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alt title(s): All Guys Want Bad Boys 
I can change him.
"Why do girls always prefer the distant, aloof, handsome, dangerous dudes instead of cheerful chaps like me?"
Maybe Hollywood is tapping into the ancestral female animal instinct to choose the mightiest, strongest, toughest genes for their offspring. Maybe they're tapping into teenaged rebellion: girls are most likely to like the boys their parents are most likely to hate. Maybe it's because the more tanned, muscular, and scarred the actor, the better the shirtless scenes. Maybe the trend originated in a time when leather jackets, sunglasses, and motorcycles were in fashion. Maybe it's just because Evil Is Sexy. Maybe the writers are just bitter about the girls they didn't get. Whatever the reason, sorry, Dogged Nice Guys — in Hollywood, bad boys turn girls on. No matter that the other characters are (sensibly) muttering What Does She See In Him?
The Theme Park Version of "the bad boy" targets the strongest womanly instincts: the stoic, silent guy is a mystery waiting to be solved; the Troubled But Cute youth with a tragic past is a woobie needing comfort; he's tough enough to be a girl's protector, but vulnerable enough to need her to redeem him as well. Add to that the fact that Evil Is Cool and Good Is Dumb, and the Anti Hero ranks as Bachelor of the Month - even more often than he ranks Ensemble Darkhorse. They also usually have a name containing Xtreme Kool Letterz: D, Z, R, or K.
All this, of course, glosses over the fact that bad boys are bad, meaning dangerous, not good as friends, probably not too mentally stable, potentially abusive / physically violent, and more interested in the physical aspect of a relationship than anything else. He's also probably not going to be that concerned with fidelity, either. So what if he can't be trusted? It's an honor for girls in the media to be chosen by him, to walk into prom night with him on her arm, to ride on the back of his motorcycle with her arms around his waist, to stick her tongue out at The Libby from the passenger's seat of his stolen convertible. The Draco In Leather Pants fallacy doesn't just refer to the fans. Depending on the nature of the Bad Boy and whether he's redeemed (or even redeemable) or not, use of this trope may give cause for the viewer to question the character's sense or intelligence, particularly if it's immediately obvious to everyone from the outset of the relationship that the man is a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
If the main girl gets the Dogged Nice Guy or The White Prince in the end, beware — the fans still want the bad boy, and will force him on the main character by bashing the competition.
Counterpart trope to All Guys Want Cheerleaders — except, quite likely, these guys. Also contrast this trope with The Vamp and the Femme Fatale. When it goes to the extreme (either intentionally or not) the Girl might find herself becoming a Love Martyr. The girls may also go to the other end in what they're looking for and seek out the Ridiculously Average Guy because Single Woman Seeks Good Man — particularly as a Second Love, when they've been burned by this trope. For reasons discussed below, it is commonly debated whether this is Truth In Television or not.
All inversions belong in Single Woman Seeks Good Man.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Even after everything he's done, girls like Ino and Sakura in Naruto still swoon over Sasuke. Though Sakura's affections for Sasuke have toned down, she still throws a fit if anyone says something bad about him. Not to mention all the Akatsuki fangirls. It seems like the vast majority of female fan fiction writers have a crush on at least one of them.
- Sort of a real-life example: when the Digimon fandom was at its all-time high, anyone could tell you that Yamato of Adventure, Ken of Zero Two and Kouji of Frontier were the series' top fangirl magnets. Many of them actually tried to shoehorn a boy from Tamers, such as Jianliang (Henry) or Ryo, into this role in place of the very female character that inhabited it in this season.
- Don't forget ex-villain Kouichi. Presumably, Thomas/Touma has also been added - he's the season five iteration of this character type.
- This troper is a big fan of the Pokemon Zangoose, who definitely qualifies as a bad boy.
- Eww!
- Treecko of Pokemon also holds true to this. Mainly in the episode "Having a Wailord of a Time".
- Scyther here, definitely, even though there's not a Scyther in the main cast. BLADES FOR ARMS mang, BLADES FOR ARMS!
- Karen in Pokemon Gold and Silver explicitly states this trope.
- As for human characters, GSC antagonist, Silver and his anime Expy, Shinji certainly qualify.
- This Troper has a thing for Gary. Does he still count as a bad boy? He's gotten somewhat nicer recently...
- This troper has a soft side for male Lopunny to be
hot awesome,and their move sets is..Badness.
- Bad boy Yusuke in Yu Yu Hakusho is the object of good girl Keiko's desires. But badder boy Hiei is the object of the fangirls' desires.
- It helps that they are childhood friends. Being a Tsundere, Keiko also isn't really attracted to his badboyness, never hesitating to bitchslap him when he acts bad in her presence.
- This troper feels obligated to mention Inuyasha even though said troper finds him "blech!".
- Of course this trope is one of the MANY reasons why Inuyasha's brother Sesshoumaru is such a chick magnet (both with fangirls and in the anime itself).
- Light Yagami, the sociopathic Knight Templar of Death Note.
- Actually, in series (and not talking about the fandom), he has both kinds of girls that like him. The type that are infatuated with his goody-two-shoes, Mr. Perfect personality on the outside, and the type that are obsessively in love with him because he's the brutal, condescending killer Kira.
