He's a ladies' man.
He's a player?
-
Like an all-star.
The ladies’ man:
Women want him.
Men want to be him.
“The ladies' man, man's man,
man about town?”
This archetype of the handsome, charming ladykiller
has worked his wiles across centuries
of literature, film, and television.
“How you doin’?”
Although the ladies’ man may have changed up his game
over the years,
there are a few things that will always identify him:
He’s almost supernaturally charming,
with a charisma that puts his targets at ease.
“You’ve been called the Da Vinci of our time,
what do you say to that?”
“Absolutely ridiculous, I don’t paint.”
He’s extraordinarily sexual, focused at all times
on his next conquest— and confident of his own prowess.
“I give women pleasure, it is of course,
the greatest pleasure they will ever experience.”
He’s unattainable —
which only makes him more attractive to women.
“You’re irresistible.”
and the envy of every other man
“Jesus, Don, even in this place
you're doing better than us.".
He’s also dangerous *:
Falling for the ladies’ man often ends with broken hearts
and hurt feelings— if not something more sinister.
“All he did was say how I had killer legs
and how he wanted to photograph them.
Things just got out of hand from there”
More than anything, the ladies’ man is defined
by his relentless drive to pursue women.
“You know, there isn’t a woman that I’ve met
that I haven’t fallen in love with
for 10 minutes or 10 years.”
But in more recent years, pop culture has increasingly asked
why he is the way he is, and what he’s really chasing after.
“Mommy wouldn’t let me play soccer and daddy hit me.
So that’s who I am?
That’s why I do what I do?”
Here’s our take on what makes the Ladies Man,
how he’s evolved over time, and whether it’s possible
for this most incorrigible of characters to ever change his ways.
“I’m Sam Malone, by the way.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of you in France!”
“You follow baseball?”
“No, stewardesses”
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The ladies’ man is as old as storytelling itself.
Early civilizations believed in the incubus,
a demon who had sex with sleeping women
to steal their life force.
In ancient Greece, the god Zeus
was the ultimate ladies’ man, sleeping with goddesses
and mortals alike— sometimes even transforming
himself into an animal just to get a little more action.
“I turn into animals to have sex with chicks all the time!
I’m like Tiger Woods, only an actual tiger.”
In the 17th century, the ladies man became known
by another name: Lothario, after the playboy character
in Miguel de Cervantes’ 1605 novel, Don Quixote.
He was a Lothario, with amazing capacity.
lf promotions were won in bed,
he'd have been a field marshall.”
In 1630, playwright Tirso de Molina
gave the world “Don Juan,”
a shapeshifter who could change his appearance
and language to seduce any woman he wants.
“You swore you’d remember my kiss
for all time!
That was 4 months ago.”
For a moment I was blinded by your beauty.”
And in the 18th century, an Italian libertine
named Casanova became so infamous
for his liaisons that his name, too,
would become synonymous with “womanizer.”
“My friends caII me ‘Nova,’ as in Casanova.”
These ladies’ men were often regarded as wicked:
Casanova was jailed for blasphemy
and affronts to decency.
Don Juan was portrayed as a devil—
Mozart’s opera version, Don Giovanni,
ends with him literally being dragged to hell.
But as social mores loosened, the ladies man became
a more romantic figure, especially in early film.
Rudolph Valentino played a series of dashing,
heroic ladykillers in the 1920s,
earning him nicknames like the Latin Lover.
The passionate, noble “rogue”— as played by Douglas Fairbanks
in movies like The Mark of Zorro and The Thief of Baghdad
quickly became Hollywood’s dominant role for leading men.
With 1926's Don Juan, starring John Barrymore,
and later 1948's The Adventures of Don Juan
starring Errol Flynn,
With Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Don Juan,
even the most famous sinner in literature
was transformed into a swashbuckling hero.
“Some men prefer the conquest of beauty
to the conquest of the throne.”
For Fairbanks and Flynn, their roles were only enhanced
by their actors’ off-screen reputations as womanizers.
The same could be said
of two of the leading ladies’ men of the 1930s.
Clark Gable—described as an “unshaven he-man” by Variety
—broke out with his rogue-ish turn in 1932’s Red Dust.
“Now wait a minute Fred.
Hey.”
Gable’s manly swagger and seductive way with words
led directly to his most famous role,
Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind.
“You should be kissed, and often,
and by someone who knows how.”
That part was turned down by fellow ladies man
and one of Gable’s biggest rivals, Gary Cooper,
who’d established himself as, in the words of critic
Anne Helen Peterson—
the kind of man who was “volatile, full of honor,
a bit of a secret romantic, yet still and always the hero.
“You’re deathly sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
Like Gable, Fairbanks and Flynn, Cooper
only enhanced his reputation by being, as Peterson wrote,
“one of the most notorious philanderers in Hollywood.”
In the 1940s, amid the anxiety
and alienation of World War II,
this romantic ideal of the ladies’ man
retreated into the shadows of film noir,
eclipsed by a different kind of masculine icon ---
Humphrey Bogart’s world-weary cynic who nevertheless proves irresistible.
“What about us?”
“We’ll always have Paris.”
In the ‘50s, it was the soulful, wounded men
played by Marlon Brando and James Dean
who captured hearts, not the “wealthy playboys”
portrayed by Cary Grant or Rock Hudson.
For a moment, the “ladies’ man” seemed out of fashion.
But then came film’s most famous ladies’ man.
Introduced in 1962’s Dr. No, the secret agent 007,
first played by Sean Connery, was handsome, debonair,
deadly with a gun and with a quip
“Looking for shells?”
“No.
I’m just looking.”
and of course, never misses with women.
“What are we going to do now?”
“Well, we could swim, or…”
The New York Times described James Bond as wish-fulfillment—
a man “doing everything (and everybody)
that an idle day-dreamer might like to do.”
“Well that’s quite a nice little nothing
you’re almost wearing”
With his liberated lifestyle and charged libido,
Bond came to embody the spirit of the swinging ’60s.
With the rise of blaxploitation,
African-Americans finally got their own ladies men
“Who’s the black private dick who’s the sex machine
to all the chicks?”
and films like 1971's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasss Song
quickly made up for years spent neglecting black sexuality.
“Well first things first.”
The liberated ladies men of blaxploitation
were highly sexualized and almost superhuman
in their prowess.
“Hey, where the hell are you going, Shaft?”
“To get laid, where the hell are you going?”
But amid the sexual liberation and second-wave feminism
of the 60s and the 70s, we also started to see the dark,
empty side of the ladies man.
Michael Cain’s Alfie’s philandering ways
leave him utterly alone.
“What’s it all about?
You know what I mean.
In Saturday Night Fever Tony Manero may be
a strutting disco king, but the women in his life
see right through him.
“You’re a cliche.
You’re nowhere, on your way to no place.”
Warren Beatty’s hairdresser in Shampoo can have any woman
“I fucked 'em all.
I mean, that's what I do.
That's why I went to beauty school.”
but not what he really wants.
Increasingly, the ladies’ man
seemed less sexy than sleazy— and a little bit sad.
“Girls, why don't you come up to my apartment?
I think I have something you can put on.
“Like what?”
“Like a Mantovani record!”
By the ‘80s, pop culture seemed to be actively punishing ladies’ men
like Richard Gere’s hustler in American Gigolo,
whose lack of human connection
makes it easy to frame him for murder
“Why did you pick me?
“Nobody cared about you.
I never liked you much myself”
or St. Elsewhere’s promiscuous Dr. Bobby Caldwell,
who has his face slashed by one of many one-night stands
before he contracts HIV.
The ‘90s ladies man often hid
behind a veil of hipness or brooding disaffection.
“I may do mean things, and I may hurt you,
and I may run away without your permission,
and you may hate me forever.”
But he was also a joke— like Austin Powers
“Shall we shag now, or shag later?”
or, of course, Saturday Night Live’s
“The Ladies Man.”
“I have been with many fine ladies,
and many of them were very skanky,
and consequently the ladies man has had a few diseases.”
The “ladies man” had become a cliche.
He was a parody— a postmodern construct
to be analyzed or imitated.
“He never, ever tries to impress the women
but he always gets the girl.”
But by the turn of the millennium,
the joke wasn’t funny anymore.
Increasingly, the ladies men
that we met seemed joyless and lost.
“I've fornicated with women and discarded them like trash.
I've lost my soul.”
His sexual pursuits were now seen as a cover for emotional immaturity.
“You've got to risk love, Sandra!
I didn't and look at me!
I'm a lonely ghost of a man.”
The ladies’ man might appear confident on the outside—
but what was happening on the inside?
“One day, in therapy, I just blurted out,
‘Is my problem with women any movie
directed by Christopher Nolan?'
Because, yes, women are involved,
but it’s never really about the women."
While the ladies’ man would seem to have only
one thing on his mind
“It’s my duty to please that booty.”
his motivations aren’t always the same.
As author Betsy Prioleau details in her book,
Swoon: Great Seducers and Why Women Love Them,
there are several different types of ladies’ man,
each with unique personas, techniques, and psychologies.
The most common is what Prioleau calls the
Darwinian Alpha Male
“You see that guy?
He's the next Donald Trump.
Except he's younger and much better looking.”
Handsome, physically strong, and typically wealthy,
these evolutionary studs represent a primal form of attractiveness
that the anthropologist Edgar Gregersen says is
“bound up with social status, or skills, strength,
bravery, prowess, and similar qualities.”
“I just want you to know that if all that was left of you
was your smile and your little finger,
you’d still be more of a man than anyone I’ve ever met.”
James Bond is the quintessential alpha,
although he has plenty of company,
from the billionaire playboys Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark
“You ever lose an hour of sleep your whole life?”
“I’m prepared to lose a few with you”
to Ryan Gosling’s master pick-up artist
in Crazy Stupid Love.
“Seriously?
It’s like you’re PhotoShopped.”
Gosling’s character is also an example
of type 2 of the Ladies’ Man: The Player Seducer
"I’m what you might call … a player."
He hunts women like a soldier,
using “bravado, flak, and precision strikes
”—often in the form of a good line.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you have the face
of a Botticelli and the body of a Degas?”
His methods are deliberate and pre-scripted.
“When it comes down to making out,
whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV”
How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson
has even compiled a Playbook of all his schemes to land women—
hacky lines, complex ruses, even elaborate costumes.
“None of these are cheap tricks.
Except The Cheap Trick.
Yeah, I’m the bass player for Cheap Trick!”
A darker form of the ladies’ man is the Satanic Seducer,
whom Prioleau describes as a “cold, calculating sexual profiteer.”
“Even more treacherous than he is attractive,
he has never uttered a single word
without some dishonorable intention.
Every woman he has successfully pursued has regretted it.”
Armed with a “sinister leer” and “lethal charm,”
These men seduce women as a game,
out of arrogance, or even malice.
“I have no intention of breaking down her prejudices.
I want her to believe in God and virtue
and the sanctity of marriage,
and still not be able to stop herself.”
Lastly, there’s the Pathologic Woman-Pleaser.,
“You wanna get out of here?
I’ll take you somewhere.”
Narcissists, sociopaths, and sex addicts, they are
“fixated on women through an array of mental maladies,”
lacking empathy and conscience.
“But then there’s the morning after.
The hangover, and the realization
that I’m not quite as available
as I thought I was the night before.
They can be charming, like Mad Men’s Don Draper,
or unsavory,like Charlie Sheen’s character in Two and a Half Men.
“If you’ve got someone to clean your house
and do your shopping and you’re getting some action
on a regular basis, the only reason to get a wife
is if you have a sick compulsion to give away half your stuff.”
But they are united by their relentless pursuit of sex,
and their inability to form genuine attachment—
or to ever be satisfied— because in the end,
it’s only about themselves..
“There's only a few things I really care about in life.
My body...my ride..... my girls...my porn.”
While not every ladies’ man is outright disturbed,
there is usually something about the character
that’s flawed or damaged.
“I was surprised you ever loved me.”
—some void they are always trying to fill with women.
“Trapped on his whirling carousel of suits
and cigars and bimbos and booze.
And where's it all heading?
Nowhere.”
That void stems from fear: The ladies’ man is afraid
of being vulnerable,
so he doesn’t allow himself to get too attached.
How I Met Your Mother even gives the ladies’ man
an origin story,
where Barney’s hard-hearted womanizing stems
from getting his heart broken as a youth
“What about us changing the world together?”
which leads him to conclude that women don’t want sweet,
genuine guys; they want cruel, rich suits.
“He buys me all this cool stuff.”
“But I love you.”
“But he has a boat.”
More often than not, the ladies’ man can only find
true fulfillment by learning to love himself.
But getting to that point might take changing his focus
from women plural to woman singular --
and finding the right lady.
“You know me so well.
You finish all my sentences.”
“I never thought I was the guy
who would sleep with a girl and not even remember her.
So, from the bottom of my heart,
for whatever I did to you, I apologize.”
Even for the worst of ladies’ men,
redemption is never completely out of reach.
"I'm on a quest to reclaim the best parts of myself
before it's too fuckin' late.”
Most of these characters end up reformed—
frequently by uniting with that right woman.
“And there’s only one person
who makes me feel like I can fly.
That’s you.”
In recognizing “The One,” they finally see how
their endless pursuit of empty sex
has only left them feeling empty.
And they realize that what they’ve really been searching for,
all along, is someone who makes them feel
more than just fleeting, physical pleasure.
“Ooh, where's your little black book?”
“I threw it away.
I don't care about sex anymore, I just wanna be married.”
But even if individuals can grow out of this phase,
can there be redemption for the ladies man as an archetype?
Our culture has shifted dramatically in recent years,
moving away from the “boys will be boys” attitude
that once regarded the ladies’ man
as an amusing, romantic, aspirational character,
and excused much of his worst behavior.
“In an earlier generation, he would have been admired
for being a lady's man.
Lady-killer, Lothario,
only recently have those terms become pejorative.”
In the Me Too era, the tactics of the ladies man
seem far more creepy than charming,
and his objectifying, predatory attitude
toward women is difficult to overlook.
“The only reason to wait for sex is
if she’s 17 years, 11 months old.”
In 2015, Daniel Craig said of his character
—and ladykiller, James Bond,
“Let’s not forget that he’s actually a misogynist..”
Breaking with tradition, Craig has even refused to call
his onscreen love interests “Bond girls” --
emphasizing the way recent Bond films have
“surrounded him with very strong women
who have no problem putting him in his place.”
"You don't think this is a very good plan, do you?"
"So there is a plan?"
The ladies’ man needs to realize that the game has changed.
“I think he would always have to
retract every statement he made...”
Still, if even James Bond can mend his ways,
maybe, just maybe, there could be hope
for all those other lotharios,
Don Juans, and Casanovas as well.
“I’m really sad for you, because I know what you’re capable of”
“Yeah, well what if you’re wrong?”
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