attractive.
Even actual bad guys — so guys who are actually bad people — only ever succeeded dating-wise if they can persuade a person they are not actually bad guys. So the bad boy being attractive is an illusion, on all levels. The nice guy always gets the girl, because she always believes the guy she is dating is a nice guy.
With this in mind, I don’t want to talk about the bad boy types that are actually bad people, so the ones that lie and manipulate people into believing they are not the terrible and selfish and monstrous people they are. I want to talk about the James Bond types, so the macho men and the tough guy types who are actually good guys. The ones that don’t hide their vices because they don’t need to because they are the good guys.
Also, I don’t want to talk about the guys like in the picture of this post, that are simply playacting as so-called bad boy’s to get the effect of being a bad boy. That’s what they’re doing. Playing into the rough around the edges macho man type image. I want to talk about why playing into that image is successful, and why the people who are that real person are so attractive.
With this in mind, why do human instincts dig the James Bond type macho men of the world, even though their edges can be extremely rough?
Why human instincts dig the James Bonds of the world
The primary purpose of attraction is to find a viable mate to procreate with. Seeing as macho men are seen as more attractive than their counterparts, that means that instinctually macho men must have something that makes them the superior option to procreate with.
Popular logic would say that this is ridiculous, and that macho men — especially the bad boy versions — could never be a better option to have children with when compared to their more tamer counterparts, which some may term the “nice guys” of the world.
If that were true the James Bond’s of the world would not be attractive. They are. That means there must be something about them that makes them a better option to have children with than their tamer counterparts. But what?
Disclaimer: the nice guys I refer to in this post are guys who are genuinely nice, but perhaps more on the gentle and timid side — unlike the James Bond’s of the world — what I’m not referring to is the modern phenomenon of “nice” guys i.e. guys who claim they are nice but are anything but.
Also, I wish to make clear that nice guys who have good social skills do very well with women same as the James Bond’s of the world. Even still, the James Bond’s are typically still seen as more attractive, and that’s what we are talking about here.
Everybody knows that we don’t get to choose who we are attracted to, many of us may wish we could. We can’t. Our subconscious decides for us, and it does so by analysing a person’s attributes and then conducting internal calculations in which the outcome will decide whether you will feel attracted to them or not.
That’s why on a side note, every one of us has the power to read DNA. Whenever you look at another human, your subconscious is studying their attributes, so facial structure, build, everything, and comparing it to your own. The outcome of this analysis will define your initial feelings towards the person i.e. whether to find the person attractive or not.
So, your mind is using their appearance to analyse their DNA — with the intentions of comparing it to your own — and attempting to decide if they will be a good genetic match for you or not. The better your subconscious deems them a genetic match for you, the more attracted to that person you will be.
The primary thing that your subconscious is trying to work out is whether a person can give you a strong child or not. The stronger your internal calculations show that that potential child may be, the stronger your attraction to that person will be.
This is where the James Bond’s of the world come into their own, primarily, all of us want the strongest child that we can have. And strong in a very specific way. Strong at surviving. What we are looking for is a person that can give us a child that has the best attributes to survive in the environment in which we live. Whether we want children or not, can have children or not, that is what drives our attraction to other people.
So, what we are looking for is somebody whose genetics when added to our own will create a child with the strongest possible survival skills. The way we identify such people is by rating how good a person is at surviving. The better they are at surviving, the more likely it is that we will rate them as attractive — on a side note, this is why the rich are so attractive, the more money you have, the better your chances of survival.
This brings us to why macho men are so attractive — at least on a raw attraction level — when compared to their tamer counterparts.
The James Bond reality
Drop James Bond stark naked into any environment — from the heart of London to the heart of a jungle — and he will not just survive but find a way to thrive. Do the same thing to the average nice guy — even the kinds typically good with woman — and it is more than likely that he will meet a rather swift end likely due to the traits which define him as a nice guy.
Note: I very much mean the average nice guy, there are many nice guys out there who have great survival skills but we are talking about an average here.
