Would you rather have perfectly good sex with a reliable, emotionally stable woman you can bring around your friends, or have a kinked-up fuck with a hot nut job you’d never take home to mother? Choose carefully men, because there is no third option.
At least, the sort of people who hold fast to the belief that crazy women are better in bed don’t seem to allow for one. In this worldview, women are saints or whores, nice girls or femme fatales. There are girls you fuck and girls you marry. The ones you marry can fuck okay. They just aren’t going to blow your mind the way a batshit lady would.
But what’s behind this idea that crazy equals hot fuck? And more importantly for the fates and fun of men everywhere, is it actually true?
It’s hard to figure out where the idea that a crazy woman is a hot lay came from. But everyone has heard it, and you can find the idea repeated by men to other men over and over again in culture, digital or otherwise. The examples all point to a couple of assumptions about crazy women and their sexual prowess, such as:
She Has Daddy Issues
Why are crazy women hot fucks? They were not loved enough (or at all) by their fathers, of course. And they are so desperate to get that love from you, or any man, that they will do anything to please you and get your approval. Their best currency is hot, unforgettable fucking.
In 2004, in one of Donald Trump’s many appearances on The Howard Stern Show, Trump and Stern put their heads together to come up with this insightful observation about Lindsay Lohan, who was then just 18. Trump declared that Lohan was not only attractive, but also likely to be great in bed, because her “father’s a wreck.” Here’s part of that conversation, per CNN:
“Can you imagine the sex with this troubled teen?” said Stern.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Trump said. “She’s probably deeply troubled and therefore great in bed. How come the deeply troubled women, you know, deeply, deeply troubled, they’re always the best in bed?”
Stern offers his armchair take:
Because they’re looking for love, they’re looking for positive affirmation, they’re looking for a father figure who will love them and tell them they’re wonderful and they’ll never be enough. No matter how many times you tell them they’re beautiful, no matter how many times you tell them you love them they want to suck it up more. They would drain you like a vampire until your head caved in if they could get more love.
When Lohan’s rep was reached for comment, she responded that at this non-batshit time in her life, she was focused on “helping children around the world in need.” In other words, her best defense was to invoke her sweeter, more nurturing side, as if to say, “I’m not a crazy whore, really! I love children.” Whew.
Fun fact: there is no such equivalent theory about men who are good at fucking having bad relationships with their mothers. Men like to fuck because fucking is good, and fucking feels good. They try new things because they like sex and sex feels good. No damage necessary.
‘Crazy’ Women Will Literally Try Anything
Want to hook your nipples up to an electric generator? Get a crazy lady on the job. Want to try a threesome? Get yourself a mentally unstable nut. Want round-the-clock handjobs from a woman dressed in a leather catsuit? Walk right over to the local mental health clinic and ask for the craziest cuckoo clock in the room.
Bro Bible, for instance, lists as a perk of “dating an absolute nut” that “sex is always better with a chick that’s out of her mind” because she has no real sense of inhibition like a normal woman would. They write:
There has to be some reason guys put up with the death threats and constant fits of rage and that reason is the outstanding, mind blowing, spectacular sex. While normal girls are sexually restricted by things like, morality, sanity and a sense of right and wrong, crazy chicks have no such restrictions. Having sex with a crazy girl is like being in the Royal Rumble. The only exception being that all 29 competitors are all ganging up on you in a pleasure-filled ass kicking. Her speed is amazing, her stamina is never ending, and her dedication to please you is unlimited.
A commenter on a Reddit forum explains that crazy women are indeed uninhibited. “They are not nervous about their body or having an orgasm or what their religious upbringing taught them or appearing to be a slut or anything that takes them out of ‘We’re naked, we’re attracted to each other, let’s fuck,’” one commenter notes. “They simply go in the moment and have fun fucking.”
‘Crazy’ Women Have Higher Sex Drives
It goes without saying that in order to want to do all this crazy good sex, you have to really like sex and want to have a lot of it. That isn’t the case for “normal” women, who presumably have a lower sex drive and simply don’t need to fuck the way men do. Therefore, any woman who actually likes fucking a lot (read: like a man) must be different in some way, seeing as how she didn’t get the message that proper women don’t really need a lot of sex, and certainly don’t need it with a lot of variety and eroticism. She also didn’t get the message that being a slut is bad.
