KH COMMENTARY: Who's Bad?

There are some things all women are systematically drawn to:

1. a shoe sale

2. a Country Road sale

3. a bad boy

And usually the first two are a direct result of the latter, as we try to mend our bad-boy broken hearts by purchasing discounted clothing and Tony Bianco heels.

As the feminine species, we just can't help but be drawn to the bad eggs of the male society. It's a chemical imbalance, a genetic defect. When faced with the choice between a 'nice boy' and a 'bad boy' - between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham - we pick Mr. Wickham every time. Because he's just so debaucherously bad. And it's just so damn attractive.

It's a tangled web that women fall into with starry eyes, the latest being pop sensation Katy Perry who has the balls to take on the King of the Bad Boys - Russell Brand, who is rumoured to have swept Perry away on a secret holiday to Thailand after some flirtations during the MTV Music Awards. Despite friends telling Perry to watch his womanising ways, she is determined to make the relationship work, finding Russell to be "charming, hilarious and incredibly sexy."

And what do you get when you combine charming, hilarious and incredibly sexy with a few tats and some exposed chest hair? A midnight showing of Bad Boy: A Tale of I Should Have Known Better.

The February 2009 issue of Australian Vogue published an article by Alice Cavanagh which explored the destructive behaviour behind womens' obsession with 'the bad boy'. Cavanagh quoted US psychologist Peter Johnson who found "that men who have the self-obsession of a narcissist, the impulsive and thrill-seeking behaviour of a pyschopath and the deceitful and exploitative nature of a Machiavelli are more attractive to the opposite sex." These types of characters are known as 'dark triads' and are "associated with high levels of self-interest and low levels of empathetic qualities." But rather than send women running for the hills with their narcism and destructive behaviour, these dark triads do the exact opposite and seem to attract women with their twisted magnetic force.

We've all either seen it happen to a good girlfriend or have actually been the naive moth drawn to the burning bad boy flame. So why do we do it to ourselves? Because we see the nasty, naughty habits these kinds of boys expel as strangely seductive. Johnson explains that what women find attractive about these men "is the excitement and danger that comes with dating bad boys. If you were to ask someone whether they wanted to date a narcissist, they would say no. But women find the aloof bad boy thrilling and intoxicating."

Sure, women still see these men for what they truly are - selfish, egocentric cads - but it's as if we don our rose-coloured glasses for battle and march onto the warfront anyway. Because as much as bad boys drive women crazy with their confidence, their carelessness and their bastardly behaviour, at the same time, all that self-indulgence is strangely reliable. Women walk into these situations because they know, deep down, they're going to get exactly what they want out of it - drama.

And when it comes to drama, we can't get enough. We love it, we feed on it and when we don't have enough of it, we'll go specifically looking for it. And what bad boys pose as, is a reliable source of constant, time-consuming, delicisously self-indulgent drama. We'll eat right out of the palm of their hand, let them treat us mean and keep us keen all for the soul purpose of maintaining a decadently dramatic lovelife.

We see bad boys not as relationships (we're naive, not stupid), but more like projects. What do women love more than shoes, Country Road, bad boys and drama? Makeovers and the very idea of reforming a bad boy pushes all our Beauty and the Beast buttons.

It's a tale as old as time. Just as our inner damsel-in-distress is begging to be saved, there's nothing quite so attractive to a woman as finding a man who needs to be saved right back. We like to be needed and wanted and most of all, 'as a result of' because it feeds directly into our own little pot of self-importance. Women love the delusion of thinking we can be the change we want to see in a man, we can be the one who makes a difference in their lives and puts them back on the path to perfection. Our heads get so filled up with this beautiful idea of having a bad boy reform for our benefit that we continue to let them walk all over us like a welcome mat in the hope that one day they'll see the cosmic light.

Because all the books and the movies and the songs tell us that it can happen. Like Richard Gere who gave up his womanising ways in Pretty Woman to pursue the zealous Julia Roberts or Baby in Dirty Dancing who convinces Johnny to give up his sex, drugs and rock'n'rolling ways in exchange for a lifestyle he deserves. And greatest of all, Sex and the City's Carrie and her committment-phobe, Mr Big who ride the rollercoaster of heartache for six seasons and a movie before he finally comes around and puts a ring on her finger. It all reinforces the subliminal hope that one day our bad boy might give up his bigoting ways for a happily ever after with yours truly.

But it never happens like that, does it? Or if it does, it's a means to a still destructive end. Because real bad boys are bad boys for life - it's like they take an oath with their first tattoo - and no amount of makeover-ing can remove it. And where does all that messy, emotional heartache go when the relationship finally peters out? Straight into our piggy bank of dependable drama.

So really, the relationship between bad boys and good girls (or any type of girl for that matter) is not as mutually exclusive as we think. Because in the end, no matter how much you dress it up with good intentions or the facade of no intentions at all, both parties are in it for themselves and their own particular benefits. The only real difference being, bad boys where it like a badge of honour.