- Vegeta, a mass-murdering, ki-blast happy alien and Heroic Sociopath of the group actually managed to get Bulma, whose been part the main cast since she met Goku (that's chapter 1, folks), knocked up and she gave birth to their son Trunks. Even after that when Dr. Gero attacked her, Vegeta instead of tending to them like Future Trunks requested, he said he doesn't care so much about "that crazy woman and her baby" before he punched him. It wasn't until the Buu Saga, he showed love for his family, by killing himself to try to destroy Buu on their behalf.
- But then Bulma always had a thing for bad boys. Yamcha was a former bandit, until his Anti-Hero streak reached its expiry date.
- Bulma also went head over heels when she first saw General Blue from the Red Ribbon Army and Zarbon from Freeza's army.
- Vegeta is an odd one. As stated above he doesn't move a finger to help his wife and son when Dr Gero attacks them. However, much later on, when Trunks gets killed by Cell (admittedly after Vegeta and Trunks had spent a whole year stuck together in another plane) Vegeta goes completely berserk.
- And I hear Majin Buu now has a fan club.
- Also, an inversion, Krillin an all-around good guy, married Android No.18, a killer cyborg, and someone who stated he wanted to kill his best friend simply for giving him a kiss on the cheek.
- Ouran High School Host Club parodied this in a chapter where otaku fangirl Renge attacked nearly every club member for not being angsty enough, and declared that filming all of them wallowing in some form of angst would increase their appeal. She was crazy but apparently right, as evidenced by the huge demand for the video.
- SoulEater's titular character can be considered a bad boy, for all of his attempts at being 'cool'. Though he has his moments of goofiness, his sharp teeth and slanted red eyes will forever be an object of fangirlism.
- Tomoya from CLANNAD often is outright nasty toward the girls he meets, confronting them with his sarcastic attitude and making snide remarks at their expense. He also loves to play pranks on them (especially on poor Fuko), but that doesn't stop most of the girls from swooning over him toward the end of the series.
- Trickster Archetype aside, Tomoya is actually a nice guy who likes to help other people with their problem (while avoiding his own troubles), and as two of the girls described, he just has a bad mouth.
- In the manga Angel Sanctuary, Sevothtarte is a brutal, severely misogynistic (but very bishonen) tyrant arch-angel. Despite scenes of him doing some horrific things to females, Sevothtarte had legions of apologistic fangirls, which caused the author no small amount of conflict since the character was supposed to be hated. When "his" big secret was revealed late in the manga, despite the flashback providing some sympathetic justification for her personality, every single fangirl turned on the character instantly.
- Ditto with Akito in Fruits Basket. Took all of two minutes for her to go from Draco In Leather Pants to Revenge Fic fodder. Except for those fans who simply chose to ignore it.
- Koizumi's love interest Otani from Lovely Complex has a real attitude problem and Koizumi often has to endure quite a bit of verbal abuse. It doesn't prevent her from pursuing him relentlessly, competing with the other girls who like him—which includes his neighbor, a fashion model. Then again, she is not always lovey-dovey herself.
- The Castle Of Cagliostro concludes that Lupin III, Gentleman Thief that he is, has stolen the heroine's heart.
- In Katekyo Hitman Reborn, every female in the class swoons over cigarette smoking, dynamite throwing, foul mouthed juvenile delinquent Gokudera Hayato, including main love interest Sasagawa Kyoko —much to The Hero, Sawada Tsuna's chagrin... Ironically, Gokudera spends time fanboying over Tsuna himself.
- Except for the one's swooning over Yamamato, who is... what, the jock?
- Every female in class, certainly. In real life, however, the character that consistently tops the popularity polls just happens to be Hibari Kyoya, Head Prefect of the Absurdly Powerful Student Council and the BIGGEST DAMN DELINQUENT of them all. Not to mention how he actually came in 1st in the Anime News Network survey of people's ideal groom.
- Funnily enough, for that particular case, the females in class are just too afraid of him to swoon over him. His physical attractiveness isn't actually acknowledged in-series.
- Lelouch Lamperouge. Full stop. But then, this troper thinks there isn't any male character who doesn't belong to this trope in that anime...
- Played with in Princess Tutu. When Mytho, former Extreme Doormat goes through a Face Heel Turn in the second season, he picks up a new girl almost every episode, but it's because he's casting a spell on them so he can manipulate them into being a sacrifice for the Big Bad, not because they're suddenly attracted to him now that he's a Bad Boy. (Although gaining more of a personality certainly didn't hurt.)
- Also shows up in the fandom—Troubled But Cute Fakir is by far the most popular character in the series, while Mytho has relatively few fangirls in comparison.
- This is Hiroyuki Tokumori's curse in Paradise Kiss. When he was a kid, Miwako chose Arashi instead of him. Series heroine Yukari was in love with him for who knows how long, until she met George and fell for him on the spot. In the end, it's subverted when Yukari ends up marrying him.
- Sousuke Sagara of Full Metal Panic is arguably a subversion. A highly-skilled military specialist who works for a mercenary company, who knows half-a-dozen ways to kill you before you hit the floor, and who's been an assassin since he was eight, with enough of a Dark And Troubled Past for two or three protagonists, is prime bad-boy material. And yet the qualities for which he's most loved, both in the series and in real life, are his loyalty, his dedication to duty, his determination, his stalwart protectiveness (in a good way), chasteness in relation to romance, and his frequently naive earnestness.
- Not to mention how all his bad-boy material actually drives off prospectives (at least his violent attitude). Except Gauron, but that's because he's Gauron.
