Thanks for actually doing some solid data analysis instead of just speculating on the internet :) Having said that, I’ll now proceed to respond by speculating on the internet. Apologies.
I suspect that it’d be very helpful to disentangle “I prefer” into “I reflectively endorse being involved with” and “I am attracted to”. Right now it seems like you’re using some combination of those two. But people can be more attracted to things they reflectively endorse less, and may then act inconsistently, leading to different results when you look at different evidence sources.
One way to disentangle these two is to look at porn, where it’s purely about attraction and you don’t need to worry about what you actually endorse. And then you see things like 50 shades of grey or 365 days being very popular with women—where (especially in the latter) the male love interest’s defining trait is being a bit of an asshole.
(I think the analogous thing for men might be: reflectively endorsing dating really strong, assertive women, but in practice being more attracted to quieter, shyer women).
As an avid reader of romance novels (which is a genre written by women for women), my observation is that some male protagonists are kinda assholes, but that’s probably a minority. It is true that almost all male protagonists are stereotypical “alpha males”: strong, courageous, confident, assertive, high status, possessive. But many of them are also honorable and kind, which is the opposite of asshole.
Personally I prefer nice nerds, but I’m probably atypical.
Yes, this seems reasonable. I guess I’m curious about which of these traits is more robustly attractive. That is: assuming the ideal male protagonist is both an alpha male, and honorable and kind, would their attractiveness drop more if you removed just the “honorable and kind” bit, or just the “alpha male” bit? I suspect the latter, but that’s just speculation. We might be able to get more quantitative data by seeing how many male protagonists fall into each category.
Fantasy isn’t reality. I’ll happily watch Hugh Laurie playing House, M.D, but I’d like my actual doctor to be a better human (or at least to convincingly pretend to be one)
I think you take the wrong things from romance novels if you take them as examples of what men need to be desireable partners.
A story like 365 Days isn’t just about the man being an asshole but about the woman being able to play the powerful female role where she has an effect on the guy to domesticate him.
If the guy starts out as a nice guy then there’s no part on the woman where she can use her female power to make him open up and show his nice side because the guy already showed that side from the beginning. If you want to understand the structure of the stories that romance novels tell Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women is a good book.
A lot of what being female is about in our society is to hold back female power. In romance novels you have a setting where the woman doesn’t need to hold back.
Thanks for actually doing some solid data analysis instead of just speculating on the internet :) Having said that, I’ll now proceed to respond by speculating on the internet. Apologies.
I suspect that it’d be very helpful to disentangle “I prefer” into “I reflectively endorse being involved with” and “I am attracted to”. Right now it seems like you’re using some combination of those two. But people can be more attracted to things they reflectively endorse less, and may then act inconsistently, leading to different results when you look at different evidence sources.
One way to disentangle these two is to look at porn, where it’s purely about attraction and you don’t need to worry about what you actually endorse. And then you see things like 50 shades of grey or 365 days being very popular with women—where (especially in the latter) the male love interest’s defining trait is being a bit of an asshole.
(I think the analogous thing for men might be: reflectively endorsing dating really strong, assertive women, but in practice being more attracted to quieter, shyer women).
As an avid reader of romance novels (which is a genre written by women for women), my observation is that some male protagonists are kinda assholes, but that’s probably a minority. It is true that almost all male protagonists are stereotypical “alpha males”: strong, courageous, confident, assertive, high status, possessive. But many of them are also honorable and kind, which is the opposite of asshole.
Personally I prefer nice nerds, but I’m probably atypical.
I think many romance novel characters have the “asshole with a heart of gold” stereotype going on—still assholes, but assholes that care.
My observation of assholes in real life who have great long term relationships is that they fit this stereotype as well.
Yes, this seems reasonable. I guess I’m curious about which of these traits is more robustly attractive. That is: assuming the ideal male protagonist is both an alpha male, and honorable and kind, would their attractiveness drop more if you removed just the “honorable and kind” bit, or just the “alpha male” bit? I suspect the latter, but that’s just speculation. We might be able to get more quantitative data by seeing how many male protagonists fall into each category.
Fantasy isn’t reality. I’ll happily watch Hugh Laurie playing House, M.D, but I’d like my actual doctor to be a better human (or at least to convincingly pretend to be one)
I think you take the wrong things from romance novels if you take them as examples of what men need to be desireable partners.
A story like 365 Days isn’t just about the man being an asshole but about the woman being able to play the powerful female role where she has an effect on the guy to domesticate him.
If the guy starts out as a nice guy then there’s no part on the woman where she can use her female power to make him open up and show his nice side because the guy already showed that side from the beginning. If you want to understand the structure of the stories that romance novels tell Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women is a good book.
A lot of what being female is about in our society is to hold back female power. In romance novels you have a setting where the woman doesn’t need to hold back.