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Destroyed democracies in Latin America. Bombed civilians in Asia. Looks like a combination of Eugene Levy and a frog. And still got more in a year than you ever will in your entire life. Fuck.
He's a hypnotist, hypnotist of ladies
Never had a pocket watch, never counted backwards
You won't remember why you liked him
Well, I don't pretend to understand women's little quirks
Just one thing I know for sure; Chicks Dig Jerks
The polar opposite of The Leisure Suit Larry, this character has a long list of conquests and can bend any woman to his will – despite the fact that there’s absolutely nothing attractive about him. In fact he’s a total sleaze and/or looks like a baboon and/or treats women like garbage. Sensible, self-respecting women may scoff, but if so he’ll pull a clever come-on line on them or practise his patented stare on them and they’ll be suckered in just enough to be proven wrong.
The line between Kavorka Man and Casanova, usually gaping, can sometimes be very fine. Kavorka Man minus the conquests is Abhorrent Admirer. See also Memetic Sex God (which real-life Kavorka Men have a tendency to become). All Girls Want Bad Boys is when the ladies are attracted to a man with a seemingly repellant personality rather than repellant looks.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Dan from Bamboo Blade, despite being Gonk, has Bishoujo Miya-miya for a girlfriend. He also managed to get the American Carrie interested in him. His reason for wooing both of these girls? His resemblance to an armadillo/pangolin.
- Commander Gendo Ikari from Evangelion. We do get to see him work a bit of his actual mojo in the manga, but one still does have to wonder just how he pulls it off several times in a row.
- Perhaps said women are attracted to his "hidden" Shinji-like, vulnerable side that he pretends to show only to them, thus playing on their protective instincts. Remember, Yui told Fuyutsuki way back that skinny!Gendo was "cute", and in the manga, he practically begs Ritsuko to protect him now that Naoko's gone. That's right, Gendo's appeal might be about Moe and Defrosting Ice Queen — and exploiting Evangelion women's crazy parental complexes. You can go puke now. On the other hand, he's also good looking for his age, and very intelligent. (Let's also remember that his 'precursor', Captain Nemo, was a weird mix of 50% Kavorka Man and 50% Estrogen Brigade Bait).
- In Yakitate Japan, Yuuichi Kirisaki (Gendo Ikari's Captain Ersatz) — who's possibly Squickier than Gendo. Granted, Yukino is more evil than him.
- Masato from No Bra. Many readers think that there's no real reason for the girls (and guy) of the story to be attracted to him, beyond some cases of Mistaken Identity.
- Oliver Inoue from Victory Gundam.
- Satou Kohta from My Balls (though it is unclear if this is natural or if it's because the Queen Of Terror is trapped in his left nut and because of this, he cant have sex or do every teenage boy's favorite pasttime for a month, even though He gets away with having sex a couple of times and with ejaculating once)
- Shit, just about every romance anime/manga lead. Average at best, nothing that charming, yet they get metric tons of poon.
- Makoto from School Days is an very good example, due to the fact that despite being a bit of a Jerk Ass and nothing special to look at, he seems to have bedded half the female student body at his school
- Ultimate averted in Urusei Yatsura. Mr. Fujinami has so many pictures of himself with women and his baby daughter Ryuunosuke that he's forgotten which of them is actually Masako, his wife who died giving birth to Ryuunosuke. It then turns out that he never actually seduced them- he hired them to pose for the pictures because he wanted to "help" Ryuunosuke somehow. How was that supposed to work? ...Who can honestly say? This guy is whacked in the head even by the standards of Urusei Yatsura- keep in mind that he forced his daughter to pretend to be a boy because A: he didn't believe a girl could take over his precious tea shop, and B: he made an Arranged Marriage in which he vowed to have his "son" marry a friend's "daughter" and decided he wouldn't let Ryuunosuke's being a girl stop him providing the groom. Nor did said friend decide to let his only child being a boy stop him from providing the bride.