- Even Gendo Ikari falls into this trope, at least to some.
- This is essentially Angelica Barnes's reason for chasing the rogue Mister in Coyote Ragtime Show.
- Both played straight and inverted in Angel Densetsu, with the same character. More than one girl falls for the main character, who is exactly everything a Bad Boy is NOT. He is however seen as one by everyone else in the cast. Also either played straight or inverted with most other cast members.
- At one point, king of the Idiot Ball Kuroda tries to "save" Ryoko from Kitano, because he thinks she's suffering from this trope, and sees himself as the good guy. Ryoko of course likes Kitano because he's The Messiah and despises Kuroda (who poses as a bad boy). Oh, and Ryoko is quite the bad girl herself, but poses as mostly harmless. Confused yet? Because that's just the start of it.
- Also inverted in Seirei no Moribito where the main character, Balsa, loves her childhood friend, Tanda, who is kind, smart, gentile, nice, and patient. In other words, all the things a tomboyish, muscular, bodyguard who lives dangerously SHOULDN'T be attracted to! The only reason they don't offically become a couple is she's not ready to settle down yet.
Comic Books
- Ignored in Fantastic Four; Sue Storm is endlessly pursued by Bad Boy Anti Hero Prince Namor of Atlantis, who isn't exactly shy about letting her know that he has the hots for her, but consistently turns him down in favour of geeky, slightly clueless Reed Richards. Needless to say, the two men don't exactly have a warm friendship. Depending on who's writing her, Sue reacts to Namor's attentions with either barely-concealed interest (which is closer to the spirit of the trope, although she nevertheless continues to spurn him out of loyalty to Reed) or outright irritation. Interestingly, sometimes Reed is on the badboy side, though when Reed is bad he's more of a Corrupt Corporate Executive than a 100% Bad Boy.
- Going in roughly the same Sue/Reed/Namor path of Averted Trope are Jean Grey, Scott Summers, and Wolverine of the X-Men. Jean loves Scott but has the hots, bad, for Wolverine, who wants her just as much. She consistently turns him down and stays with the much more uptight milquetoast Scott, eventually marrying him.
- The marriage finally breaks up shortly before Jean's (most recent) death when the trope gets played straight... but gender-flipped, as Scott throws Jean over for Bad Girl Emma Frost.
If when Jean comes back, we'll see if she runs into Wolverine's arms, pines for Scott, catfights with Emma or what.
- Given that Scott and Emma are only together because Jean deliberately altered reality to make it happen (or possibly just mind-controlled Scott), None Of The Above seems quite likely.
- She was brought back for some time, If I'm not mistaken she went full Yandere again...
- Inverted in Ultimate X-Men where crude bad girl Dazzler goes after shy goody-two-shoes Angel.
- Arguably, the reason so many of the females in Batman's rogues gallery (and superteams) wind up having so much subtext with him. For the villain females, he's just good enough to spark that bit of "I could have something better" but definitely dark enough and bad enough to be Not So Different. The same is true in reverse for the hero females... he's a hero, obviously, but a very different variety than the primary-colored icons they're otherwise surrounded with.
- Which doesn't even touch on the movies. Val Kilmer's version of the character had the movie's designated girlfriend (Dr. Chase Meridian, played by Nicole Kidman) flip-flopping between Bruce Wayne and Batman, depending on who she thought was more fucked in the head at the time. (And getting a twofer? HUGE bonus for her.)
- Batman is also an example of this trope inverted; he tends to go for Bad Girls (Catwoman, Talia Al Ghul, etc). In fact, this tendency was enough to convince him in "Batman RIP that the woman he was becoming attracted to was The Mole out to betray him to the bad guys - she was a bit too nice for him...
- Talia could be seen as something of a reverse of this trope; she wants the essentially good Batman, for a reverse Love Martyr.
- Knights Of The Old Republic subverts this beautifully; the two main girls in the series, Shel and Jarael, are both in love with Zayne Carrick, who is sweet, wouldn't hurt a fly, and who regularly gets his butt kicked by stronger opponents.
- The Original five Teen Titans have that kind of thing going on.Donna could choose between the nice and shy Aqualad,funny Kid Flash,dashing Robin and badboy Speedy.Guess who did wind up with her.Note back then Dick Grayson was pretty clean cut.Now all girls flock over his dark looks his messy hair and issues with his daddy(Bats).In short he didn't got booty until he dropped out of college,grow his hair and started to talk back to Batman.
Film
- Bachelor Party (Tom Hanks). The band they get for the party signs the song, "Why Do Good Girls Like Bad Boys?"
- In the original Star Wars trilogy, Leia goes for Han Solo (a near-perfect storm of bad-boy beauty) over Luke Skywalker. Then, of course, we find out the true nature of Luke and Leia's relationship, and breathe a collective sigh about the "ewww" moment from which this trope has saved us. She still kissed him, though.
- Subverted in Spider-Man 3: when he gets possessed by the symbiote and becomes a 'bad boy', Peter Parker thinks that he's God's gift to women, but the various looks of exasperation and even disgust he gets from most of the women he encounters tell a very different story - probably because contrary to expectations he's still a clueless geek, only now that he's 'evil' he's just an obnoxious and arrogant one. The seventies disco moves and overparted hair style don't particularly help matters. Ironically, all of the women he does manage to charm were already attracted to the 'good' Peter anyway.
