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alt title(s): Viewers Are Horny
Yep. All men.
"Do you know what would be the best way to wipe out all of humankind if you were a space alien with a special mind-ray? Make all women telepathic. Cos' if they suddenly found out about the kind of stuff that goes on in our heads they'd kill us all on the spot. Men are not people! We are disgustoids in human form." — Jeff Murdock, Coupling
"That is correct. You are a pervert. What's wrong with men being perverts? All guys are perverts to their roots. The grandness of your manhood depends on whether you can admit that or not. It is the difference between Heaven and Earth! You were honest to yourself! You can take pride in that! Be proud!!" — Keiichi, Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni
The tendency for all men within a work of fiction to think primarily with their penises. As such they will be constantly trying to peek up girls' skirts or into the girl's locker room, and will go out of their way to either catch a glimpse of something naughty or gain a minuscule chance of finally doing the deed.
Also, whenever they gain a chance or actually get a peek at women's breasts, they lose all brain function. This trope has been used as an Idiot Ball so many times, it's not funny. Men will lose all reason, become catatonic, get massive nosebleeds, etc. just because a woman is in a room.
And like the title says: all men will act this way. It doesn't matter if you're the hero or the villain. Even Chaste and Celibate Heroes will act like this. Five years old? A Hundred and Eight? Nine Hundred Fifty Three? Doesn't matter. Even men who are happily married or in a devoted and fulfilling relationship will act this way, and oftentimes the behavior will be largely ignored or even treated as an endearing trait. And most absurdly, men who have more regular access to beautiful women than Hugh Hefner, are shown to lose all control over an attractive woman.
A Double Standard, since very rarely do women behave or even think this way, and when they do it's treated as something very odd. Also, it takes much less for characters to actually draw attention to the fact. Made even more egregious when you consider Most Writers Are Male. You'd think they would be able to paint their own gender in a more positive light. It's possible they might be trying to pass this off as acceptable behavior, stating it's only natural and it's part of being a man. Note that men who do not do this are frequently criticized for being gay or unrealistic, so there may also be a bit of an attempt by the writer to reassure the audience that they and their characters are perfectly heterosexual. Alternatively, it could be based on something like "male guilt" (analogous to white guilt), with the writers believing (or at least paying lip service to) the Straw Feminist assertion that men are bestial, slovenly brutes. Naturally, for the female audience, the prevalence of this trope can be very disheartening, if outright disturbing. Not to mention it reinforces the idea of male sexuality being "dirty", "stupid" and "rape-oriented".
Gets into weird territory when women are offended or insecure because the guy isn't being a perv. How dare you not not want to ravish them!. :sighs: You can't win.
Compare Im A Man I Cant Help It, which focuses more specifically on the idea that a man can't function without sex instead of more universal perversion, and All Gays Are Promiscuous, the homosexual version of this trope that further establishes males' inherent need for sex, regardless their sexual orientation. May lead to claims that A Man Is Not A Virgin.
Contrast with All Women Are Lustful, the very seldom seen Distaff Counterpart. Both are often components in an Everybody Has Lots Of Sex setting.
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Examples
Advertising
- Pretty much every beer commercial produced in the past couple of decades.
- And subverted by the ads for Diet Coke
◊.
- These ads featured women ogling men. This troper best remember the commercial where women in the office announced it was time for a "Diet Coke break" and then instead of getting Diet Cokes ran to the window to watch attractive young construction workers drinking Diet Cokes.
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- In one issue of Superman, Cat Grant returns to the Daily Planet bullpen after a long absence in California, clearly having had some work done. She greets the sitting Clark Kent over her low cut top, grinning, and he looks her in the eye. And looks her in the eye. And looks her in the eye. And then she looks down at her own boobs, presumably to check if they're broken. Clark's still looking her in the eye. Apparently
◊, he has never looked at her below the neck.
- Deadpool isnt shy about embracing this. In an issue of his Ho Yay laden Cable & Deadpool run was asked to rescue his Doppelganger by his two girl fridays to which he responded that he wanted four good reasons
Films
- Practically every teen comedy ever made.
