Last month, the musician Meredith Johnson, who performs under the name Warm Human, tweeted a photo of Luke from Gilmore Girls captioned, “if a man knows who this is, he is a SLUT.”
The quote-tweets on Johnson’s assessment were split between confused self-declared male sluts who had no idea who the guy wearing flannel and a backwards baseball cap was, and others who had to come to terms with their sluttiness, and tipped their hat to the man behind the greatest dining establishment in Stars Hollow.
Of course, variations of the meme are rampant on Twitter, as there are countless things that qualify a man a “slut” now — from owning a tote bag to wearing a beanie. But that doesn’t make this particular finding any less true. Gilmore Girls is the ultimate show to watch in bed with a romantic partner. I know guys who have lost their virginities watching it, or who have binge-watched it in a new relationship despite already having watched all seven seasons with a previous girlfriend.
There’s a particular reason, though, why Gilmore Girls is among the top TV shows for slutty men, and that’s because it has so many great male slut characters — even if most of them happen to be sensitive sluts with big hearts who ultimately mean well. Rory’s main boyfriends — Jess, Dean and Logan — struggle with commitment, but they genuinely care about her, they’re just bad at expressing their emotions in a healthy way. For IRL male sluts, it has to feel good to watch slutty role models you can relate to, especially ones that can find redemption for their mistakes.
The same can be said about shows like New Girl and The O.C. They’re rampant with lovable male sluts, who just happen to be a little bit puzzled when it comes to navigating women. Seth Cohen from The O.C. is, perhaps, the biggest offender. After all, he two-timed his first two girlfriends, Summer and Anna. But although his self-inflicted love triangle led to disastrous results at first, he gets his vindication and the honor of being a Good Boyfriend in the end.
The guys from New Girl traveled a similar path. Nick listened to the needs of the women in his life and mostly learned from the times he didn’t, resulting in a long-lasting relationship with Jess. Schmidt got laid often, largely because of his willingness to go above and beyond to be considered an excellent sexual partner. And Winston got his fair share of women as well, despite his approach being more from a place of desperation.
For the men watching at home, all of them proved you could embrace your sluttiness while renting a ridiculously large apartment and never facing any consequences for your actions that lasted longer than a 25-minute television episode.
So yes, we see you male sluts who love these shows. We see the sluts you aspire to be, the ones you laughed at, cried with and most likely learned some pointers from. And for those who are big fans of Luke Danes, the perpetually disgruntled diner owner who hates cell phones almost as much as he does Wi-Fi passwords, we see you daddy sluts, too.
Tatiana Tenreyro
Tatiana Tenreyro is a contributing writer at MEL and has written for the A.V. Club and SPIN, living the dream of every plaid-shirted boy she had a crush on in high school.
