All Men Are Perverts
"Do you know what would be the best way to wipe out all of humankind if you were a space alien with a special mind-ray? Make all women telepathic. Cos' if they suddenly found out about the kind of stuff that goes on in our heads they'd kill us all on the spot. Men are not people! We are disgustoids in human form." —Jeff Murdock, Coupling
|
The tendency for all men within a work of fiction to think primarily with their penises. As such they will be constantly trying to peek up girls' skirts or into the girl's locker room, and will go out of their way to either catch a glimpse of something naughty or gain a minuscule chance of finally doing the deed.
Also, whenever they gain a chance or actually get a peek at women's breasts, they lose all brain function. This trope has been used as an Idiot Ball so many times, it's not funny. Men will lose all reason, become catatonic, get massive nosebleeds, etc. just because a woman is in a room. And if any man shows an apparently innocuous interest in a woman, he probably just wants to lay her. This trope is so expected and sometimes so mandatory that when a male character is not being lecherous around women, he is automatically assumed to be gay by the audience (because it is of course utterly impossible for a man to ever have anything but sex on his mind, so he obviously must be thinking about having sex with men instead).
And like the title says: all men will act this way. It doesn't matter if you're the hero or the villain. Even Chaste and Celibate Heroes will act like this. Five years old? A Hundred and Eight? Nine Hundred Fifty Three? Doesn't matter. Even men who are happily married or in a devoted and fulfilling relationship will act this way, and oftentimes the behavior will be largely ignored or even treated as an endearing trait. And most absurdly, men who have more regular access to beautiful women than Hugh Hefner, are shown to lose all control over an attractive woman.
A Double Standard, since very rarely do women behave or even think this way. Made even more Egregious when you consider Most Writers Are Male. You'd think they would be able to paint their own gender in a more positive light. It could be based on something like "male guilt" (analogous to white guilt), with the writers believing (or at least paying lip service to) the militant-feminist assertion that men are bestial, slovenly brutes. On the other hand, it may be based on the writers extending their own personal attitudes to the entire male sex.
Naturally, for the female audience, the prevalence of this trope can be very disheartening, if outright disturbing. Not to mention it reinforces the idea of male sexuality being "filthy", "stupid", "degrading" and "rape-oriented", which isn't exactly an encouraging message for men either, while female sexuality is usually seen as respectful, wholesome and "pure". Note that both this and its Distaff Counterpart, All Women Are Lustful, can be invoked to support claims for the Mars and Venus Gender Contrast.
Gets into weird territory when women are offended or insecure because the guy isn't being a perv. How dare you not want to ravish them! You can't win.
It also seems that only The Power of Love is able to make a man change his lecherous ways and most men in fiction go by the creed that they Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest, meaning they only clean their act if they are serious about a relationship. But this trope actually stems from All Men Are Perverts, thus adding to its prevalence.
Compare I'm a Man, I Can't Help It (focuses more specifically on the idea that a man can't function without sex instead of more universal perversion), All Gays Are Promiscuous (what happens when there aren't any women involved to say 'no'), Nerds Are Virgins (just because you're a pervert doesn't mean you get laid). May lead to claims that A Man Is Not a Virgin. All Men Are Rapists is the Darker and Edgier version of this that usually shows up in Crapsack Worlds and old-fashioned romance novels.
Contrast All Women Are Lustful, the very seldom seen original Distaff Counterpart, and the much more common All Women Are Prudes that now exists in its stead, often paired with this trope and used to reflect how women are closer to Earth than men. Sometimes paired with Vanity Is Feminine in order to provide a certain gender "balance". Attempts at invoking this trope may fall under I Have Boobs - You Must Obey!. This trope also is used to justify All Women are Doms, All Men are Subs as only a man could honestly enjoy pain being perverted as he is, or at least he doesn't care how much pain he has to endure as long as he gets laid.
All Women Are Lustful + All Men Are Perverts = A Party - Also Known as an Orgy and Everybody Has Lots of Sex
No real life examples, please; This is a trope about how characters are depicted in media.
Advertising
- A good example of this and All Women Are Prudes is in the Paco Rabanne perfume adverts. In the one targeted at men, (the 1 Million perfume) a man clicks his fingers and a woman's dress falls off. In the Lady Million perfume advert, a woman clicks her fingers and marriage ring appears on her finger.
- A Pepsi Max commercial starts off with a couple on a first date. The woman asks herself over usual questions of marriage and children, whereas the man constantly thinks about sex with her.
- How many banner ads have you seen for "Hot Sexy Girls in [your area]"? And now, how many have you seen for "Hot Sexy Boys in [your area]"? Exactly...
Anime and Manga
- Any/every Ecchi-comedy anime (e.g. Colorful), where the Fan Service-laden environment does nothing to deter this behavior aside from the occasional Megaton Punch.
- Ranma ½: Where to start? Ranma often takes advantage of his female form to trick people in his various plots, Kuno's attitude towards girls he desires is blatantly lustful (he was at one point proclaimed Furinkan High's greatest pervert), Ryoga uses Akane's ignorance of his curse to play the part of her beloved pet, and Mousse sometimes tries to take a peek on Shampoo... all of which pale before the exploits of master pervert Happ?sai, whose entire existence seems to revolve around woman's panties. Note that the female members of the cast aren't free of libidinous behavior either: Shampoo has no qualms with being nude in front of Ranma (or with him being in a like state), and while Ukyo is more discreet her interest in Ranma is more blatantly sexual than Akane's (for example, at one point Genma showed them both a recent photo of male Ranma au naturel, and while Akane blushed and turned away Ukyo urged him to move his fingers). Even Cologne got in on the fun when Ranma took a love pill with her as its target, implying afterward she would have married him as he'd planned to when under its effects.