- Arguably the appeal of most pirate characters, but perhaps most notable in our boy Captain Jack Sparrow, because physical appearance, frightening intelligence, a philosophical bent and the weirdest mannerisms ever have nothing to do with it. Also, yarrrr!
- This is ignored in the movies, when Elizabeth marries Will.
- But not everywhere else.
- In the comedy Don't Tell Her It's Me, Shelley Long helps her nebbish brother Steve Guttenberg construct an identity as a "dangerous" biker from New Zealand in an effort to sweep another woman off her feet.
- In the classic 80s teen movie The Breakfast Club, popular 'princess' Claire falls for rebellious 'criminal' Bender. It helps that he was played by a very young and very hot Judd Nelson.
- Repo! The Genetic Opera. Amber Sweet has resolved sexual tension with Grave-Robber and unresolved sexual tension with Luigi, who is also undeniably bad. Shilo isn't immune to Grave-Robber's bad-boy charms either. It's implied in Needle Through A Bug that he's grooming her to be his protege.
- Pinhead in Hellraiser. During a documentary - 100 Scariest Movie Moments? - Clive Barker made a comment to the effect that despite never doing a decent thing in the entire series, he apparently still gets mail from swooning female fans.
- Subverted in Crazy/Beautiful. In this film, it's the poor Latino kid who's the responsible one with the promising future, and the wealthy Anglo girl who has the bad drug habit and truckload of emotional problems. Every adult in the film warns the former to stay away from the latter — including the girl's own father — but of course, she turns out simply to be a Lonely Rich Kid and everything works out, thanks to The Powerof Love.
- Jenny from Forrest Gump is a rather blatant example of this, much of the movie she keeps seeking from one abusive lowlife to the other, before returning to the protagonist.
- Her previous relationship choices had more to do with self-esteem issues than this trope.
- ...Isn't that USUALLY the case?
- Bond. James Bond.
- Subverted in City of God. Unlike most movie gangsters, who do quite well with the ladies, main antagonist/bad boy supreme Li'l Zé is unable to get a woman without resorting to prostitution or rape. Sexual frustration is a driving factor in some of the many brutal crimes he commits.
- Grease 2, "Cool Rider". Michelle Pfeiffer's character somehow resists the charms of the sweet British boy, because she's "...lookin' for a dream on a mean machine/ With hell in his eyes/ I want a devil in skin tight leather..."
- The 40 Year Old Virgin, plays with this in a scene in which the titular character is calling out his friends with a slightly angry attitude, at the same time, a girl he met earlier observes him from a distance and swoons over him while telling another girl: "He is such a Bad Boy."
- Parodied / subverted in Mystery Men: Roy (a.k.a Mr. Furious) would very much like to be a bad boy, and struts around making a fool of himself acting like one in the hope of impressing Monica, the waitress on whom he has a crush. Monica, for her part, is never anything less than dismissive of him... until the point when he finally just starts acting like the sweet nice guy he ultimately at heart is, at which point she begins to warm to him.
- In the 2009 Star Trek movie, rebellious loose cannon Kirk makes no secret of his interest in Uhura, who usually reacts to him with barely concealed disdain. Subverted for good when it's revealed she's actually dating Spock.
- Everyone in Inglourious Basterds gets fangirls. Aldo, Donnie, Landa, everybody. Why? Because they have no morals and therefore can be exceedingly Bad Ass.
Literature
- Anthony Trollope uses this is several of his novels. The most well known is probably in the Palliser series where Lady Glencora falls in love with ne'er-do-well Burgo Fitzgerald; leading her guardians to arrange a marriage between her and stodgy Plantagenet Palliser. However, at least three other novels have a wealthy refined girl fall in love with a rogue.
- The whole reason for the exploding teenage girl fanbase of that that is Twilight.
- To be honest, is there any other way to explain why Edward and Bella are together in the first place?
- Because Edward can read everybody's mind except for hers. Any two people in that situation are fated to either be partners or foes and neither one has enough characterization to be an impressive villain.
- Subverted, or at least rather well Justified, in the romantic subplot running through Lois Mc Master Bujold's Brothers in Arms, Mirror Dance, and Memory. Elli Quinn is deeply in love with the marginally sane mercenary Admiral Miles Naismith and would leap at the chance to marry him, while the prospect of becoming the consort of Lord Vorkosigan of Barrayar horrifies her even though she knows both men are one and the same. The twist is that Lord Vorkosigan's comparatively subdued public persona is the least of her problems with the latter fate (the phrase "Dirtball barely out of Feudalism" came up in response to the first marriage proposal).
- Miles himself is probably a male example, given his penchant for dating very scary women (Taura, anyone?).
- In one of the later novels Ivan has the quite perceptive insight that with only two exceptions (one only edging into 'scary' status as they were breaking up, the other a quietly oversocialized Yamato Nandeshiko) Miles has never actually pursued a woman in his life. The reason Miles kept ending up with "appalling bloodthirsty amazons" is because they're the women who will go out and capture him. And the two exceptions were the girl next door and childhood crush whose rejection left Miles unwilling to risk further rejection for years (hence the behavior pattern noted above), and the woman the 30+ year old Miles eventually ended up marrying.
