Testosterone Brigade

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The Spear Counterpart to the Estrogen Brigade, the Testosterone Brigade is an enclave of male fans within a traditionally female-dominated (or at least gender-neutral) Fandom. While they dislike the Female Gaze or the Mr. Fanservice, it's very likely that they were pulled into the series in the first place because of a (preferably attractive and sexy) female character. Depending on the series, they may view it as a Guilty Pleasure due to the amount of female fans. Occasionally, as with an Estrogen Brigade, both sides will butt heads over largely superficial reasons, with buckets of opposite-sex awkwardness, which can get defensive. It should also be noted that not all male fans within such a fandom are necessarily of the Testosterone Brigade.

A Testosterone Brigade is easily attracted by hints of Les Yay or by Fan Service from main characters. See also Multiple Demographic Appeal. When the producers or creators notice this demographic and make a "girly" show that's actually aimed at men, it's What Do You Mean It's Not for Little Girls?.

Examples of Testosterone Brigade include:


Anime and Manga

Live Action TV

  • The L Word, as was inevitable for a show about a bunch of very good-looking lesbians. It pandered generously to straight males through extensive sex scenes, making one of the girls bisexual (which ensured at least some scenes would include a straight guy), featuring mainly straight guys in the supporting cast and reducing gay guys to extras. Ilene Chaiken publicly claimed that the show would never have been made if it hadn't pandered to the Testosterone Brigade—and unfortunately, she's probably right.
  • Sex and the City. It's a show about four sexy older women who like to have sex and talk about it—and this being HBO, they don't cut away from the nudity.[1] While its male fanbase is often stereotyped as being composed primarily of Camp Gay men who watch it for the fashion, during its prime it also had a very large contingent of straight male fans, as it featured a ton of female skin and enough of the male perspective (at times) to occupy straight men's interest.
  • The same could be said of True Blood and other female-targeted HBO shows, for much the same reason.
  • Desperate Housewives. Its description on this wiki even describes it as "not a porn mag, but a US TV drama." At the height of its popularity, ABC even ran an ad with a guy admitting he watched it... and (unconvincingly) claiming that it was for the story. Riiiiiight.

Music

  • This has been the rule for most female pop/R&B idol singers and girl groups within the last 30 years. The girls come for the music, the boys come for the ladies singing it. Oftentimes, female musicians go for Hotter and Sexier images (or have it pushed onto them) specifically to invoke this.
  • Kate Bush has a very large Testosterone Brigade among her fanbase.
  • Female-fronted symphonic metal bands such as Nightwish, Epica and After Forever. While metal music as a whole already has a very large male following (and an Estrogen Brigade), a good number of these bands' fans are listening and going to concerts for a bit more than just the music.

Professional Wrestling

  • Female wrestlers in general get this, often to their detriment. In many cases, pro wrestling companies, recognizing this appeal, have dropped all pretense of their women's divisions being about athletic competition in order to use them to supply as much cheesecake as possible.

Sports

  • Race car driver Danica Patrick, who has parlayed her Testosterone Brigade into both a NASCAR career and modeling work. She's a damn good racer, but most people seem to best know her for her GoDaddy ads.
  • The strange case of high school pole vaulter Alison Stokke.
  • Female sports, period. Men really like well-worked out women playing sports. The biggest male fandoms are for basketball and volleyball (as both feature Statuesque Stunners and the former has a hefty amount of sexy Amazons), with a third being softball (for the cuteness factor). The players themselves react varyingly: some love and embrace the attention (which is particularly noticeable by all the Instagram profiles these girls run often racking in hundreds of thousands of followers) while others would like the fans to keep it about the sport.

Western Animation

  1. Out of the four main cast, Sarah Jessica Parker was the only one who had a no-nudity clause and didn't have to bare her naughty bits for the show -- and perhaps not coincidentally, she's also the one whose appearance is most frequently criticized by men.