Belligerent Sexual Tension/Headscratchers

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Headscratchers about Belligerent Sexual Tension include:

  • Most fanfics around this trope mostly just revolve around getting there, but this troper just can't imagine how great the relationship would work out.
    • Belligerent Sexual Tension is clearly working better in media, especially comedy. Some of Belligerent Sexual Tensions are there in the media to provide comedy effects and nothing else as it's the easiest way to get into a full blown Slapstick genre while keeping romantic factor at its best, by showing that they can be cute lovers like any other when they don't fight each other and do something together that can be considered cute. Other Belligerent Sexual Tensions are there to provide pre-developing chracters that are seen as rough, angry, and stupid before they realize that a real romance is something deeper than beating up each other day in and out, at least these are what this troper believes. I'm not sure about Fanfic, though, since anybody at any age can write it. Who knows if there's really someone who is turned on from getting insulted or getting punched across a yard.
    • While studying Oedipus Complex, one may apply it and think that boys are easily interested in someone who act like their moms than those who don't: buggy, hassy, easily annoyed over things, whatever. This is applied to both in-media characters and audiences. Of course, if this is the case, Hot-Blooded and Jerkass characters will not hesitate in countering the girls' rages, because, well, they're not their moms.
  • part of this no doubt comes from early puberty actions where (at least back in the day) they start to have feelings that they are not used to, so they don't know how to express them, this leads to the tugging of pigtails or straight up teasing to avoid the implication of feelings when friends might still fear cooties
    • This Troper believes that tropes in this site are generally made of something that are being used commonly in media. Whatever you say about fighting couple is the matter of author's favor and people's taste, especially on shipping, really. Fighting man and woman DOES NOT have to love each other in canon. But since there're so many Belligerent Sexual Tension cases in the media and Fanon, people considers it cliche and misunderstands that arguing people will have higher chance to get together, let alone those who loves this trope.
      • Yeah, I meant more in the direction of "if they hate each other, that means they MUST secretly love each other!" Which is rarely the case.
  • Am I the only one annoyed when someone use an argument like "The opposite of love is not hate but indifference" as a method to support a "BST" pairing that otherwise just looks like "Girl, insults, taunts and beats the shit out of Guy repeatedly" (usually with a huge heaping of "She's just secretly in love with him"?) Indifference isn't the opposite of anything. I'm basically indifferent to say, a random invented 25 year old named Francois Frenchlastname who lives in Toulouse, but I'm sure as hell he'd prefer me being indifferent to me rather than myself deciding I hate him, flying over to his house in France and beating him to death because I hate him.
    • Technically it is the opposite though. Both hate and love are emotions or "feelings." Now apathy is the state of not being emotionally moved by or "feeling" anything. Apathy is technically the opposite of all emotions. As for the first part while some people do get carried away it does seem to happen in real life occasionally. Now as for the violent girl part...there's always Kuudere I guess.
      • By that logic, the opposite of a positive/negative charge is the lack of charge, not a negative/positive charge. Since "they're both charges".
        • You're misunderstanding my terminology. On the scale of feeling a certain way towards a person you have two extremes, utter apathy or indifference and obsession. You could be obsessed with hating a person or so madly in love you can't think straight when you're around them. The opposite of this would be not feeling anything when around them. As for your analogy technically there are two things that could be the right answer. If we're talking about positive/negative charges than they're still opposites because they're types of charges that oppose one another. But if we're just talking about having a charge then no charge is the opposite because...well the opposite of something existing is it not existing.
      • Apathty/Indifference is only a scale of interest. Not what the interest revolves around.
  • Why do people do this. Seriously. It's either this or unresolved. Try being honest about your feelings, just once....nah *In a real male sounding voice*
    • Something called "shyness" wants to introduce itself to you. As you can see, some people around this tropes are extremely shy when it comes to romance and lovey-dovey emotions. They are only good at barking, biting and not good at showing any romance at all. When the couple seems to be at their peace states, something will eventually trigger their Auto Furious mode, and the cycle of love-hate won't end. Cultural values helps too, like women have a feeling that men must the ones who confess them love, and men have their prides and will not simply confess their loves to girls because they think they'll become their friends' teasing toys or they'll lose their faces in a case of being rejected.
      • This troper can attest to this. Seriously, it's one of those, "Can't stand 'em, can't live without 'em" things going on here, most of the time. Some of you guys seem to be taking this too ridiculously seriously- in the case of Zutara, as mentioned above, that is not this. Like, at all. Because there were no feelings of love there. Whereas with this, there is love, just one of the pair puts their foot in their mouth a lot, or the other doesn't know how to deal with their feelings... You get the picture. Often when this is resolved, they either stop hitting each other/ whatever, or when they are belligerent, they know not to take it at face value.
  • This trope confuses me to no end. Unless you're a masochist, why would you even want to be around someone who treats you like dirt, let alone in a relationship with that person? I don't care how hot you think they are or how in love you are with them. It's not worth the abuse. To me, being with someone who treats you like crap is saying you're desperate, whether you're a man or woman. If that person can and will change, then maybe, but if they're always going to be an abusive jerk, go find someone else.
    • Either from a part of Author Appeal or that most protagonists of this tropes have different interests and fetishes from people in real life. Real life's value is only an extra element in fictions. Some authors don't even bother with it.
  • What's so appealing about this trope? Most people would stay far, far away from anyone who treats them this way.
    • Belligerent Sexual Tension is one of the easiest ways to create a comedy genre while still maintaining a romance genre. Being "treated like dirt" in media is mostly used for a comedic purpose. In real life, nobody wants to be treated badly. However, it's another story in fictions. Some people tend to have different mindset when they're reading or watching media i.e. they don't mind seeing people get hurt or treated badly because 1) they're not real, and 2) they satisfy audiences' needs, like making them laugh. For some people, the highlight of this trope doesn't come from seeing couples arguing, but it's from how the couples are surprisingly well put in a relation during their dere moments or during the time they work together as a team. Other than that, it's most likely a case of personal interest.
  • It somewhat bugs me to see this constantly being used as a reason to ship two people that fight a lot, hate each other(or at least one-sided hate) when there's, arguably, no "sexual tension" at all, no moments where they're shown to actually like each other. Just dislike. People can ship what they want (since I don't ship, I don't feel like I have too much of a say here) but it's annoying to see hate automatically, always, being seen as "they're just hiding their feelings for each other!" when it's clear that no "hidden feelings" are involved, and if two (somewhat attractive) characters fight/argue a lot, they will be shipped, and usually quite a popular couple too. (I also have a bit of a problem with this for personal reasons that I don't care to explain right now) Isn't there such a thing as actual hate anymore?