Why do nice girls love bad boys?
what they find desirable in men”.
To do this she takes the reader on a rollicking ride through movies, history, literature, romances and music, checking out the appeal of men as diverse as Rudolph Valentino and David Cassidy.
Dyhouse says the lean post-war years made women long for Prince Charming figures who would sweep them away from drudgery.
In the fifties, popular Mills & Boon titles featured doctors and nurses – because handsome medical men had everything: looks, status and healing hands.
But what about a different sort of heart-throb? Certain women have always hankered after pirates, brigands, highwaymen, tough warriors and even vampires.
Horrible Heathcliff epitomises the anti-hero who treats women badly. This is the allure of the dark side – just a step away from the fantasy of being taken by force. When Daphne du Maurier described a man as “a menace”, she meant he was unsettlingly sexy.
When Lady Caroline Lamb famously summed up rakish Lord Byron as “mad, bad and dangerous to know”, she was tapping into the perennial allure of the bad boy many women can’t resist.
The terrible Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy sold in trolley-loads, and for all its shocking frankness, it tapped right into another, more lurid, fantasy.
In the end the “bad”, rich hero is redeemed by the love of a good girl – again. After all, Elizabeth Bennet stood up to Mr Darcy’s, snobbish arrogance – and fell in love with his estate along the way. To hell with wet shirts – Jane Austen knew power and money are the most potent aphrodisiacs of all.
Although Dyhouse’s intention is to show how women’s romantic and sexual fantasies change throughout time, it seems to me they stay pretty much the same.
Women used to send Lord Byron locks of their hair; Dirk Bogarde used to have his trouser flies sewn up to keep him safe from women’s groping hands at film premieres; girls (and older women) throw their knickers at pop stars on stage. Unbridled lust is not a male prerogative.
This is a terrific book to argue with as well as enjoy. When Dyhouse writes, “As the 20th century drew to its close, women wanted more from their ideal men than integrity, bread-winning and credit cards; they wanted equality, partnership and communication”, I wanted to riposte: “Well, some, Carol!”
What about the ladies who flocked to see the ripped Chippendales, grabbing at the men’s crown jewels like so many screaming birds of prey?
She ends with a hopeful thought: “Maybe we can look forward now to a future in which men and women see each other less as gendered objects… and, instead, strive to relate to each other as individuals”. Hmm! In the real world women swoon over film stars and male models in “tighty whities”… just as they always did.
Gold-diggers want money, political groupies are turned on by power, half-dressed girls go to pubs and clubs to “bag” a footballer.
Meanwhile, some of us are content to stay at home with husbands who might not be rich, mean or brilliant – but know how to build beautiful bookshelves with a great, big drill. – Daily Mail
Heartthrobs: A history of women and desire by Carol Dyhouse (Loot.co.za, R362)