- Detective Conan: Considering this show is about a kid, it's wrong or at least weird in many ways. Conan/Kudo's caretaker Mouri Kogorou is the worst offender, often more interested in womanizing than in actually doing his job. His rival Hattori also ogles girls whenever swimsuits are involved. Even Conan/Kudo isn't immune to this, although he mostly lusts after Ran.
- City Hunter: There's only one major male character, but the sheer amount of perversion that Ryo Saeba emits is enough to qualify for this trope. Many men who actually have any sort of role besides him aren't much better.
- While there are plenty of men who haven't shown perverted natures in Naruto, it's more to lack of opportunity. The 3rd hokage, Naruto, Konahamaru, Ebisu, and of course Jiraiya are all strongly demonstrated in their perversion, and many others to lesser extents. Worth noting is that it uses a scene with Sakura to imply/state that women are just as perverted, just better at hiding it.
- Kakashi goes nuts for Jiraiya's "Make-out" erotic book series. Naruto takes advantage of this in Shippuden by trying to spoil the latest installment. Kakashi blocks his ears, but can read Naruto's lips with his Sharingan eye, so closes his eyes, too, and thereby Naruto and Sakura succeed in their test.
- AT first, Killer Bee has doesn't seem to be a pervert: Naruto tried his harem technique when asking him for training, and Bee ignored it entirely. However, this goes out the window when he meets Tsunade...
- This appears to be one of the underlying themes in Zettai Karen Children. Considering that a lot of those feelings are toward the ten-year old leads, it's more a case of "All Men Are Lolicons".
- Kaoru, one of the three girls, is called out for her lust for big-breasted women as acting like a perverted old man.
- Tokimeki Memorial Only Love to the point where one reviewer called just about every male character on the show "a drooling waste of space."
- Onsokumaru of Ninin ga Shinobuden has this to say on the subject:
Onsokumaru: Perversion is a man's sin. Not to forgive it is a woman's sin. |
- Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl shows an interesting variety of this trope. After Hazumu swaps gender from male to female she starts being chased by two girls. Their feelings for Hazumu are treated as pure and deep—and with a lot more reverence than those of Hazumu's male childhood friend. He gets treated as a pervert who only wants to get into Hazumu's pants, since everybody knows that a lesbian only wants to hold hands with the girl she likes, right?
- All the main male cast from Need a Girl!, there are the more outspoken ones like Yo-Han, others who follow him like In-Young and Sul-Min, and the most composed one, Han-Kyul, who just can't help when a situation calls for the occasional drooling; even the unamed male classmates who appears once a chapter shows signs of hormones fervor.
- Ataru Moroboshi from Urusei Yatsura, especially one episode, where a computer hooked up to his brain shows that he loves EVERY girl the most. (Even Lum, a girl who he has been trying to avoid for oh, the entire series?)
- Not just Ataru, Mendou is basically a rich, Jariten is a young Ataru, Megane is otaku fanboy Ataru. The only non perverted guys are kotatsu-neko, that fish guy, and Nagisa.
- Both in force and subverted in Tona Gura. Kazuki's best friend Chihaya defends Chivalrous Pervert Yuuji by taking the understanding attitude that 'all boys are like that'-to the point of even flashing him some underwear.
- In one episode of Eureka Seven, Renton inadvertently says something to Eureka that touches a nerve. It has to do with her not being human. He looks through the Gekko's magazine rack to see if something there might offer some advice on how to ease the tension between them, and gets caught looking through a porno magazine. Though it's clear (to the audience) that he had no idea what it was really about when he first picked it up, the other Gekkostate members take it as evidence that the visible tension between the two is due to Renton pressuring Eureka for sex. While the girls go talk to Eureka about standing up for herself and making sure Renton respects her boundaries, the guys come to Renton's room with a whole stack of porn and set about redecorating his room to create an atmosphere fit for seduction.
- And, of course, Holland finds them at that moment and Hilarity Ensues.
- Although seemingly subverted by Hayate in Hayate the Combat Butler when Miki shoves what is supposedly a porn magazine fold-out in Hayate's face when determining that he's the perfect one to take Hinagiku out, and his multiple times of seeing Nagi (his master) unclothed, he has shown that he is somewhat of a pervert, openly oogling Hinagiku twice in the current Golden Week set of arcs. And making her decidedly uncomfortable because she doesn't think she has what it takes to be ogled, despite being a favorite of both the boys and girls of her school.
- Tauros of Fairy Tail doesn't even deny it, claiming he's proud to be a pervert as he's summoned and after his initial attack usually compliments Lucy on her body. The other males are generally clueless to sexual appeal though.
- A beautiful example of exemption occurs with Bio-Meat: Nectar's resident Blue Oni, Shingo, who is neither a pervert nor even a ladies' man (even though he has every capability to be). Lampshaded by the somewhat Mad Scientist.
- While not as sexual (seeing as the show's specifically aimed at children), Brock on Pokémon is notorious for falling head over heels in love for any young woman (read: around his age) he sees, including every Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy. Fortunately, Jessie hasn't noticed her inability to provoke a reaction yet.
- Berserk, staying true to its dark nature, plays the trope straight and is thoroughly unsympathetic in its depiction of it. On the other hand, it plays off All Women Are Lustful in a similarly critical light.
- The sole exception being when Guts saves Casca from a nasty fall: as she lays unconscious in their makeshift shelter, he briefly thinks about nailing her and blames himself for it right after.
- There's one other instance, which was a bit more disturbing, that took place after the Eclipse when Guts accidentally rips open Casca's gown, exposing her breasts, and Guts leans in, presumably to kiss her and then go and... Well, Casca had just gone through the horrific ordeal of being brutally raped to insanity - and Guts was forced to watch as it happened - so of course she frantically runs away from him, leaving Guts to hang his head in shame for even doing such a thing. Not only that, but the event also proved that he and Casca's intimate and emotional relationship would never be the same again.
- In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Asuka tries to justify her extreme hostility towards boys her age with this trope. Unfortunately for her, Shinji is anything but a pervert.
- Not that he doesn't have his moments...
- EL: Nearly every male character introduced in the OVA series is shown to be more than willing to participate in raping women. Though, being a Hentai title, this is probably to be expected.
- Nearly every male in Ai Ore, however its mostly on a realistic level.
- In Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Ja Nai N Dakara Ne, all recurring male characters are clearly this. To start with, male protagonist Shuusuke has a Porn Stash worthy to be the trope's page image, masturbates about five times a day, and his main social circle is an unofficial group call AGE Explorers, in which AGE stands for All Genre Ero. The group's main activity is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. His father seemed to be turned on with one of his SM porn. Even in preschool he played doctor with one of the girls specifically wanting to see her naked.
- It goes further as most females in this series also have an unusually high sex drive.
- Daily Lives of High School Boys has a milder example: the three main boys in the show have stolen Tadakuni's sister's underwear at some point.
- Due to the influences of her philandering father, Maka of Soul Eater believes this very strongly, and it doesn't help that her (male) partner gets Nosebleeds around hot girls. But other than her father, most of the males are actually pretty good guys.
- Played straight with the Shinryuuji Nagas (minus Unsui) in Eyeshield 21 who either start blushing, hollering or hooting whenever they see a pretty girl, since they attend an all-boys school. Also with Agon who is usually seen with A Lady on Each Arm and sleeps with several girls and then dumps them afterwards. Several guys line up to join the Deimon Devilbats because Mamori was handing out flyers. However, most of the other male characters avert this who rarely, if not never, shows an interest in romance.
- With the exception of the main character, every male student at Yokai Academy in Rosario + Vampire is a pervert, as they constantly Lust for the pretty girls in the school, and actually comment on their breasts in public. That is really sick.
Comic Books
- In one issue of Superman, Cat Grant returns to the Daily Planet bullpen after a long absence in California, clearly having had some work done. She greets the sitting Clark Kent over her low cut top, grinning, and he looks her in the eye. And looks her in the eye. And looks her in the eye. And then she looks down at her own breasts, presumably to check if they're broken. Clark's still looking her in the eye. Apparently, he has never looked at her below the neck.
- Deadpool isn't shy about embracing this. In an issue of Cable & Deadpool was asked to rescue his Doppelganger Agent X by his two girl fridays—to which he responded that he wanted four good reasons
- The Teen Titans have had their far share of these. Superboy was one, and some moron thought it was a good idea to give him x-ray goggles. However, he did grow out of that phase by the time he joined the team.
ImpulseKid Flash, on the other hand, put some serious effort into seeing Starfire and Raven naked. Starfire just let him see, and commented that it was the longest she'd ever seen him stand still. Raven managed to retain her dignity. - Box Office Poison. Sex-starved artist Ed takes a life-drawing class with a nude female model. Afterwards he sees the model on the subway and they talk; her sitting, him standing. Ed strains to look down her shirt the whole time even though he's already seen her naked and she busts him on it. This is typical behavior for him.
- Any male the title character encounters in Ramba.
- In Ultimate Spider-Man Jean Grey congratulates Peter on being the first guy in months to not picture her naked (thus also demonstrating that years of reading people's minds has taught her nothing about how they work, as the immediate result is him doing so).
Film
- Practically every teen comedy ever made.
- American Pie: Granted, it's a sex comedy and focuses on that issue, but the sheer length the main characters of the movies will go to for their goal is ridiculous. All they want is sex and that takes priority over everything else. Sure, by the end of the first movie, they decide it's not that important, but they get it anyway and after that it's all they ever talk about. Even Eugene Levy's character, who as far as we can tell is in a loving relationship with his wife, falls into this: for example, when he buys hardcore pornographic magazines in order to give his son The Talk.
- Revenge of the Nerds. The things the Protagonists do over the course of the movie include: Installing cameras in a sorority house so they can watch them on their television, hiding in women's showers, and selling pies with nude women hidden in the tin for fund raising. At the beginning of the movie you see the characters calculating the number of breasts in their school. One of the main characters dresses up in a costume in order to trick a woman into having sex with him.
- Animal House, or really any movie by National Lampoon.
- Not Another Teen Movie is meant to be a parody, so it's understandable, since most of the characters are not really meant to be sympathetic, but there are many instances that invoke this trope, from having students peek in on a girl's bathroom, to the Foreign Exchange Student.
- Porky's Peeking in the showers of the girl's locker room? Check. Soliciting a girl because you hear she's wild in bed during school hours? Check. Being so desperate for sex that you rely on hookers? Check. Being tricked multiple times with the promise of sex when you should know better? Check.
- Road Trip Starts off with an I'm a Man, I Can't Help It moment and quickly devolves from there. Culminating in a scene when they try to donate to a sperm bank in order to get money.
- The Party Animal has a plot that revolves around a young college student desperately trying to lose his virginity, and the incredible lengths he will go to achieve these ends.
- Death to Smoochy: Nora Wells herself seems to think so.
- The 40-Year-Old Virgin while it's also A Man Is Not a Virgin, what the main character is subjected to by his "friends" shows just how bad each of them are. The main character, however, is ultimately something of an aversion, as he's actually not that concerned with sex, being more interested in love, and is certainly a lot more mature and grown-up about it than most of the other people around him (including some of the women).
- Also many thrillers, where most of the plot wouldn't happen if there were a single male character that didn't think with his penis.
- The trope title is taken extremely literally to the point of exaggeration in the film Teeth, which posits female empowerment by means of toothy castration. The only male character who doesn't at least attempt to sexually assault the protagonist is her stepfather. Note that she also has a stepbrother. Yeah.
- The original movie version of Mash, although this was toned down (and eventually eliminated entirely) for the subsequent TV series.
- And yes, even Superman. In the 1978 Christopher Reeve movie, while Superman and Lois are having their dinner date, he's telling her about his abilities. She challenges him: if he really has x-ray vision, what color are her panties? As she steps out from behind the planter box that was between them, he tells her they're pink.
- This belief seems to be at the core of The Ugly Truth.
- Every single Carry On film made, occasionally to the point were it crosses into sexual harassment.
- You would think that Clarice Starling is the only woman in the universe of Silence of the Lambs that the majority of men have ever seen, because nearly every single man hits on her.
- In the novel, this is played with more. Aside from the Ho Yay implications of her sleeping in and thus needing to share a shower with her roommate, she realizes that Dr. Chilton hits on her because he's socially inept and does it solely because she's a woman. In contrast, one of the entomologists asks her on a date because he really does like her, and it's implied she'd be tempted but for, y'know, the serial killer on the loose.
- Referenced in Casablanca.
"Monsieur Rick, what kind of man is Captain Renault?" |
- Humphrey from Alpha and Omega has been sedated to Idaho along with Kate for the sake of repopulating. Apparently while Kate is shocked of the idea, the scene switches to Humphrey who is drooling after Paddy and Marcel explain to them the process. Humphrey then goes on to say that it sounds "good to him". It also doesn't help that he has a crush on Kate.
- Subverted in Killshot. The mafia girl at the beginning thinks the Professional Killer Blackbird, after finishing his job killing someone else that she was aware of, disturbs her while she's showering because he very blatantly wants to sneak a peek. Instead he shoots her in the head for having seen his face.
Literature
- Scott Adams's book The Dilbert Future predicts the future based on the assumption that all people everywhere are stupid, lazy, and horny. One of his funnier predictions is that the human race is doomed once virtual reality gets cheaper than actual dating...
- Futurama takes that joke to its logical conclusion with a short mental hygiene film about the dangers of dating robots.
- Introducing Media Studies: a section criticized the portrayal of women in the media, illustrated by women with comically enormous breasts, and stick-thin limbs. Also in the illustration were two drooling men looking at the women, eyes literally bulging out of their skulls. Paging Double Standard...
- From World Withou End, we have the dynamic duo of Ralph Fitzgerald and Alan Fernhill. I believe that we could make a drinking game based on how many times Ralph has sex, and the Annet rape was particularly bad. Both of them were perverts, then again, it seems everyone there is addicted to sex, besides the monks of course, but not the Bishops, strangely enough.
- Taken literally, at least in potentia, in Michael Slade's Ripper, which unabashedly states that "male sexuality is nitroglycerin" and always has the potential to generate violence, if forcibly repressed and denigrated. Granted, "Michael Slade" is the pseudonym of two Canadian trial lawyers who'd spent their careers prosecuting the worst serial sex offenders, but implying that rule extends to all men is taking it a bit far...
- Kyra of The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl is incredibly paranoid. Her friendship with the male main character comes to an end partially because she believes this (although said character doesn't really fit this trope.)
- In Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber", a man is implied to have sex with the corpse of a young girl for this very reason. It should be noted that Carter was a very outspoken feminist who was divorced multiple times. Writer on Board indeed.
- Dustin from How to Get Suspended and Influence People is "just plain sick."
- Hilari Bell slips this into her books Trickster's Girl and Traitor's Son. In the first, the shapeshifter Raven takes on a male form to travel with the female lead Kelsa, who intially notes that he's cute and past that pays more attention to the specifics of his transformations. In the second book the focus shifts to the male character Jason, and Raven shapeshifts into a female in order to better convince him to work with her. Jason is easily distracted by her rear, finds the fact that Raven is naked after shapeshifting appealing, though he doesn't like the shapeshifting itself, and sometimes describes her as "the attractive native girl."
Live-Action TV
- In one episode of Three's Company, Jack is pushed by Janet and Larry to sue his new boss because of her sexual harassment. He ends up losing the case because the judge sees his use of cologne and style of dress as "just asking for it", reprimanding him for luring women in to take advantage of them.
- Friends: The list of things done by Joey and Chandler is quite extensive. They gave up their apartment in order to see Monica and Rachel kiss for one minute. They often go to great lengths for porn. In fact, Monica can recognize when Chandler's been watching before she comes into the room because she's seen that action so often.
- This really makes no sense. Joey picks up several gorgeous women every week, so there's really no reason he should be so excited at a glimpse of flesh. Chandler, meanwhile, is elsewhere portrayed as witty, sensible and urbane, and doesn't lose his composure ... except over boobies.
- It's insinuated that Joey is a sex addict, as is used as a momentary excuse in one episode. It would explain quite a bit.
- Parodied on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander isn't a pervert but is shown to suddenly think about sex at random intervals. Which, thinking about it, strikes oddly close to home.
- The most prominent example takes place in Season 3's episode, Earshot.
Xander (Thinking): What am I gonna do? I think about sex all the time! Sex! Help! 4 times 5 is 30. 5 times 6 is 32. Naked girls. Naked women! Naked Buffy! Oh stop me! |
- And earlier in the episode:
Buffy: ...and the boys of this school are seriously disturbed. |
- And Wesley's thoughts, too, centering on Cordelia.
Wesley: I'm a bad man, I'm a bad bad man. *runs away* |
- Later, he's still fighting the urge to look at her.
- In Season 2, when Xander and Cordelia talk their way into the (rather less than) secure munitions storage on the local army base to steal a rocket launcher (partly by telling the guard he wants to show her weapons to get her excited):
Coredlia: Does looking a guns really make you want to have sex? |
- Coupling *is* this trope.
Jeff: Do you know what would be the best way to wipe out all of humankind if you were a space alien with a special mind-ray? Make all women telepathic. Cos' if they suddenly found out about the kind of stuff that goes on in our heads they'd kill us all on the spot. Man are not people! We are disgustoids in human form. Women think we are normal... like them, cos' we talk to them like normal people: 'Hello, how are you? Haven't seen you in this place before... What type of music do you like?' But all the time in our brains we got the word 'Breasts' on a loop. If we ever lost control for a second we all start shouting: Breasts! Breasts! Breasts! |
- Steve gets several glorious rants about how All Men Are Perverts And Proud Of It! In the same episode as the title quote Steve is worried because Susan found one of his porn tapes (it was early in their relationship) and that she might think he is some kind of masturbating pervert, to which all three men immediately agree they all are.
- Of course, the Crowning Moment of Awesome with the rant about wanting to see naked women was that Steve made it very clear that just because he liked seeing girlflesh in no way meant he was any less dedicated to Susan and their relationship.
- Seinfeld: An entire episode was devoted to man's inability to refrain from masturbation. then again, Elaine wasn't much better at abstaining. Could it be equal opportunity.
- Another episode dictated what happened to a man or woman if they stopped thinking about sex for some time. George ends up becoming significantly more intelligent and starts fixing most of the problems in his life along with learning at a great pace. He only stops when the Portuguese he learns helps him pick up a hot waitress. Elaine on the other hand gets progressively dumber when sex is no longer involved since women can get sex so easily they take it for granted.
- When explaining to George why he was getting smarter, Jerry used a head of lettuce to represent his brain. He tears a small scrap off of it and said that it was the part of the brain that functions normally. The rest of the head was the part of the brain obsessed with sex, which was now functioning normally and making George more intelligent.
- iCarly: One of Carly's prospective dates in an episode wants to do nothing more than make out with her.
- Some of Jay Leno's jokes come from this premise. Kevin Eubanks often gets treated as an exception, but in general it's assumed in the jokes that this trope holds.
- The Man Show, which is supposed to be about stereotypical guys, includes this trope.
- The Benny Hill Show, of course. The Yakety Sax chases were parodied in this sketch by Ben Elton and Harry Enfield.
- UFO naturally, given the shows' in-your-face Fan Service. In one episode the aliens are using a weapon that freezes time. Straker enters the film studio used to disguise SHADO headquarters and sees an actor permanently "glancing" down the cleavage of the well-endowed actress opposite him. Even The Stoic Straker is apparently not immune—in "Close Up" he uses a sophisticated macroscope to look up the skirt of a posing Lieutenant Gay Ellis. Supposedly it's part of a demonstration on how it's impossible to judge magnification without reference points, but even after he gets the point Straker zooms in for a second look... you're not fooling anyone, you sly dog!
- This was overdone in a season of Just Shoot Me, in which "Kaylee", a Mary Sue character, was added to the cast; and the three main male characters began falling all over each other to try to date her—DESPITE that they all worked in top positions at a Fashion magazine, where supermodels practically oozed out of the woodwork—and with whom Jack (and Elliot) regularly had affairs, and even the geeky Dennis Finch was able to marry a supermodel played by Rebecca Romaijne-Stamos. In contrast, "Kaylee" was rather psychotic, and was fairly average-looking, being short with a heart-shaped face. (See "Hugh Hefner" above).
- Married... with Children
- Partly subverted with Al Bundy, while he enjoys his "Big 'Uns", he can't stand having sex with his wife, who is the gender inverted form of this trope.
- On the Buses features 1970s style skirt-chasers Jack and Stan.
- Frasier:
Daphne: Oh, come on Dr. Crane. It's not as if men have never used sex to get what they want. |
- In another episode, Roz is complaining about how she's been flirting with the guy who regularly sits behind her at professional basketball games, but he doesn't appear to fall into this trope. It gets so bad she begins to worry about whether there's something disfiguring about the back of her head that he can see but she can't. Frasier points out that he might be married, gay, or -- inconceivably -- attending a basketball game to actually watch the game and not trying to score with women.
- In True Blood Sookie Stackhouse is telepathic. She gave up dating because she was tired at hearing all the disgusting things that men were thinking about while she was out with them. One reason she falls for Bill Compton, a vampire, is because she can't hear his thoughts.
- In Star Trek: Voyager, when the holographic doctor tells another holo-program that he's capable of...intercourse, the other program showed a great deal of interest. Can you guess the "gender" of the two programs? Yes, even holographic men are perverts!
- Although in an earlier episode when the Doctor first starts developing sexual/romantic attraction, it freaks him out and he wants to be rid of it.
- An episode of Chappelle's Show had a parody of What Women Want called What Men Want, where a woman develops the ability to read men's minds. She walks into an elevator, and one by one, every man has some sort of thought about her looks. She's relieved when an eight year old walks into the elevator, and then he turns out to be even worse.
- Castle both averted it and played it straight. One victim was practically a saint...
Ryan: Staff just went through all the files, no other red flags. Any dark secrets in here? |
- And in a later episode there was a catfight between a man's wife and his fiancee... Castle asks to stop for popcorn on the way and Ryan wants him to take pictures.
- Hawkeye, Trapper, and Henry in Mash, and to a lesser extend, Klinger and Radar (although with the latter, it's more wishing than actually doing). Many of the camp visitors, specially in the earlier seasons, confirm the trope as well.
- The Professionals. At the end of "Killer With A Long Arm" Cowley catches Bodie and Doyle sniggering over a long range sniper rifle they've captured. He takes a peek through the telescopic sight and sure enough finds it pointed at a scantily-dressed girl in an apartment a couple of miles away. Cowley chews out the shamefaced pair...then corrects their estimation of the girl's dimensions.
- Dr. Oz admits it's true: one guest stated that the reason most men would rather skip the foreplay is because, "to a man, sex is about having your penis touched and waiting to have your penis touched." He agreed with her quite readily.
- Babylon 5. A female journalist interviewing President Sheridan points out the button-camera next to her cleavage "so that men will look in the right direction".
- According to Jeff on Community, the central message of Twilight is all men are monsters who crave young flesh.
- On That '70s Show, Eric, Kelso, Hyde, and especially Fez.
- On Torchwood Majorly Jack, also Owen, and sometimes Ianto.
- The protagonist of I Just Want My Pants Back begins the show incredibly distraught over not having had sex for six whole weeks. However did he keep from slitting his own throat after Week 1?
- Even ABC's generally kid-friendly TGIF block wasn't immune to this trope. Specifically, Family Matters played it straight, with just about every guy Laura dated (except, of course, for Urkel) being a misogynistic pig. Maxine's pre-Waldo love life isn't much better.
- In The Big Bang Theory, while Howard is this trope incarnate, Leonard has his moments, including willing to go to Jennifer Aniston movies just to have sex. Subverted with Sheldon, which he finds sex to be an inferior feeling.
- Nope, even Sheldon. When Penny hurts her shoulder in the shower, Sheldon promises he won't look while helping her dress, and thinks himself a hero. When he questions the tattoo on her ass, she points out he said he wouldn't look. His reply: "Heroes don't look, but they do peek."
Music
- Nothing in music, nay, not even Lords of Acid, plays this as unabashedly straight as Tonedeff's song, "Pervert." The lyrics in full are too filthy to reprint, but the chorus goes like this:
You'd better check up on your girl 'cause I'm a pervert. |
- "Maenner Sind Schweine" ("Men Are Pigs"), a song by Die Aertzte—an all-male band.
- The Cole Porter song "Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love."
- Studio Killers demo of their new song, All Men Are Pigs, is exactly what it says on the tin.
- Urban Dance Squad's song "The Devil".
- This Pharcyde lyric:
Radio
- The NPR program Wait Wait Don't Tell Me reported on a Harvard Business School study into the use of social networking. As described by host Peter Sagal: "In an unsurprising finding the lead researcher calls, quote, 'surprising,' the number one thing men do on Facebook is look at women they don't know... Harvard Business School also found that looking at women is the number one reason men read Playboy, watch National Geographic Channel, and open their eyes."
- This trope was mentioned and joked about in one round of Notes And Queries on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Humph: Graeme, this is your question. Is it true that men think about sex every seven seconds? |
Theatre
- Avenue Q, of course, has the song (and the trope) "The Internet Is for Porn". All the male characters admit to masturbating to internet porn. Mind, Kate Monster, Christmas Eve, and Lucy the Slut are all pretty lustful themselves, though the play is fairly mum on whether or not they're frequent masturbators.
- Best summarized in The Threepenny Opera, in "Die Ballade von der sexuellen Hörigkeit" ("The Ballad Of Sexual Serfdom"):
Und er beginnt nun zu verstehn (And he's starting to understand) |
Video Games
- Leisure Suit Larry is all about a man trying to get laid. It's quite successful at it.
- In a freeware game Chick Chaser is this trope, minus all the charms that Leisure Suit Larry had.
- Hilariously, you can go through a fair amount of Metal Gear Solid 2 by laying Girly Mags on the floor. The guards almost always stop to look at it. The magazine items continue to appear in subsequent games, but their effectiveness varies.
- In Subsistence's now-defunct online mode, only canon gay Raikov is immune to the magazine. In MGS4's online mode, not even female PCs are immune.
- Women are immune to the magazine in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, making female-guard-filled areas a little more difficult to get through. The "Artist" ability makes male characters immune to magazines. (Raikov has this ability, incidentally).
- In Elite Beat Agents, white blood cell nurse Cap White attempts to kill a virus. The virus just intends to see her naked, as demonstrated by failing the first section.
- Zelos seems like this in Tales of Symphonia. He's a good guy with a good heart underneath, but he still gets a "Casanova" title if he fights with all the female party members at once and a Gigalo title if he (personally) (underpants) talks to every woman in the game ever. So yeah.
- Nathyrra in Neverwinter Nights Hordes of the Underdark is almost completely oblivious to this trope. She has trouble figuring out what you are talking about if you ask her if her expression of concern that you might be disoriented by the Underdark constitutes flirting among the drow.
- Kriea in Knights of the Old Republic II assumes the player (if male) only accepts Visas and the Handmaiden into the party because he might get to have sex with them. Those dialogue trees have some insanely funny Unusual Euphemisms, including such gems as "charge up her loading ramp."
- Subverted in Tales of the Abyss. During a short skit in the desert, the female members of the party all express a strong desire to shower as soon as they find enough water, and Luke also starts musing to himself, out loud. All the women immediately start berating him, to his genuine confusion... prompting Jade to make an aside to Guy about his luck that they didn't notice Guy was the one actually drooling at the thought of women showering.
- At one point in Final Fantasy VII, you have to split up your party again, which then consists of Aerith, Tifa, Barrett and Red XII. If you choose Aerith and Tifa to come with you, Barrett comments, "Yeah, I thought you'd do that." Thus, the game itself expected the player to follow this trope (Wonder what they're implying about female gamers?)
- Also, in Wall Market, some of the men the player talks to are dismissive of or even openly hostile to Cloud. However, talk to these same men after he gets all dolled up.
- Final Fantasy VIII plays with this too. At one point in the game, your team has to split up, and Irvine makes a suggestion as to how to split the party: Naturally, he tries to take the two best looking girls for himself.
- The bard from the 2004 remake of The Bard's Tale was initially reluctant to rescue Princess Caleigh, even when she offered money and power in exchange. He was finally persuaded when she threw in sex to the offer.
- Plus, the game's tag line is "A quest for coin and cleavage."
- Yo-Jin-Bo. All six bodyguards are some degree of Chivalrous Pervert, even the otherwise classy Bo and the Heroic Sociopath Ittosai. This is purely for comedic purposes—for example, when Sayori reties Jin's belt for him, all of the other guys suddenly claim their belts are loose too (except for Ittosai, who complains that he can't get his loose). Aside from the heroes, there's also Dirty Old Man Yahei, who likes to watch Hatsuhime bathe.
- Referenced briefly in StarCraft when Kerrigan (a telepath) meets Jim Raynor for the first time and promptly calls him a pig for thinking about her in a dirty fashion. In the novels, we learn that female ghosts have to deal with this issue all the time, Raynor is just more straightforward.
- According to a novel, what Jim was thinking was actually fairly tame: "Nice legs."
- Ar Tonelico 3 has Saki's level 3 Cosmosphere, where Saki is forced to preform a strip show in front of every male, and apparently they are drooling all over her. Lampshaded after The Hero rescues her.
Visual Novels
- Basically all of the male cast in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, except arguably Satoshi. Gone so far as to be used as an explanation for why a pro baseball player likes sweets over meat. Keichi uses this to his advantage, and bribes him to throw a baseball game.
- In Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai, excluding Cap, all men seem to be perverts. There is even a secret but very popular meeting in one of the routes where many of the students (and at least one teacher) buy more or less risque photographs of girls at the school.
Web Animation
- Strong Bad, Homestar Runner's rival. The only reason he started his successful pizza joint, "The Pizz", was so he could attract some hot college girls. He also expects red Jell-O to naturally attract them. Homestar is more concerned about meeting Bill Cosby.
Web Comics
- Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, by the nature of the beast.
- It seems most characters in this web comic are rather lacking in control over their sexual whims, male or female, and some of the exceptions are male.
- Horndog.
- Sluggy Freelance. When asked to paint her apartment, Torg painted Zoe's walls with a nude portrait of her. Riff seems to forget all about his quest to stop Aylee once she grows a pair of Non-Mammal Mammaries. Bun-Bun is practically addicted to Baywatch. And that's just the main characters. Supporting characters like Sam or Dr. Schlock often get it a lot worse.
- Well, Torg was high on paint fumes.
- Of course, Sluggy Freelance characters tend to be pretty immature in all facets of their lives, not just when it comes to sex.
- With the notable exception of Mike, Sexy Losers, again by the nature of the beast. (Mike's still a pervert. He's just not interested in sex with anyone but himself.)
- In The Order of the Stick, it's a plot point when paladin Miko captures the party. Despite her readily apparent bitchiness, Roy remains continuously attracted to her and remains blind to her continually abrasive behavior. Ironically, it's after he becomes a woman himself and changes back that he does see Miko as more than a love interest. Then, naturally, he goes off on her, having realized how much of a bitch she really is.
- Off the whole titular party, Vaarsuvius is probably the only chaste character, already having a mate at the beginning of the story. Besides Roy, Elan thinks it's a bard duty to seduce female villains (until he gets in a relationship with Haley), Belkar continuously spouts innuendo and treats women like sex objects, and even Durkon had a fling with an evil female dwarf (which we much later discover resulted in a child). Haley isn't off the hook either, blatantly ogling or fondling Elan even before they're an item.
- Haley seems to cause this. Roy's (dead) father seems to enjoy spying on Haley in the shower, an old halfling colleague enjoys staring at pictures of her in the bath, and the men of the team make her check for traps twice because it's like watching her pole-dance.
- The (very obviously NSFW) webcomic Hentai Action Theater is based on the principle that all men, and most women, are perverts.
- El Goonish Shive: Of the three male lead characters, Justin and Tedd are like this. Even gender-bent female characters do this. As for Elliot, though...
Elliot: I fail at perversion. |
- Bug wants NASA to know that when it comes to space travel, all anyone cares about is whether the astronauts have sex in space.
- In Something*Positive, even God himself is a pervert who thinks Girl-On-Girl Is Hot and only said homosexuality was a sin so that he would be alerted to lesbian couples having sex to spite him. See here.
- Ménage à 3. The main characters are bad enough, but background characters are completely incapacitated if DiDi so much as walks in, let alone when she turns up at a strip club..
- On the rare occasion that a man appears in Collar 6, this is in full force.
- Daniel is probably the only male in Moon Crest 24 to avert this trope.
- Megatokyo: None of the boys in Largo's class object to his demand that everyone take their clothes off, though Largo himself is oblivious to the issue. Played more seriously later, when a vast legion of fanboys obsessively try to get photos of Kimiko's panties; some of them cease this behavior when she calls them out on it, but many of them just continue treating her like a sex idol. Her voice-acting role in an H-game sure doesn't help.
Web Original
- Played with in the Whateley Universe from time to time. The school has a number of transgendered students but only the standard male/female sanitary facilities and a policy that students are supposed to use whatever a person seeing them on the street would expect them to. Phase's ogling of the "real" girls in the showers is something of a running gag. Also, Nikki's glamour works on this principle.
- It's also a serious part of Hank's character. He was born a girl, but pretty much acts like this. Played with since everybody in Poe showers is looking, but some of them have more "evidence".
- The Starkid musical Me and My Dick begins with the main character personifying this trope.
- In the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, the National Enquirer once made an accusation about Ultra-Man, who has X-Ray Vision, using it to scope out "public peep shows" on every woman he passes on the street. Ultra-Man, who grew up in the 30s and 40s and has the manners to match his upbringing, almost leveled the building the tabloid's offices were in out of sheer outrage.
- The boys over at That Guy With The Glasses (except That Dude in the Suede). Played with in that All Women Are Lustful is in full force too, the majority of them are feminists, they like playing up the Ho Yay and Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy tends to be a trend.
- Tom from Echo Chamber dates Shannon solely because she is...ahem...talented.
- And let's not forget Zack.
Dana (to Tom): It's just an idea. You don't have to bend over backwards to accomodate me. |
- Things I need to tell my teenaged daughters about boys explicitly describes all teenage boys attempting to have sex with a young woman as little more than rapists who cannot comprehend the idea that women might actually enjoy sex. Ironically, the list itself makes little reference to the idea a young women might enjoy sex, except for the segments stating that she's probably not going to get it from men, and if she tries to teach him, it probably won't be very effective for very long. It frames all male sexual desire in terms more suitable for a dog in heat. The only way for a woman to get a man to stop trying to have sex with her is apparently to present the very idea as ludicrous. No, she can't simply tell him she's not interested, she has to actively mock the idea that she would ever possibly be. Ironically, the article seems to be written by a man.
However, in both cases, it is nearly unstoppable--and I say "nearly" because the only possibility of getting out clean lies in your ability to generate substantive and believable ridicule. You must be totally disappointed in him. Presuming you're not dating a rapist ... letting your male friend know the prospect of sex with him is a major yawn is probably the best deterrent. |
Western Animation
- Tex Avery created the Ur-Example with the wolf in Red Hot Riding Hood—Red ended up as regular character in his cartoons who had this effect on all men. Jessica Rabbit and Hello Nurse are largely homages to Avery's Red.
- Not just Avery—most any cartoon male, esp. in the forties and fifties, respond that way to women, often to his own detriment. A frequent gag involves whistling upon seeing an attractive (often scantily-clad) girl, be she real or just a picture.
- South Park: Mostly from adults, but sometimes the children do questionable things too.
- Season 14 episode "Sexual Healing" has this as it's basic plot, with nearly every man in the world pretending this is not the case and that the rich, successful men who go out and have sex with as many women as possible are suffering from a disease.
It was an alien! Who was also a wizard! He was casting a spell! *eyes dart around at the nearby female companion* |
- Kenny is all over this trope.
- A rather mild version of this appears in some Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures shorts; the male cartoon characters can't control themselves around Hello, Nurse! or Minerva Mink. (Amusingly, the female characters also have a tendency to lose control of themselves around good-looking guys.)
- American Dad has an episode where a burglar breaks into the house and ties up Stan and Francine. After Hayley unties them, Francine reveals that she assumed that the man was going to rape her, and is apparently angry at the suggestion that he wouldn't. She later confronts the burglar with the angrily delivered line "And you! You missed out, buddy."
- Pretty much every male in Drawn Together is sex-obsessed. Of course, the female characters aren't much better.
- In sheer number of sexual partners, Foxxy beats everyone until she makes a bet with Toot, who finds a way to have sex with millions of men (against their will).
- Referenced in King of the Hill episode "Aisle 8A", where Connie gets her first period and spends much of it being angry at Bobby. At the end of the episode, he comes by and asks if it's a good time. She says her mother told her not to be alone with Bobby anymore because men only want one thing. Bobby asks if she knows what that thing is, because he's just plain confused.