- American Pie: Granted it's a sex comedy and focuses on that issue, but the sheer length the main characters of the movies will go to for their goal is ridiculous. All they want is sex and that takes priority over everything else. Sure, by the end of the first movie, they decide it's not that important, but they get it anyway and after that it's all they ever talk about. Even Eugene Levy's character, who as far as we can tell is in a loving relationship with his wife falls into this, for example, when he buy hardcore pornographic magazines in order to give his son The Talk.
- Revenge of the Nerds. The things the Protagonists do over the course of the movie include: Installing cameras in a sorority house so they can watch them on their television, and selling pies with nude women hidden in the tin for fund raising. At the beginning of the movie you see the characters calculating the number of breasts in their school. One of the main characters dresses up in a costume in order to trick a woman into having sex with him.
- Animal House, or really any movie by National Lampoon.
- Not Another Teen Movie is meant to be a parody, so it's understandable, since most of the characters are not really meant to be sympathetic, but there are many instances that invoke this trope, from having students peek in on a girl's bathroom, to the Foreign Exchange Student.
- Porkys Peeking in the showers of the girl's locker room? Check. Soliciting a girl because you hear she's wild in bed during school hours? Check. Being so desperate for sex that you rely on hookers? Check. Being tricked multiple times with the promise of sex when you should know better? Check.
- Road Trip Starts off with an Im A Man I Cant Help It moment and quickly devolves from there. Culminating in a scene when they try to donate to a sperm bank in order to get money.
- The Forty Year Old Virgin while it's also A Man Is Not A Virgin, what the main character is subjected to by his "friends" shows just how bad each of them are. The main character, however, is ultimately something of an aversion, as he's actually not that concerned with sex, being more interested in love, and is certainly a lot more mature and grown-up about it than most of the other people around him (including some of the women).
- Also many thrillers, where most of the plot wouldn't happen if there were a single male character that didn't think with his penis.
- Many horror movies will use this, which coupled with Death By Sex leads to a lot of movies where the only survivor is female.
-
One too many EVERY SINGLE Lifetime movie.
- One (Direct To Video and only identifiable as a Lifetime movie by the vanity plate, naturally) inverts and subverts this. The main female character (and sometimes her female friend) acts like a total pervert (mostly ogling firefighters and making lewd comments to each other), but even after it's implied that her husband is cheating on her, it turns out he's annoyed that she's ignoring him and starts witholding sex.
- The trope title is taken extremely literally in the film Teeth, which posits female empowerment by means of toothy castration. The only character who doesn't at least attempt to sexually assault the protagonist is her stepfather. Note that she also has a stepbrother. Yeah.
- The original movie version of M*A*S*H, although this was toned down (and eventually eliminated entirely) for the subsequent TV series.
- And yes, even Superman. In the 1978 Christopher Reeve movie, while Superman and Lois are having their dinner date, he's telling her about his abilities. She challenges him: if he really has x-ray vision, what color are her panties? As she steps out from behind the planter box that was between them, he tells her they're pink.
- To be fair, she did ask for him to tell her...he probably wouldn't have looked on his own.
Literature
- Scott Adams's book The Dilbert Future predicts the future based on the assumption that all people everywhere are stupid, lazy, and horny. One of his funnier predictions is that the human race is doomed once virtual reality gets cheaper than actual dating...
- Futurama takes that joke to its logical conclusion with a short mental hygiene film about the dangers of dating robots.
- Introducing Media Studies: a section criticized the portrayal of women in the media, illustrated by women with comically enormous breasts, and stick-thin limbs. Also in the illustration were two drooling men looking at the women, eyes literally bulging out of their skulls. Paging Double Standard...
- From World Without End, we have the dynamic duo of Ralph Fitzgerald and Alan Fernhill. I believe that we could make a drinking game based on how many times Ralph has sex, and the Annet rape was particularly bad. Both of them were perverts, then again, it seems everyone there is addicted to sex, besides the monks of course, but not the Bishops, strangely enough.