- Deconstructed in Wuthering Heights; the all-consuming love between Catherine Earnshaw and brooding bad-boy Byronic Hero Heathcliff is intensely passionate, but it's also clearly depicted as being quite unhealthy for the two (not least because the two are almost brother and sister) and intensely destructive. Especially because when he is rejected in favor of another man, Heathcliff's response is to embark on a single-minded crusade of vengeance that ends with the ultimately pointless ruination of not only both lovers but almost everything and everyone else around them. Meanwhile, Catherine's marriage to the weak but mild and loving Edgar Linton (whom she does not love) is described as being reasonably happy - at least, until Heathcliff shows up. There is also Isabella Linton who wanted a bad boy, married Heathcliff and got what she wanted in spades...
- Zachary Gray, the thinking woman's Bad Boy, turns up in multiple Madeleine L'Engle novels.
- Harry Dresden is very disappointed to find out his friend Karrin Murphy is like this when she becomes attracted to badass mercenary Kincaid in The Dresden Files: Blood Rites and it continues into the next book Dead Beat.
- Murphy has also admitted to being attracted to Harry himself, but since she's explicitly said that she's just in it for the sex and that Harry doesn't do that sort of relationship, he's out. Harry's disappointment is sour grapes.
- Fan reaction to Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter would indicate this (Draco In Leather Pants anyone?). Apparently, All Girls Want Arrogant Elitist and Slimy Smug Snakes as well. Given J. K. Rowling's reported extreme exasperation over this, she should obviously read this site. However, in her defense, the character in the books is certainly not that attractive, and this trope only really showed up when Draco was played by a pretty boy in the movies. Though J.K. herself isn't immune, she admitted to writing better lines for Snape so Alan Rickman would say them.
- Sirius Black is arguably more of a classic bad boy for gals to swoon over (though this side of him wasn't as apparent in the movies). Lesse... Troubled But Cute, ran away from home at 16, did time in prison for a crime he didn't commit, ridiculously good looking in his younger years, and drives a motorcycle. A flying motorcycle. He was even swooned over by a random girl in the Pensieve Flashback. Did I mention he drives a flying motorcyle? Now why would any fangirl go anywhere else for her bad boy fix?
- Have you forgotten the dark hair-gray eyes complexion? Sirius Black is the epitome of this trope. *Swoon*
- There's a reason they call him "Long" John Silver. Sorry ladies, he's married.
- Hand Of Mercy's Clemael's temper allows him to backhand a semi-disabled woman into the nearest wall, but said woman is oddly ambivalent as to whether she'll end up with him.
- In the short story collection The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, Genre Savvy Puss-in-Boots is well-aware of this trope and suggests that the best way to woo an unattainable woman is to: "convince her her orifice will be your salvation, and she's yours!"
- In the Mexican novel El Zarco: The Blue-Eyed Bandit from Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, a beautiful young woman called Manuela is futilely courted by a nice, decent and hard-working man called Nicolás, when in reality she is in love with the titular character, who is the leader of a notorius gang of murderous bandits called "Los Plateados", later she decides to escape with him and its then when she sees all the attrocities they commit.
- Often used in Agatha Christie's novels, but particularly Taken by the Flood to the point where the heroine Lynn appears downright insane. She is engaged to Rowley, a simple farmer, but is attracted to newcomer David and his rudeness, aggression and general ass-holery. However,when she goes to inform Rowley that she's going to elope with David, Rowley is so furious that he almost strangles her to death. When it turns out that David has been the real killer all along, Lynn resumes her engagement to Rowley, having been rather turned on by his murderous impulses. There's a good chance Christie is poking fun at this trope, otherwise the entire scenario is too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
- Forget every film version ever, Victor Hugo's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame is all about this. A beautiful girl has a choice between a beautiful temperament (Gringoire), a beautiful mind (Claude Frollo), a beautiful heart (Quasimodo) and a beautiful face (Phoebus). She goes for Phoebus, even after he demonstrates that he might not be marrying material, on the grounds that he is good looking and he rides a horse.
- Rook from Havemercy and maybe even Caius Greylace, if the fan base is anything to go by.
- Rachel from The Hollows is subject to this trope time and again.
- Dulcinea Anwin from Tad Williams Otherland thinks of herself as a Bad Girl. She's a Playful Hacker, seasoned veteran of the criminal underground, and not averse to doing a little wet work. Then she meets Dread, who is baddest of the bad. So what should she do but fall in love with him and follow him around, sinking deeper and deeper into his web? After all, how bad can he really be, right? Until she manages to hack into his system and find out what he's really like. At which point she has a Heroic BSOD and tries to turn him in, only to be shot in the stomach.
- Helen Huntingdon (Graham), the heroine of Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, marries the libertine Arthur Huntingdon in part because she believes that she can save him from himself. She quickly discovers otherwise. In the process, Bronte makes some pointed jabs at both Heathcliff and Mr. Rochester.
- In Stephen King's Carrie (and the film adaptation), the bitchy popular girl Chris dates the bad-boy delinquent Billy. Subverted in that their relationship is shown to be quite abusive, with Billy regularly hitting Chris, calling her a bitch, and forcing himself on her.
Live Action TV
Music
- Garbage has a song titled 'Bad Boyfriend', featuring lyrics such as "And if you can't love me honey, come on, just pretend", and "It may not last but we'll have fun till it ends". The lyrics seem to be from the perspective of a bad girl, too.
- Backstreet Boys had a song with the lyrics "if you want it to be good girl, get yourself a bad boy".