- Roberto in Monster is kind of disgusting, and his... luck with women... is a deep well of squick and even High Octane Nightmare Fuel.
Comic Books
- Wolverine has had a large number of highly attractive love interests (particularly if they're redheads or Japanese), in addition to having a fairly large female fanbase. This despite the fact that he's a short, hairy lantern-jawed guy with weird hair and a perpetual scowl. Unfortunately, poor Wolvie can never settle down and snuggle because his enemies will harm and/or kill them, or he'll just outlive them.
- Not only that, he apparently has deep issues with taking a simple bath, and it's mentioned he rarely brushes his teeth. The live-action movies seem to write this out.
- Can't pass up the chance to do a Hugh Jackman shower scene.
- Archie
Film
Literature
- Arguably, Sir Lancelot du Lac. Yes, ''that'' Lancelot. Despite having pretty much every adaptation since TH White depicting him as tall, dark and handsome (and , on one occasion, Richard Gere), if you go to Malory's La Morte D'Arthur, or one of the other older forms of the legend, you'll find out that he was known as "Le Chevalier Mal Fet"; "the Ill-Made Knight", and with good reason- he was short, ugly and quite possibly ridiculously bow-legged. In spite of this, a relatively conservative reading of his tales and exploits reveals at least three of the kingdom's most beautiful ladies openly pining after him, with many others hinted at even in front of their husbands (and, if I remember correctly, in one case- her abbess).
- TH White depicted him as fugly too, actually. The third book of The Once And Future King is called The Ill-Made Knight. (This, however, is after the hot!Lancelot had really started to catch on elsewhere.)
- Geralt from The Witcher certainly qualifies. An albino Anti Hero, covered in scars, saving people from monsters... as long as they can pay him. For some reason women (especially witches) find him incredibly hot. (In the book, one of them commented that she would let him take her "even on a hedgehog.")
- Perhaps this is the case in the books, but it's certainly not the case in the game. He's very striking and not sleazy (easy, yes, but he doesn't hit on the women as frequently as they seem to want to jump him).
- Darryl Van Horne from The Witches of Eastwick magically seduces women, inspite of his abhorrent appearance and personality.
- Then again, in the movie he's played by Jack Nicholson, who might be a real life Kavorka Man.
- Monk from the Doc Savage novels.
- Embarrassingly common in modern detective stories a la Raymond Chandler. The private eye may be a drunkard, a crackhead, and a self-pitying, self-absorbed fool, but the housewife next door, the beautiful reporter, the mysterious suspect ... in fact, every female character in the book under the age of sixty (or under the age of thirty-five, the sets are equivalent), seeks his tender ministrations.
- Severian, the Designated Hero of Gene Wolfe's The Book Of The New Sun, describes himself as physically ugly. He's also somewhat misogynistic, and after he's exiled from his position as an apprentice torturer, he takes a paid position as an executioner. The number of women who don't seem to mind is truly impressive. May be a subversion as Severian is an Unreliable Narrator and at least one of his conquests is a possible rape.
- Nicholas van Rijn from the Poul Anderson's future history certainly qualifies. His vast fortune has something to do with it, but he often seduces women by his sheer awesomeness too.
- Detective Terry Biggs of Lomax and Biggs is stated to look like a mule. He's been married four times, and they all fail (it's apparently the woman's fault, however). It's his voice and charm.
- In Havemercy, we have the almost outright sociopathic Rook, who not only treats women with a brutal kind of scorn, but comes very close to killing his new professor and long-lost brother Thom out of sheer rage; the ladies, including the Esar's niece, are not in the least bit bothered by this. Though admittedly, Rook is described as being almost painfully handsome and with that whole rugged airman thing going on....
Live Action TV
- Kramer from Seinfeld is a top example; a Latvian priest called his power over women "kavorka", hence the entry name.
- He's seduced Uma Thurman, a nun, and a lesbian, offering no explanation other than, "I'm Kramer."
- Nick Tortelli from Cheers is probably the ur-example.
- Causes Diane to swoon just by standing near her when she doubts his abilites.
- Joey from Friends (and later, Joey) walks a fine line between Kavorka Man and Casanova. He seems to be able to attract any woman simply by asking "How you doin'?"
- But he's good looking and an actor, so he isn't really a straight example of KM.
- Patrick from Coupling, being charming, handsome and notoriously well-endowed, is mostly regarded as a straight Casanova, but at other times, when we’re reminded that he’s a chauvinistic ass with the mental power of a sack of potatoes, his prowess with women seems more like the Kavorka Man.
- Tony Soprano in The Sopranos: He's an obese, chauvinistic, sociopathic criminal and yet sleeps with a variety of very good looking women (not just strippers/prostitutes from the Bing)such as Irina (and her one-legged cousin), Gloria Trillo, Valentina La Paz and Juliana Skiff (all of whom look like his mother, adding to the All Psychology is Freudian aspect of the show).
- Owen Harper, from Torchwood, seems to effortlessly attract a large amount of attractive women, including all three of his female co-workers at various points, despite that fact that's he's pale and has disgusting frog lips. Go figure.
- You forgot to include that he is a total jerk most of the time.
- With Tosh, it might have just been in self-defence, since it seems that everyone she loves dies (Mary, Tommy...), Gwen is married and only went lesbian while under the influence, and the actually attractive men she works with (Jack, Ianto) were a couple and frequently having sex with each other. At work. Probably somewhere with surveillance cameras that Tosh was watching on, for all we know. It was either Owen or a Weevil.
- Or she could've, y'know, not cheated on Rhys.
- Owen is really sexy when his dominant side comes out.
- Dr. Guy Secretan from Green Wing may be a wealthy anaesthetist- but he is also a womanizing jerk who could fairly be said to look like "Donkey" from Shrek. Believes that women with small breasts aren't worth resuscitating.
- Charlie Harper from Two And A Half Men. In his defense, most of these come off as sensible or self-respecting, but his talent as a pickup artist borders on the supernatural.
- Sam Axe from Burn Notice has no trouble charming beautiful and rich ladies. But then, he's played by Bruce Campbell.
- "Smooth is smooth, baby."
- A rare female example: Mimi from The Drew Carey Show is obese and slathers on makeup with a trowel, yet has a long list of sexual conquests.
- Spike Thomson from Press Gang, despite being short, not particularly attractive, and insisting on wearing leather jackets and sunglasses indoors, apparently has no trouble both attracting a string of conquests that he uses to annoy Lynda, and continually stealing Colin's love interests.
- Shawn Spencer from Psych is good-looking enough, but he's a sleazy con man who uses pickup lines that Leisure Suit Larry wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.
- Rene from Allo Allo, has virtually every woman in the cast at some point (and even gets a few guys chasing him) and is a fat, middle aged, balding, greedy, cowardly fool.
- Bobby and Tig from Sons Of Anarchy go through women despite Bobby being fat and middleaged and Tig being both abusive and downright psychotic.
- Cook from the second generation of Skins is forever getting laid.
- Det. Nick Vera on Cold Case has a succession of women despite being fat, slovenly, and so very, very uncultured, save for that one time he took a co-worker to see Wicked. Hell, outside of his wife, his longest relationship was with Kima Greggs from The Wire!
- Woody Fink of The Suite Life On Deck is, quite surprisingly, no slouch with the ladies. What makes him this and not a Kidanova is his greasy, unkempt curly hair, obesity, flatulence, complete lack of personal hygiene, and extremely underdeveloped social skills.
- Vic Mackey from The Shield: An amoral, malevolent ball of stocky menace, who nonetheless manages to score with a string of women, despite reaching higher levels of Complete Monster as the series went on.
Music
- Played for laughs in the song by Adrián y los Dados Negros "¿Por qué me siguen las mujeres?!"
 (translated as "Why do women chase after me?"), where a Kavorka Man is freaked out by all the girls following him.
- Played for bitter laughs in comedian Bill Hicks' song "Chicks Dig Jerks".
Theater
- Invoking The Law Zero here. Richard III is a hunchbacked, evil gnome of a man, and yet he woos the lady while simultaneously delivering a constant Hannibal Lecture to the audience.
- Literally over her father-in-law's dead body — murdered by Richard's own hand, no less — which, for an extra-romantic atmosphere, happens to be still oozing blood from its wounds. Apparently, Anne just can't resist a Magnificent Bastard.
- Some productions like to play with the idea that Anne herself is ruthless enough to accept Richard's hand just so that she can have a tiara again.
- Though in reality, during his lifetime (before the Tudor propaganda machine started making him out to be a monster) Richard was widely considered an extremely handsome, desirable man, second in looks only to his brother Edward IV (who was considered the best-looking man in Europe), and he and Anne agreed to marry under totally amicable circumstances.
- This is much closer to the truth. The only reason Richard III is remembered as a villain is because of Shakespeare, who was writing for the Tudor court. Naturally, it would not go over well to inform his queen that her grandfather stole the crown of England from (one of the branches of) the rightful royal family.
Video Games
- Jimmy Hopkins of Bully. He's nice, sure, but there's probably a reason for that...
- The main character in the Visual Novel Runaway City is blessed with incredible luck, resulting in being able to seduce just about every woman he meets. The game memorably subverts the normal Unwanted Harem however when the Genki Girl, Tsundere and Bokukko all start to mutate into his favored type of girl just to please him. It becomes even worse when women he would never have a chance with spontaneously fall in love with him the second he expresses attraction to them. This results in him seeing his ability as major league Nightmare Fuel, pretty much making every conquest he has made akin to rape.
- Curtis, the protagonist of Phantasmagoria 2, has a girlfriend, another female coworker and a gay/bisexual male friend all attracted to him, despite the fact that it's difficult to imagine anyone more generic in terms of looks and personality.
- Many RPG's with character customization and romance options, such as Fable or Mass Effect, can be turned into this simply by making your character hideous but still playing in a way that keeps others attracted.
- Mario: A short, chubby Italian plumber nevertheless manages to be a Chick Magnet, especially in the Paper Mario games. Apparently, they dig the 'stache.
- Ebisumaru from Ganbare Goemon. This short, chubby, and effeminate guy is very popular with the ladies. The same goes for his Evil Twin.
- Mad Scientist Hojo in Final Fantasy VII. Despite being middle-aged and creepy, he is shown to be surrounded by adoring, bikini clad, young women when on his vacation. The backstory also reveals Lucrecia picked him over Vincent. The original game hints that he was looker but Dirge Of Cerberus shows he still looked middle aged and creepy even in his youth and not didn't even attempt to hide his repulsive personality.
Webcomics
- Joe Rosenthal is a split between a Casanova and a Kavorka Man: he's got looks, brains and superhuman strength, but he took an approach that was so direct that it should have earned him a lot of slaps in the face. It never did. This may actually be one of his superpowers, though.
- Sven from Questionable Content, though not especially unattractive.
- Tip from Skin Horse, despite being a metrosexual Wholesome Crossdresser.
- He's one of those who blurs the lines with The Casanova, though. He really is utterly charming. Just not enough so to explain his supernatural success record.
- Recently revealed that he trascends species
- Joe in Punch An Pie. He's a huge guy with an irritatingly uptight manner who nonetheless claims that few women can resist his "charms." The gigantic fistful of phone numbers he gathered in a few hours attests that he is telling the truth.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Cal from the series Undergrads was made of this trope. Cal was able to effortlessly attract hordes of attractive college girls. Granted, Cal was somewhat handsome and good-natured — in sharp contrast to his rival Rocko, who couldn't get a date to save his life — but he also didn't go a day without having sex despite dressing like a slob and being as dumb as a post.
- Quagmire from Family Guy, though his ratio of repulsion to attraction is about equal. He's actually developed an immunity to mace, for example.
- Bill Clinton was portrayed as this as well, in "Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey". After Lois is fed up with Bill's influence on Peter, she goes to talk to him...and cut to the after-sex smoke. Later, Peter tells him they can't be friends anymore...and cut to their after-sex smoke.
- Potomus from Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law. The man is a crude, fat hippo. Whenever someone enters his office, he tends to be with some woman, his usual response to the intrusion being "What the...?"
- Despite being an ugly Harmless Villain, Dr. Doofenshmirtz of Phineas And Ferb has managed to date at least three women over a season and a half, and was with his ex-wife long enough to sire a daughter. However, his relationships rarely last, mostly due to him being a Butt Monkey.
- Subverted by Boomhauer in Kingofthe Hill. He's not ugly, but he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to always have a woman hanging off his arm. In one episode, he tries to teach Bobby how to pick up girls, and he claims that there is a secret to getting women, and makes Bobby vow not to tell anyone. They drive to the mall and enter a shoe store, where Boomhauer asks a random woman for a date...and is immediately rejected. It turns out that the secret is to ask as many women out as possible. He's shot down over 20 times before he gets a date.
- Parodied in the second episode of the Dilbert series with the character of Bob Bastard, who is Exactly What It Says On The Tin, and physically deformed to boot. Despite this, Alice immediately falls in love with him, which he frequently exploits for financial gain, before finally turning against him when she learns that he slurps slurps his coffee.
Real Life
- There are a lot of legends surrounding Gene Simmons and his... promiscuity. It can basically be summarized by "he has a LOT of sex with a LOT of women". Gene Simmons was recently voted #7 in a magazine's "Top 20 Ugliest Musicians" article.
- A lot of rock stars fit this trope. Wealth and fame don't hurt when it comes to getting some, after all.
- To be fair, the ability to lick your own eyebrow is an often overlooked skill.
- The hip-hop world probably showcases it even moreso these days. The majority of the rappers that actually have some talent these days aren't exactly attractive (Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, I'm looking at you), but the women they've hooked up with are beyond attractive.
- As Eddie Murphy stated in his stand-up act, "All you have to do is sing." His Ur example is Mick Jagger.
- John Wilkes of England and the French Count Mirabeau were famous not only as statesman but for having scores of conquests despite being notoriously ugly.
- Perhaps justified in the words of another notorious Kavorka Man, Henry Kissinger (pictured above): "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."
Richard Nixon's head: Looking like that he talked his way into Jill St. Johns' bed. Enough said.
- Or as expressed by Dennis Miller, back when he was still funny:
Henry Kissinger said that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac, and if anyone ought to know it would be him. Nobody in DC scored more primo tail than ol' Hank Kissinger, and the man looked like a troll doll you'd hang from the rear view mirror of a VW Beetle.
- "Roman writers tell us that Cleopatra was intelligent and charismatic, and that she had a seductive voice but, tellingly, they do not mention her beauty." In fact, a recently found coin depicts the legendary seductress as probably quite ugly, even by the standards of her day, and contemporaries commented on her foul breath. So Yeah...
- The coins show her well past her prime, but she never probably was more than average-looking. She attracted men with her brain and power, not by looks.
- She also had more than a little reason to emphasize or exaggerate the masculinity of her face in official portraiture. Egypt was no Themyscira.
- The woman spoke nine languages fluently. If that's not a Geeky Turn On, I don't know what is.
- The thought of Mark Anthony as susceptible to geeky turn ons is more than a little bizarre.
- It didn't hurt that she ruled the best agricultural land in the entire Empire, which supplied much of the capital city's food. Everyone wanted her on their side.
- And her bedroom skills were apparently legendary.
- Samuel Pepys was apparently a real ladies' man despite looking like this.◊
- When he wasn't paying for it directly, he was intimidating his employees' wives into it. So Yeah.
- Benjamin Franklin, who had quite the history despite his age.
- Legend has it that when Franklin returned from his post as the American ambassador to France, he was afflicted with every venereal disease known to medicine at the time.
- Gotta Catch Em All!
- Well back in his youth he was quite a looker and very well in shape thanks to working in a print shop, of course he had a think for hookers So Yeah
- Gouverneur Morris was a less-known, but important, founding father (He probably wrote the Preamble to the Constitution, "We the People..."), who lost the flesh from an arm in an accident as a teenager and lost a leg in an accident in his late twenties and still managed to keep up on heck of a tally.
- Red Sox pitcher Brad Penny is fat, sweaty, and not even that great of a player. Yet somehow, he has managed to nail both Alyssa Milano and Eliza Dushku. Explanations are few and far between other than the notion that Milano REALLY loves her ballplayers.
- And Eliza Dushku is a huge Red Sox fan, being from Watertown, So Yeah.
- He's now with the Cardinals, and his current arm candy is Karina Smirnoff of Dancing With The Stars. The legend continues.
- Radek Stepanek, a Czech Tennis player consistently in the top 20 of the world, is not quite average looking at his best, but is notorious for the number of gorgeous female tennis players he has been involved with over the years despite this.
- Wilt chamberlain. Stringy, narrow, and 18000 women...
- A good chunk of male pornstars, such as Ron Jeremy.
- This is Ron Jeremy in his younger days of porn: [1]◊
- Yeah, despire current appearances, 30+ years ago Ron Jeremy was like Burt Reynolds if Burt Reynolds spent more time at the gym.
- Also, he looks like Mario. That has to count for something.
- Jean-Paul Sartre was ugly, short and a jerkass even toward his former friend Albert Camus, but had numerous affairs - about which he gossiped with Simone de Beauvoir. (See the book Philosophers Behaving Badly for more information.) His intellect and fame probably helped.
- Radio personality Tom Leykis made his radio show based on this trope (he is still alive, but currently does not have a show). His "Leykis 101" consists of attracting women by being a complete jerk (Leykis is a self-proclaimed "a-hole"), on the premise that lowering a woman's self-esteem will make her want you more. The rules include spending a total of $40 or less on a date ("Zero is optimal"), get sex by the third date or never see her again, have sex at her place and leave immediately after, no cuddling or spooning or even mentioning the word "love", lower her self-esteem using back-handed compliments ("I don't care what everyone says, I like a girl with a little meat on her bones."), avoid dinner and go right to drinks whenever possible, and no single mothers, ever. He has very often expressed contempt for "nice guys", because they end up putting a lot of effort into being nice, only to be left paying for dinner while their dates leave them to hook up with the jerks who never spend a dime on them.
- I cannot believe that no one has mentioned Richard Feynman. Knowing his reputation for womanizing is a prerequisite to getting this XKCD strip.
- Feynman was not ugly, was a genius, had a good sense of humor, a juggler, safecracker, a amateur painter, bongo player, and won a Nobel Prize. It would only be surprising if he couldn't attract women.
- Jean Paul Belmondo. Arguably one of the ugliest men in the history of mankind. Never stopped him from being an idol though.
- The incredibly nerdy Peter Orszag, Director of Barack Obama's Office of Management and Budget, not only married a ridiculously hot woman, but managed to have an affair (and illegitimate child!) with at least one other. This is a man with a hardly remarkable face, a goofy-looking smile, and a high-pitched voice, and he is essentially a glorified accountant; we are not talking about a sexy nerd. Jon Stewart, upon hearing about this whole business, said that Orszag had to have—and this is true—"kavorka."
- Many famous authors, including Balzac, Thoreau, and H.G. Wells qualify
- Thoreau wasn't unattractive. I would.
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