- Taken literally, at least in potentia, in Michael Slade's Ripper, which unabashedly states that "male sexuality is nitroglycerin" and always has the potential to generate violence, if forcibly repressed and denigrated. Granted, "Michael Slade" is the pseudonym of two Canadian trial lawyers who'd spent their careers prosecuting the worst serial sex offenders, but implying that rule extends to all men is taking it a bit far....
- A bit far? Isn't that like implying all mothers want to murder their children based on the fact that mothers do the majority of child abuse? Sounds like saying it 'takes it too far' is like saying 'the titanic took on a little bit of water.'
- Kyra of The Astonishing Adventures Of Fanboy And Goth Girl is incredibly paranoid. Her friendship with the male main character comes to an end partially because she believes this (although said character doesn't really fit this trope.)
Live Action TV
- In one episode of Three's Company, Jack is pushed by Janet and Larry to sue his new boss because of her sexual harassment. He ends up losing the case because the judge sees his use of cologne and style of dress as "just asking for it", reprimanding him for luring women in to take advantage of them.
- Friends: The list of things done by Joey and Chandler is quite extensive. They gave up their apartment in order to see Monica and Rachel kiss for one minute. They often go to great lengths for porn. In fact, Monica can recognize when Chandler's been watching before she comes into the room because she's seen that action so often.
- This really makes no sense. Joey picks up several gorgeous women every week, so there's really no reason he should be so excited at a glimpse of flesh. Chandler, meanwhile, is elsewhere portrayed as witty, sensible and urbane, and doesn't lose his composure ... except over boobies.
- Coupling *is* this trope.
Jeff: Do you know what would be the best way to wipe out all of humankind if you were a space alien with a special mind-ray? Make all women telepathic. Cos' if they suddenly found out about the kind of stuff that goes on in our heads they'd kill us all on the spot. Man are not people! We are disgustoids in human form. Women think we are normal... like them, cos' we talk to them like normal people: 'Hello, how are you? Haven't seen you in this place before... What type of music do you like?' But all the time in our brains we got the word 'Breasts' on a loop. If we ever lost control for a second we all start shouting: Breasts! Breasts! Breasts!
- Steve gets several glorious rants about how All Men Are Perverts And Proud Of It! In the same episode as the title quote Steve is worried because Susan found one of his porn tapes (it was early in their relationship) and that she might think he is some kind of masturbating pervert, to which all three men immediately agree they all are.
- Of course, the Crowning Moment Of Awesome with the rant about wanting to see naked women was that Steve made it very clear that just because he liked seeing girlflesh in no way meant he was any less dedicated to Susan and their relationship.
- Seinfeld: An entire episode was devoted to man's inability to refrain from masturbation. then again, Elaine wasn't much better at abstaining. Could it be equal opportunity.
- Another episode dictated what happened to a man or woman if they stopped thinking about sex for some time. George ends up becoming significantly more intelligent and starts fixing most of the problems in his life along with learning at a great pace. He only stops when the Portuguese he learns helps him pick up a hot waitress. Elaine on the other hand gets progressively dumber when sex is no longer involved.
- But then, to be part of the contest she had to put up more money because "It's easier for a woman not to do it than a man. We have to do it. It's part of our lifestyle."
- Many of Jay Leno's jokes come from this premise. Kevin Eubanks often gets treated as an exception, but in general it's assumed in the jokes that this trope holds. Helps keep the jokes unfunny.
- The Man Show, which is supposed to be about stereotypical guys, includes this trope.
- The Benny Hill Show, of course.
- UFO naturally, given the shows' in-your-face Fanservice. In one episode the aliens are using a weapon that freezes time. Straker enters the film studio used to disguise SHADO headquarters and sees an actor permanently "glancing" down the cleavage of the well-endowed actress opposite him. Even the stoic Straker is apparently not immune — in "Close Up" he uses a sophisticated macroscope to look up the skirt of a posing Lieutenant Gay Ellis. Supposedly it's part of a demonstration on how it's impossible to judge magnification without reference points, but even after he gets the point Straker zooms in for a second look... you're not fooling anyone, you sly dog!
