Bad boys--we love them. Why?

Bad boys—we love them. Period.

I have a theory about women in general. We love men—a lot. So much that we are far more forgiving of them than we are of our own sex. How did I arrive at this conclusion? Am I just opinionated? Well, yes, actually I am. J HOWEVER, I do have some basis for forming that theory/opinion.

Have you ever noticed how much we love bad boys? We make allowances for them. We lust over them. Weave daydream and fantasies around them. So why is that a bad thing? Shrugs. Maybe it’s not—except that we, as a whole, do NOT love bad women. We don’t make any allowances or excuses for them. Them we kick to the curb and dismiss.

I first noticed this after I created a bad boy vamp and a bad girl vamp. Now that bad boy vamp was very bad. He had a hot temper and a rep for being mean and vicious to women in general. He’d met very few women he didn’t feel the need to trample. Talk about rough loving. That’s what Vladimir Madison, my bad boy vamp from my Bloodlust series was sure to give any woman he met. I created him expecting to kill him off after he’d served his purpose at the end of a book or two.

To my surprise, readers rallied around him. They wanted to hug and cuddle him. Make excuses for his behavior…forgive him. He was just misunderstood and needed the love and understanding of a good woman…or man. J

Contrast that with how my bad girl vamp, Doctra, or D-girl as my not so lovingly call her. She’d been hurt in love—badly. Had her heart and hopes for a happily ever after with her bloodlust, Mikhel destroyed. To my vamps bloodlust is a far more powerful force than love. To fool with a vampire’s bloodlust hopes is to invite death and send them on an endless and vicious quest for vengeance.

D-girl took measures to reclaim what was hers. She set out to reclaim Mikhel and like Vladimir, she didn’t particularly care how she accomplished her goal or who got hurt or even killed in the process.

Now most of us know how painful lost love can be. How did readers react to D-girl whose hopes and goals for a happily ever after with her bloodlust were so expectedly destroyed? Did they embrace or cuddle her? Say she was misunderstood? Make allowances and excuses for her? Absolutely not. Although she had a few hearty readers that defended her, the overwhelming majority HATED her.

My bloodlust series has a number of elements which make it controversial to some readers. Readers have had so very heated debates about these characters. They have very strong opinions about their favorite or least favorite characters from the series. Some absolutely adore the series and can’t wait for the next book. Others hate it and write to tell me I’ve destroyed their lives. In addition to the differences in how readers treat/receive Vladimir and D-girl, there’s also the way they react to a triangular relationship between Mikhel and the two women in his life, Erica and Derri that’s resulted in my opinion about women and bad boys/girls.

Although Mikhel and Derri both have much stronger feelings for each other than they should (given that they both have other mates), only Derri is vilified. She’s a greedy, selfish home wrecker who wants it all—at Erica’s expense. How do readers react to Mikhel? He’s forgiven and given a walk. Nothing bad is said about him.

Those are only two examples of the difference in how women respond to bad boys and bad girls. The boys we forgive. The women we are not inclined to forgive—regardless of their reason for being bad.

Is my opinion fair? I think so. If you don’t agree, post and tell me why. Or if you just want to tell me my we’re so fond of bad boys and so unforgiving of bad girls, do that too. Let’s make a contest of it. I’ll choose a reader from the comments to win a copy of Destiny’s Slaves, which includes the Bloodlust—Conquering Mikhel Dumont and The Talisman. I’ll announce the winner on Wednesday.

In the meantime, have a great weekend.

Marilyn