- The late and questionably great comic Bill Hicks has a routine about this, and even recored a song about it: "Chicks Dig Jerks". It has a decidedly bitter tone to it. Of course, to be fair, Hicks completely fails to address the other equally valid side of the arguement, "Guys Want Bimbos".
- Angel and the Reruns performed a song called "Why do Good Girls Like Bad Boys?" in the movie Bachelor Party.
- The (hilarious, if you ask this editor) DMX song "Good Girls, Bad Guys."
- It's part of the reason why the groupie goes off with the hot mega-rock star Pink in The Wall. And then, of course, HilarityEnsues as she finds out just how bad he really is as he proceeds to trash his hotel room and nearly kill her in the process.
- Stephanie's Irresistible
 :
I know he's wrong
But his arms feel so right
He's a magical potion
Tearing up my emotions
What if I see what this boy does to me?
Can't I simply forget him
Cause I know I'll regret him
I can't fight anymore
Mythology
- In Classical Mythology, Aphrodite's affair with the war-god Ares behind her husband Hephaestus' back makes this trope Older Than Dirt.
- Well, Hephaestus was quite bad boy as well. Besides, Aphrodite had affair with pretty much every handsome male god and mortal man she met, no matter if he was bad or good.
Newspaper Comics
Theatre
- In Grease, the "cool" girls, especially Rizzo, are attracted to bad boys, and the male lead, Danny Zuko, is a bad boy who resembles Arthur Fonzarelli. The main conflict in the plot is over Danny's "badness" and the "goodness" of Sandy, the lead female. Eventually, they end up meeting somewhere in the middle.
- Calling the guys in grease bad boys feels like it deserves a trope all unto itself.
- Assassins plays this for laughs by having Lynette Froome wax lyrical about how amazingly smart and beautiful Charles Manson is. Based on real life as she was infatuated with Manson and tried to kill the President in his name.
- In Spring Awakening Thea declares, "Melchi Gabor, he's such a radical! You know what the whisper is? He doesn't believe in anything! Not in God, not in Heaven, not in a single thing in this world!" Cue the other girls on stage sighing dreamily.
Video Games
- A notable exception is the female portion of the Baldur's Gate fandom. There are characters as embroiled in daddy issues as Anomen Delryn, as snarky as Edwin Odeisseron, as lovably roguish as Yoshimo, and as bitter and swarthy as Valygar Corthala. And yet the ladies flock to Lord Keldorn Firecam, a sixty-something paladin and father of two. Sadly, the only romance option the game gives a female character is Anomen, which is probably the leading reason for his intense dislike among the fans. The modding community has since developed a full-length romance for Edwin, a Romantic Encounter with Yoshimo, and a possible romance/relationship with Keldorn is in the pipeline.
- It's what makes Bishop from Neverwinter Nights 2 so wildly popular
- Parodied in Final Fantasy VII when the evil scientist Hojo is surrounded by woman at the beach.
- In the original Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha mini-scenario that was included in the Triangle Heart 3 Sweet Songs Forever fandisc, Chrono played the role of the villain and Nanoha eventually ends up with him.
- There is a fanmade Vocaloid spinoff called Return to Zero, and when this troper saw the character design for Len (see above), she was just... stricken.
- Knights Of The Old Republic II offers two prospective love interests for the female Jedi Exile: the Troubled But Cute scoundrel Atton Rand, and the gentlemanly, noble Jedi Disciple. Guess which one is more popular with the fans.
- Not exactly a scientific statistic though, Atton is a Deadpan Snarker that is with the player from almost the start of the game, while Mical is a member who only joins female player characters (and his counterpart for male player characters, is considerably more popular).
- Final Fantasy VIII's Rinoa could be the poster girl for this trope. She used to date the villainous rebel Seifer and after they broke up, she falls in love with Squall, the solitary, bitter, taciturn protagonist. Naturally he needs her too to fix up his traumatic past, and she needs him because he's the perpetual hero.
- Chillingly deconstructed in Planescape Torment. A young, naive girl falls desperately in love with a dark, mysterious stranger covered in scars... whose every word is calculated to manipulate her into being willing to do anything for him, because he needs a tool to sacrifice herself for him. He feels nothing for her but irritation for using his time. He is, after all, Practical.
- Mostly averted with Alistair in Dragon Age. Though most certainly a Deadpan Snarker, he is in no way a bad boy. You'll even discover that he's a virgin.
Web Comics
- This strip of Loserz.
- Used in a gay sort of way with Abe & Kroenen, because while Kroenen's not that mean of a guy he's still an undead Nazi assassin.
- Order Of The Stick: Belkar kisses a girl, in the middle of massacring her party. End result: she's lying among dead bodies, saying, "My name's Jenny! Just in case you ever wanted to know!" See here.
- Looks like they got together.
- Possible justification; she is a member of the Thief's Guild.
- Averted with rogue thief Haley, however, who has fallen deeply in love with Elan, who cannot in any way be described as a Bad Boy at all.
- It might explain how Elan's parents got together, though...
- This strip of Freefall proposes a brilliant theory that not only explains this trope, but explains why there are so many of the jerks prowling the planet in the first place.
- Discussed and subverted on this Something Positive strip and those who follow it; Mike complains about this trope when seeing a girl he tried to go out with dating another guy. Davan points out that, far from her being attracted to a jerk, it's more likely that she's dating him because he actually went to the trouble of asking her out — and furthermore, guys who misrepresent their intentions by pretending to be a girl's friend solely in order to date (or just have sex with) her, and then passive aggressively whine when she doesn't 'reward' them for being her friend (as Mike is currently doing) are hardly that great an improvement over the 'jerks' they complain about.
- Used in a gender-reversed form in Digger. The first-born of Ed and his 'wife' Blood-eyes dies, as is normal for hyenas (go look them up on Wikipedia and you'll see why). However, Ed had himself been a rare surviving first-born, and had been encouraging hope in her. Afterward, she started beating him, while he refused to flee from the situation (as was his right) because he still loved her. It gets worse, though. Eventually, she and Ed conceive again; this child is born successfully, but she starts beating it, as well. Ed is now thoroughly exhausted, and rips Blood-eyes' throat out while she sleeps, leading to the destruction of his previous name and exile from the tribe.
Web Original
- Subverted (?) in an issue of The Descendants that goes so far as having the same name as this trope.
- In I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC, Harley Quinn says that she wants a physically and emotionally abusive guy.
- To be fair, Harley was trying to justify her canon love for Joker, which is depicted as extremely unhealthy and by the end of this season ends up with Green Goblin, who is an a-hole to everyone else but treats her well.
Western Animation
Real Life
- This trope is based on a highly contentious truism that essentially states that 'chicks dig jerks', and are automatically attracted to abusive assholes, jerkass bullies and the Troubled But Cute over the Dogged Nice Guy who would treat them right. Essentially, there are two basic positions on this assertion, with your position on each seemingly to depend largely on your gender, your personality, your individual experiences and, as a more cruel troper might observe, your success rate with members of the opposite sex:
- Those who agree with the assertion, citing anecdotal evidence of girls who stick with abusive, mean assholes and provide numerous reasons;
- Alpha Males are Attractive: Various studies prove that women can be just as superficial as men.
- The Early Bird Gets the Worm: Bad Boys, even less attractive ones, are more likely to initiate encounters with girls than the shy nice guys.
- Nice Guys Don't Kiss and Tell: When Bad Boys engage in adulterous short-term relationships, they brag; people hear about them more often than more stable relationships.
- Nice Guys Are Boring: Some girls crave drama and that won't happen with a nice guy.
- Girls Just Want To Have Fun: Girls can be just as willing to engage in one-night-stands or no-strings-attached meaningless sex as much as the Bad Boys, who are also much more likely to be concerned with keeping emotion out of the relationship.
- Girls Want Fixer-Uppers: Essentially, being bad implies that the boy is 'broken' in some way and, so the theory goes, girls like the challenge of 'fixing' or 'healing' him with her love. Not being broken, the well-adjusted nice guy presents no challenge, and thus no interest.
- People Want What they Can't Have: Similarly, while nice guys tend to dote on girls, Bad Boys tend to treat them as expendible, and so seem more of a challenge.
- Bad Boys Make Girls Feel Special: If a guy is a jerk to everyone else except the girl, then (in the mind of the girl at least) clearly there's something special about the girl that provokes this treatment. The nice guy who is nice to her and to everyone else consequently makes the girl feel less special, since he treats her the same way as he treats everyone else. This one, of course, depends on how frequently and sincerely the 'bad boy' treats the girl right.
- Women Marry Up: Nice guys act subordinate, while Bad Boys are domineering, while and women are naturally and/or traditionally submissive.
- Bad Boys Are "Deep": This ones tends to play on the assumption (flawed or otherwise) that angst is 'deeper' than good cheer; Bad Boys with issues are seen as having more 'substance' than Nice Guys without them.
- Those who disagree with the assertion, and provide personal anecdotal evidence of;
- Bad Boys Lie: They really can't get dates, but talk the talk so well everyone buys it.
- Some "Nice" Guys Aren't Actually So Nice: Many who complain about this trope aren't as nice as they think they are.
- Girls Aren't Psychic: They date the attractive guy until they realize that he's a jerk and then dump him.
- Not every Dogged Nice Guy is Meek: Many girls in happy relationships with stable, decent guys say there were other nice guys who just couldn't work up the courage to ask.
- Nice Guys Are In Short Supply: Every decent guy is either Happily Married or gay: Most girls do want nice guys and the market is simply oversaturated.
- Sour Grapes: the 'nice' guy is just jealous of the guys who are in relationships with girls they'd like to be with, and use this trope as a convenient ego-soothing crutch.
- Niceness Is Default: essentially, being polite, respectful and nice to a girl isn't something you should do largely or solely in expectation of sex as a 'reward', and isn't in itself deserving of sex as a reward; it should be the general standard for how you treat women (and people generally) to begin with. Men who just act 'nice' to get romance / sex aren't actually being nice; they're misrepresenting themselves and their intentions.
- Nice Guys Are Myopic: they're so insecure and / or hung up on on the girls who don't notice / aren't interested in them that they don't actually notice the girls right in front of them who are available and / or interested in them.
- Nice Guys Can Get Girls: There are plenty of women in relationships with genuinely nice men, so someone somewhere must be doing something right.
- There's also a third position that states that it's not quite as simple as Girls Do / Don't Want Bad Boys, exemplified by arguments such as:
- Girls Want Confidence: the key uniting factor between people in relationships is that they have have actually had the courage to approach the other person and make their interest known. The problem is not that All Girls Want Bad Boys or that Nice Guys Finish Last, but one of confidence; if the Dogged Nice Guys doesn't have the confidence to actually ask the girl out, then of course Nice Guys Finish Last — they aren't even in the competition to begin with. Hence, what girls really like is confidence which, naturally, rebellious "Bad Boys" possess more of than meek, shy nice guys. By this rule, girls really (in general, not necessarily unanimously) want nice, confident guys.
- All Messed Up Girls Want Bad Boys: a sort of half-way point between all of them, which suggests that the girls that the Bad Boys mostly get also tend to have plenty of issues themselves, usually of the low self-esteem type. The well-adjusted women tend to go for similarly well-adjusted men.
- The Rescuer Role: It's not just the girls falling for the bad guys that's the problem; note how in many of these cases the Nice Guy seems to be distinctly attracted to the kind of girl who herself is attracted to abusive assholes. According to the idea of the Drama Triangle, they may be playing the Rescuer role out of a need to be seen to be rescuing the girl from a bad situation. Note that the article asserts that this role is not necessarily or entirely benevolent...
- Well there is Spencer Pratt...
- While this may at times be true, I personally have preyed on women using the exact opposite. I look like a nice innocent guy and use that to get women into bed. Everyone trusts the nice guy, he'd never hurt you.
- The most extreme form of this trope — attraction to full-blown criminals — is apparently common enough to warrant a name: hybristophilia. This is presumably the source of all of those Serial Killers and Death Row Inmates who get love letters. This is not the same thing as Stockholm Syndrome, however (although fictional examples in this trope may spring from this cause); the psychological mechanics behind real-life Stockholm Syndrome, wherein a hostage develops a significant attachment to (or even falls in love with) their kidnapper is significantly different to (and far more serious than) the mechanisms behind All Girls Want Bad Boys.
- It's more "second-hand" Stockholm Syndrome, since many of these girls had fathers from whom they felt mortally threatened and/or abused. This type of trauma tends to cycle, seeking an identity-figure that manifests in a patten of attraction to a similar male figure.
- One would say this is actually the second most extreme form...depending on whether or not you want to count what the consequences were for women who said "No" to Khan.
- No, the most extreme form would be women falling in love with dictators, like Hitler. Think I exaggerate? He got lots of love letters from German women who wanted his child.
- Hitler's infamy is posthumous. At that point he was seemingly no different from Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and other major conquerors in history that are widely respected to this day. Not to mention his feat of restoring Germany from its defeat and humiliation in the last war.
- Oh, it's still going on now for that sexy beast.
- This troper lives in Mexico where sometimes the stories of attractive girls who get into relationships with drug traffickers make it to the news, one particularily infamous case happened last year when the 2008 beauty queen from Sinaloa was arrested alongside her boyfriend in possession of an arsenal of semi-automatic weapons, and more than 30,000 dollars in cash. All Girls Want Bad Boys indeed...
- This case is more like Girls Want Rich Guys as almost all of the drug traffickers with the hot girls are at least at a decent level at the foodchain, a bigger incentive is that if the guy dies, they can't keep all the money and gifts they got unless the police takes them away.
- That if she is not arrested like the girl mentioned, or worse: killed by a rival cartel to infuriate her boyfriend.
- In one chapter of Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, the author (Prof. Richard Feynman), acting on advice, finds that he can pick up more girls in bars by being a jerkass, including the example of, by forcing a girl to pay for her own food, she will sleep with him that night (it works). He later tries this technique in a grad student's hot sister, but despite success, he feels odd trying it on normal people, due to the differing social contracts of picking up girls in bars and 'real life.'
- Jeff Foxworthy has a routine about reading a survey on the kinds of fantasy men women want, with the most votes going to "a dangerous man." He goes on "That's why it's a fantasy. You get together with a dangerous man in real life, you end up on an episode of COPS hanging out of a trailer window in a tube top screaming 'Lock his ass up! Lock his ass *up*!'"
- The idea is widespread in the Seduction Community (also called "The Game"... not the one you just lost). One of the more obvious examples is the book How to be the Jerk Women Love by F. J. Shark.
- Or here, in the experiences of one of the better-known members of the pickup artist community. The relevant material is from the section labeled "So, what do women want?" to "Women's reactions". Warning: not for the faint of heart.
- My God... that article pretty much trashes Single Woman Seeks Good Man...
- It's a good article, but there are many ways in which it could be biased. That's one of the things about being a player, you get so damn bad guyish and cynical.
- Not quite, some "Seduction Gurus" explicitly state that it's not that women are attracted to bad boys, but that bad boys have some traits that make them attractive to women, and that any man can learn to have those traits without becoming a full-fledged jerk, then again, the Seduction Community often advices against being a Nice Guy who always wants to please women.
- Aw, dammit.
- Sent up pretty damn hilariously by Cracked, with the "Being A Jerk Method".
- And then there's Lord Byron, described by one of his mistresses, Lady Caroline Lamb (wife of Viscount Melbourne, after whom the city is named), as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know".
- Tom Leykis, the former radio talk-guru and "shock-jock," advised his listeners to "treat women like crap, and they'll come back for more." He explained that the most attractive women also tended to have the lowest self-esteem; and so men who only wanted sex, should validate and reinforce this by behaving as abusively to girls as LEGALLY possible. He also explained that if a girl ever suspects that a man cares about what she thinks of him, then "she'll dump you in a second."
- This study.
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