- This was overdone in a season of Just Shoot Me, in which "Kaylee", a Mary Sue character, was added to the cast; and the three main male characters began falling all over each other to try to date her — DESPITE that they all worked in top positions at a Fashion magazine, where supermodels practically oozed out of the woodwork — and with whom Jack (and Elliot) regularly had affairs, and even the geeky Dennis Finch was able to marry a supermodel played by Rebecca Romaijne-Stamos. In contrast, "Kaylee" was rather psychotic, and was fairly average-looking, being short with a heart-shaped face. (See "Hugh Hefner" above).
- Married With Children
- On The Buses features 1970s style skirt-chasers Jack and Stan.
- Frasier:
Daphne: Oh, come on Dr. Crane. It's not as if men have never used sex to get what they want.
Frasier: How can we possibly use sex to get what we want? Sex is what we want!
- In another episode, Roz is complaining about how she's been flirting with the guy who regularly sits behind her at professional basketball games, but he doesn't appear to fall into this trope. It gets so bad she begins to worry about whether there's something disfiguring about the back of her head that he can see but she can't. Frasier points out that he might be married, gay, or — inconceivably — attending a basketball game to actually watch the game and not trying to score with women.
Music
- "Maenner Sind Schweine" ("Men Are Pigs"), a song by Die Aertzte — an all-male band.
Radio
- The NPR program Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me reported on a Harvard Business School study into the use of social networking. As described by host Peter Sagal: "In an unsurprising finding the lead researcher calls, quote, 'surprising,' the number one thing men do on Facebook is look at women they don't know... Harvard Business School also found that looking at women is the number one men read Playboy, watch National Geographic Channel, and open their eyes." 'Nuff said.
Video Games
- Leisure Suit Larry is all about a man trying to get laid. It's quite successful at it.
- In a freeware game Chick Chaser is this trope, minus all the charms that Leisure Suit Larry had.
- Hilariously, you can go through a fair amount of Metal Gear Solid 2 by laying Girly Mags on the floor. The guards almost always stop to look at it. The magazine items continue to appear in subsequent games, but their effectiveness varies.
- In Subsistence's now-defunct online mode, only canon gay Raikov is immune to the magazine. In MGS4's online mode, not even female PCs are immune.
- Women are immune to the magazine in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, making female-guard-filled areas a little more difficult to get through. The "Artist" ability makes male characters immune to magazines. (Raikov has this ability, incidentally).
- In Elite Beat Agents, white blood cell nurse Cap White attempts to kill a virus. The virus just intends to see her naked, as demonstrated by failing the first section.
- Zelos seems like this in Tales Of Symphonia. He's a good guy with a good heart underneath, but he still gets a "Casanova" title if he fights with all the female party members at once and a Gigalo title if he (personally) (underpants) talks to every woman in the game ever. So yeah.
- Subverted in Tales Of The Abyss. During a short skit in the desert, the female members of the party all express a strong desire to shower as soon as they find enough water, and Luke also starts musing to himself, out loud. All the women immediately start berating him, to his genuine confusion... prompting Jade to make an aside to Guy about his luck that they didn't notice Guy was the one actually drooling at the thought of women showering.
- At one point in Final Fantasy VII, you have to split up your party again, which then consists of Aerith, Tifa and Barrett. If you choose Aerith and Tifa to come with you, Barrett comments, "Yeah, I thought you'd do that." Thus, the game itself expected the player to follow this trope (Wonder what they're implying about female gamers?)
- It's more like The Dev Team Thinks Of Everything. If you choose the two guys (one of whom is actually an animal, mind you), the girls comment "Very..." "...Interesting." "Well, have fun. BOYS."
- Final Fantasy VIII plays with this too. At one point in the game, your team has to split up, and Irvine makes a suggestion as to how to split the party: Naturally, he tries to take the two best looking girls for himself.
- The bard from the 2004 remake of The Bards Tale was initially reluctant to rescue Princess Caleigh, even when she offered money and power in exchange. He was finally persuaded when she threw in sex to the offer.
- Plus, the game's tagline is "A quest for coin and cleavage."
Web Animation
- Strong Bad, Homestar Runner's rival. The only reason he started his successful pizza joint, "The Pizz" was so he could attract some hot college girls. He also expects red Jell-O to naturally attract them. Homestar is more concerned about meeting Bill Cosby.