Therefore, James Bond is not just a macho man, he is also the ultimate survivor, while typically guys who tick the more nice guy box unfortunately more often than not are the opposite.
This brings me back to attraction. As said, the purpose of attraction on an instinctual level is to find someone to have a child with, and the most sort after trait in that child is survival skills. Considering this, would it make more sense to have a child with James Bond, who is a brilliant survivor, or the average nice guy, who is perhaps not as good at surviving as James Bond is?
That’s why macho man and other similar bad boy types are so attractive. Not because they are more skilled in bed, they are not, not because of the way they carry themselves, it’s nothing special, not because they are more fun, they are not, but because they tend to be very good at surviving. And survival skills are the most attractive trait anybody can have. And because it is the most attractive trait, and because macho men are great survivors, everything that they do is immediately rated as better than anything anyone with poorer survival skills does.
So having great survival skills is a free pass to being rated highly at everything. Meaning on a side note, if you want to know how to be more attractive to the opposite sex, and this counts for everyone, prove that you are a good survivor and that you can aid your partner in surviving and you will immediately rocket in terms of attractiveness.
It’s all about survival
If you are looking for the best male survival skills genetics, historically speaking — excluding the rich — macho men tend to be your best bet. Hence, why instinctually those who are attracted to men tend to find macho men and other similar bad boy types so attractive.
Meaning if you ever wondered why, despite all logic telling you that a bad boy is nothing special, you can’t help but be attracted to him, it is because your instincts are telling you that he has great survival genetics. And that is what is attracting you to him and making him appear and feel so attractive.
The reason why your mind is starting to reject such men is that your conscious mind knows better and knows that the world has changed.
Guys who are nice should not lose hope
The world is changing, and the traits that make macho men and other similar bad boy types so attractive are starting to dwindle. In fact, the traits which in the past made macho men traits so useful for survival are actually becoming a hindrance.
Here is why, bad boys tend to make for terrible modern world partners and fathers i.e. they rarely stick around. In the past they had to stick around — society made them. Marriage was for life after all.
It no longer is. People have a choice of leaving now, and bad boys tend to use it. Also, their combative nature and more forceful rather than diplomatic social skills are increasingly becoming outdated. Diplomacy and level headedness are far more important traits these days than aggression tactics. The invention of nuclear weapons saw to that.
Therefore, the macho men and similar bad boy types of the world, due to their inability to stick around and be good fathers and partners along with their skill sets being relatively outdated for the modern world, are making themselves the opposite of what they once were i.e. instead of being beneficial to society’s survival, they are becoming a hindrance to it.
This is perhaps why studies show that as women get older and more experienced, they are increasingly rejecting bad boys for nice guys. Meaning the days of the bad boy may be numbered.
Final words
I’ll finish with this, James Bond may be able to offer strong combative style genetics and teach his son or daughter how to better survive if dropped in the middle of a jungle than your average nice guy, but if James Bond is never around to teach that child those skills and to help raise that child then, in reality, his survival skills are worthless.
And James Bond may be better at fighting and surviving if dropped in a jungle, but those skills really are not relevant for surviving in the modern world. Other skills are more important, skills which bad boys rarely have.
Meaning if you want to know how to be attractive in the modern world, you have to learn the lesson of Daniel Craig’s James Bond, it’s better to be up with the times than it is to be outdated i.e. in the modern world it way more attractive to be a guy that’s genuinely nice and respectful while retaining a little bit of an edge, than it is to be a bad boy.
Plus, let’s be honest, the majority of bad boys these days are just playacting so are not even really who they claim to be. James Bonds of the world. Think about that.
That’s all from me for today, thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy the following:
The Real Reason Why Nice Guys Struggle To Get the Girl
41 Hilariously Bad Chat Up Lines to Rock Your Date’s Night
The Seven Main Reasons Why Dating in The Modern World Is So Difficult
To learn more about me see this link, to support me click the link below:
