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Switch with the Abusively Sexy Bastard redirect: Bastard Boyfriend

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Xzenu Since: Apr, 2010
#1: Nov 6th 2010 at 9:15:28 AM

Edit: Suggestion withdrawn on the basis that Bastard Boyfriend is in fact a bit more complex then the description suggests.

This thread has spawned the seed to a new potential trope, I Can Change My Lover.


We have two gendered tropes about a character who is abusive in a way that make him or her sexy: Abuse played for Fetish Fuel.

The male trope was renamed to Bastard Boyfriend some time back, probably replacing it's Japanese name Kichiku.

The name Bastard Boyfriend is not optimal to pinpoint a male character who is abusively sexy - abusive in a way that makes him sexy, abuse played for Fetish Fuel. I recommend we let the title Bastard Boyfriend and the redirect Abusively Sexy Bastard switch place, with the later becoming the title and the former becoming one of the redirects.

  • "Boyfriend" is not optimal, because the character might as well be a husband or a date.

  • Describing this boyfriend or whatever only as a "bastard" is far worse.
    • For starters, there are many kinds of bastards: Magnificent Bastards, Manipulative Bastards, and so on. The word is way to wide to pinpoint the actual trope. When hearing the title, the actual trope is not at all what comes to mind, at least not for me.
    • Second, just who is he a bastard to? One troper pointed out that the title wasn't even about the boyfriend being a bastard to his girlfriend, that it was more about the third party perspective "How did a bastard like that get a girlfriend?"

  • It's nice if the Spear Counterpart and the Distaff Counterpart can have have the same kind of title. And I would NOT want the Abusively Sexy Bitch to be renamed Bitch Girlfriend - not only for the reasons stared above, but also because she's more likely then her Spear Counterpart to in fact not be a girlfriend but rather a promising one night stand gone horribly wrong.

edited 7th Nov '10 3:59:45 AM by Xzenu

Xzenu Since: Apr, 2010
#2: Nov 6th 2010 at 9:25:40 AM

BTW, if you want to discuss the words "bastard" and "bitch", please don't do it here. See instead the thread Replace the Bastard / Bitch pair of gendered counterparts?

Sackett Since: Jan, 2001
#3: Nov 6th 2010 at 12:29:35 PM

No.

Also, we already have a thread on this exact issue.

Here

You created it, so you knew about it. It's called "Rename to Abusively Sexy: Bastard Boyfriend" So it's exactly the same topic.

edited 6th Nov '10 1:23:01 PM by Sackett

Xzenu Since: Apr, 2010
#4: Nov 6th 2010 at 8:13:44 PM

This thread is based on the twin premises that Bastard Boyfriend is (and will remain) a Male Only trope and that it has a Distaff Counterpart. The name suggested in the headline is a name that works with these premises.

The old thread had a very different premise and suggested a deeply different title - the premise was that we would have the same trope for male and female characters, and that the trope thus needed a gender neutral title. The old thread resulted in the creation of the Distaff Counterpart as well as teh Supertrope. It has thus removed the basis for it's own basic premise, making itself redundant.

So, lets move on to the actual subject instead of flinging empty accusations regarding dementia or whatever!

I have made an argument for why Bastard Boyfriend should be renamed to Abusively Sexy Bastard. Sackett has failed to refute any of my arguments, and no-one else have tried to defend the "Bastard Boyfriend" title at all.

Are there any arguments for keeping the old title? Well, I can think of two reasons. And Sackett has presented two other "reasons", although I fail to see any reason behind them and he have so far ignored my counterarguments. So, four arguments, all in all - add a fifth if you have one:

  • The title is an alliteration
    • Nice, but very weak as an argument. Probably mostly appeal to voters who vote for lulz, without really studying the thread or trope first.
  • The title feels nicer and softer, less creepy.
    • Excuse me, but this is a trope about rape and sexual abuse and such. Making it sound as if it wasn't creepy is not a good thing.
  • The title is actually not about the boyfriend being a bastard, it's about other people wondering how a bastard like that managed to get a girlfriend.
    • Huh, now? Like I pointed out in the OP of this thread, this is really an argument for the BB title being bad, not a valid argument for it being a good title.
  • The original title was voted out in favor of the current title.
    • That's only an argument for the current title being better then the original title, not an argument for it being the optimal title or better then the new title that wasn't available last time. On the contrary, the fact that the current title isn't even the original title only proves that the title is not sett in stone.

Sackett Since: Jan, 2001
#5: Nov 6th 2010 at 10:39:07 PM

The most common depiction of this type of person is as a boyfriend.

It is usually used in romance novels and shoujo manga and other media targeted at a similar demographic: women.

It's appeal relies on All Girls Want Bad Boys, a touch of Its Not Rape If You Enjoyed It, and a large helping of "I can change him".

This is different from the female counterpart. Women of this personality type are rarely considered girlfriend material. She's hot and sexy, and attractive to men as a fling.

The male version however, as I pointed out, is almost always a competitor for a long term relationship with the girl. That's were most of the drama comes from- her struggle to create a healthy relationship with the man. In some ways it's related to Broken Bird.

You are trying to force this square trope into your own little round hole that you created when you created Abusively Sexy. This trope is not just a subtrope of sexual abuse being Fetish Fuel.

Being a boyfriend type character is an important element of this trope. Removing it would change the title into some clinical description of a particular fetish- and no doubt the description would soon follow.

We are not the other wiki. We are about tropes as used in popular culture and media. In popular culture and media this character type is a boyfriend or at least a suitor of some kind. Having "boyfriend" in the trope title is far more understandable and improves comprehension of the trope.

I think this strikes at the heart of our constant conflict Xzenu. You seem to see tropes as needing express the proper and correct way that people should view these tropes. Because of this you routinely violate the Law Of Cautious Editing.

I find it frustrating because I often end up defending tropes that I don't even really care that much about. Such as Bastard Boyfriend. I don't like the trope. I don't like to read romance novels, or shoujo manga. One of the reasons I actively hate most shoujo is because this type of character is so very very common. (Kimi Ni Todoke is one of the few I like precisely because it avoids this trope.) Yet none of that changes the fact that it is a trope. It exists in popular media and culture. And the trope and trope name should reflect the way it is used in popular media. Not being bent and twisted to fit into the trope structure that you think it should have. (As laid out on the Abusively Sexy page).

Furthermore you continually insist on using tactics to win debates that are not based on argument or debate, but instead on "flooding the zone" with so many variations of the same subject that everyone gets burnt out trying to respond to all the different threads and YKTTW.

The other thread was about renaming the same trope. There is no reason to create a new thread to debate the same issue just because you decided on arguing for a slightly different rename based on slightly different arguments for the rename.

Just post it in the same thread so that people can follow along without having to read three or four different threads!

Is that really to much to ask?

Xzenu, it often seems to me that you think that if you can just outlast everyone else you will get your way. I guess there is some truth to this, as I for one have several times walked away because it just takes too much time and effort arguing with you.

edited 6th Nov '10 10:40:36 PM by Sackett

shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#6: Nov 6th 2010 at 11:02:56 PM

Bastard Boyfriend should be kept because it's far more accurate to the trope than the other name that doesn't describe it at all. The character type is almost always a boyfriend and always a dick, but isn't always sexy because he's abusive. He doesn't even have to be truly abusive. He just has to be a dick. It has nothing to do with the tropes you're trying to associate it with.

Seriously, read some romance novels aimed at girls. The trope isn't what you think it is at all. It's Exactly What It Says on the Tin. A boyfriend who is a bastard.

edited 6th Nov '10 11:05:22 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Xzenu Since: Apr, 2010
#7: Nov 7th 2010 at 3:29:07 AM

shimaspawn (and the part of Sackett's rant that actually stayed on topic),

Interesting. I was aware that Bastard Boyfriend have an aspect of I Can Change Him that the Distaff Counterpart lack, but I might have underestimated the importance of this aspect.

Re-reading the trope, I see that it actually says "whose defining trait is that he is cold, cruel, or abusive to his romantic partner, in a manner intended to be kinky and appealing to the audience": OR abusive, not AND abusive. I have a hard time imagining how anyone can regard mere coldness to be kinky, so I guess this aspect is actually about the I Can Change Him factor: In these cases, what makes him so sexy is the fantasy about being able to change him?

Anyway. While I have (IHMO successfully) argued that Abusively Sexy Bastard is preferable for some examples, you have successfully argued that Bastard Boyfriend is preferable for others. And since the problem with Bastard Boyfriend is that it's to wide and imprecise, it does work, altough in many cases weakly, for all examples. So Bastard Boyfriend should remain the main title - and I'll change the "subtrope of" line to "in many cases a subtrope of".

Oh, and maybe we should have I Can Change Him as a separate trope? It currently comes up blank. Although that one should probably be in a gender neutral format although it's a "usually female" trope.

Xzenu Since: Apr, 2010
#8: Nov 7th 2010 at 3:41:10 AM

Sackett,

Thank you for adding some actual content to that flame. As for the flaming, as I have repeatedly said before: If you feel a need to have personal drama with me, you should at least have the common courtesy of taking it to mail. Your first post in this thread was a rather vicious flamebait, and when I didn't take that hook you went into full flamewar mode anyway.

Your basic mindset is wrong: What individual tropes (as well as TV Tropes in general) need is developers, not defenders from imaginary enemies.

These two threads have both been very productive. The previous one spawned two new tropes. The current one refined stuff a bit, and might lead to a new trope (I Can Change My Lover, perhaps). As for "getting my way", both threads ended with me no longer wanting what I had originally suggested.

And guess what? You didn't have to care! Your flame come across as if you feel sorry for yourself for spending time on these threads, so please realize that if you hadn't spent the time then shimaspawn's contributions would have ensured that the result had been the same anyway.

EternalSeptember Since: Sep, 2010
#9: Nov 7th 2010 at 4:34:49 AM

[up] I wouldn't call spawning yet another package of Ridiculously Similar Tropes a productive process. In the previous thread was there for a few days, with maybe two comments contemplating a split, and you went ahead and launched them, in the way that they should support your further objectives.

edited 7th Nov '10 4:35:16 AM by EternalSeptember

BobbyG vigilantly taxonomish from England Since: Jan, 2001
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