- In which case, he should definitely try using the Jell-O.
Web Comics
- Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, by the nature of the beast.
- It seems most characters in this webcomic are rather lacking in control over their sexual whims, male or female, and some of the exceptions are male.
- Megatokyo, anyone
?
- It's hard to tell if Largo is an aversion or not. He plays up the horndog repeatedly when he first meets Erika, yet later on seems honestly bemused that his class would rather look at a bunch of half naked seventeen year old girls than his computers. He also tells Erika to put some clothes back on because she's distracting him.
- Largo's insistance that people get naked seems to stem from his hardcore computer-building mentality. Piro even says that being naked is the safest way to do it even though you only need to ground yourself.
- Averted with the l33t guy who tries to advise Junko how to beat Largo at video games. After she beats him with her purse for supposedly looking up her skirt, she realizes that he wasn't actually looking anyway. Largo then asks her if she always automatically assumes men are doing stuff like that.
- Sluggy Freelance. When asked to paint her apartment, Torg painted Zoe's walls with a nude portrait of her. Riff seems to forget all about his quest to stop Aylee once she grows a pair of Non Mammal Mammaries. Bun-Bun is practically addicted to Baywatch. And that's just the main characters. Supporting characters like Sam or Dr. Schlock often get it a lot worse.
- Well, Torg was high on paint fumes.
- Of course, Sluggy Freelance characters tend to be pretty immature in all facets of their lives, not just when it comes to sex.
- With the notable exception of Mike, Sexy Losers, again by the nature of the beast.
- Oh Mike's still a pervert. He's just not interested in sex with anyone but himself.
- In The Order of the Stick, it's a plot point when paladin Miko captures the party. Despite her readily apparent bitchiness, Roy remains continuously attracted to her and remains blind to her continually abrasive behavior. Ironically, it's after he becomes a woman himself and changes back that he does see Miko as more than a love interest. Then, naturally, he goes off on her, having realized how much of a bitch she really is.
- Off the whole titular party, Vaarsuvius is probably the only chaste character, having already a mate. Besides Roy, Elan thinks it's a bard duty to seduce female villains (until he gets in a relationship with Haley), Belkar continuously spouts innuendo and treats women like sex objects, and even Durkon had a fling with an evil female dwarf. Haley isn't off the hook either, blatantly ogling or fondling Elan even before they're an item.
- In the (very obviously NSFW) webcomic Hentai Action Theater, we have two characters attending a sex magic class. The girl is a talented newbie, very inexperienced both with sex and, generally, magic. The guy is an ancient demon in human form, with centuries of experience in both arcane sorcery and debauchery. This is what she's thinking.
This is what he's thinking.
- A recent El Goonish Shive strip [1]
Web Original
- Played with in the Whateley Universe from time to time. The school has a number of transgendered students but only the standard male/female sanitary facilities and a policy that students are supposed to use whatever a person seeing them on the street would expect them to. Phase's ogling of the "real" girls in the showers is something of a running gag. Also, Nikki's glamour works on this principle.
- It's also a serious part of Hank's character. He was born a girl, but pretty much acts like this. Played with since everybody in Poe showers is looking, but some of them have more "evidence".
Western Animation
- Tex Avery created the Ur-Example with the wolf in Red Hot Riding Hood — Red ended up as regular character in his cartoons who had this effect on all men. Minerva Mink and Hello Nurse are largely homages to Avery's Red.
- The Simpsons and Futurama by Matt Groening.
- South Park: Mostly from adults, but sometimes the children do questionable things too.
- *Ahem* Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society.
- Family Guy
- A rather mild version of this appears in some Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures shorts; the male cartoon characters can't control themselves around Hello Nurse or Minerva Mink. (Amusingly, the female characters also have a tendency to lose control of themselves around good-looking guys.)
Real Life
- Applies to this very wiki. Just count how many tropes there are involving breasts.
- Well, technically, these were all made legitimately on the grounds that they do constitute a common occurrence in the entertainment industry. In other words, Tv Tropes is just indexing it, not creating the tropes themselves. Overall, I would blame not even the industry, it's the audience demographics that give the demand for it.
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