Sexual psychologist Nicole Prause tells Elite Daily that people with higher sex drives “tend to engage in a wider range of sexual behaviors, such as oral sex, anal sex and same-sex behaviors.” And since certain personality disorders are sometimes associated with hypersexuality (borderline personality disorder, bipolar, or mania), that’s another possible reason why crazy likes to fuck.
“Men’s sexual preferences are probably better matched to these women,” Prause says.
Nevermind that personality disorders don’t always go hand in hand with sexual impulsivity, and sometimes actually lead to avoiding sex, or the fact that increasing amounts of research have proven that women don’t, on the whole, have a lower sex drive, but rather suffer from severe cultural repression.
‘Normal’ Women Like Sex But ‘Crazy’ Women Need It
A Reddit forum reinforces this critical distinction between the so-called normal woman’s appetite for sex versus the crazy woman’s. “Sane girls just like to have sex,” one commenter notes. “Crazy girls, or at least this crazy girl and seemingly every crazy girl my friends have ever dated, need to fuck you like they need air and water.”
What’s important to parse in all this is not just the aspects of this stereotype that are rooted in deep, retrograde stereotypes about women, but also stereotypes about mental illness. As Refinery 29 notes, “crazy” in this stereotype is “employed to cover everything from ‘tantrum-inclined neurotic’ to ‘hot bipolar.’”
At its deepest core, though, this is a stereotype that fundamentally takes issue with a woman who likes to fuck and has a robust sexual appetite. This is probably the biggest tell that the entire presumption is actually driven by male insecurity. A man who thinks a crazy woman is better at sex has a convenient narrative for not settling down with that woman.
Think about it: to be that great at sex, you’d have to have had a lot of sex. Men don’t put a premium on a woman with a high notch count on the bedpost. So while it’s fun to reap the benefits of all that slutting around for a few nights or a few months, it’s not like you’d ever feel comfortable actually being with a promiscuous woman. Because then you’d have to wonder how many men she had been with, and inevitably, how you stack up to them.
By contrast, a nice girl who takes time to warm up and give herself to a man sexually — and who can be taught to enjoy sex under his guidance — is a way better bet for both the man’s insecurity and his sense of dominance. This is why in one Reddit forum, a man explains precisely why this is a better candidate:
A crazy girl will let it all hang out from the start physically, but not get emotionally attached as easily. Once they do, fucking watch out! you now have crazy in bed and crazy out of the bedroom…. a very scary place to be mentally, but fun physically.
A stable girl will be a bit more reserved from the start physically, but will feel out with her emotions more easily from the start. Once these emotions are confirmed and secured, you will see her become more relaxed and open in the bedroom. You now have stablility emotionally and relaxed fun physically in the bedroom. This is ideal!
While a crazy girl may be more fun initially, they are inevitably way more trouble than they are worth in a relationship in my opinion. Having stuck my dick in crazy, I will never make the same mistake to get deeply involved with crazy ever again and would much rather take it slow with stable girls.
Dating coach David Wygant takes a similar stance, pitching to men that the goal here is “to attract more sane women and teach them how to be crazy/amazing in bed — because that’s the best combo, the sane woman who’s crazy/amazing in bed.”
This appeals specifically to the male ego with a titillating slam dunk. There’s a big difference between pairing up with a slut whose emotions you can’t control, and the pride of ownership in teaching a woman how to be your slut in the bedroom so you can have the best of both worlds, or what we all know as “lady in the streets; freak in the sheets.”
It’s ironic then that many women perform this ladylike behavior for men up front, when in fact they already have a sexual appetite. Relationship expert Tracey Cox explains to Daily Mail that a recurring thing she sees with her female clients is that they are totally into kinky sex, but they instantly tone this down with men so that the men don’t think they’re sluts.
“Women often suppress their adventurous side when they meet someone they really like for fear it will stop them being seen as ‘wife material,’” she writes. Maybe then, the woman you think you turned into your slut was a slut all along.
Still, men will likely continue to parrot this adage about women, including its major side effect, as told by the adjacent meme-warning to “not put your dick in crazy.” You will regret it. “The hottest, craziest ones in bed were out of their minds in life, and that’s their hook,” Wygant explains. “If you’re dating a crazy woman and she’s really great in bed, realize eventually that the sex is going to wear off and what’s going to be left is literally a woman you’ll have to medicate and take care of.”
But when Refinery29 asked a gynecologist specializing in psychosexual behavior what to make of this old adage, Leila Frodsham explained that “generalizing is for fools.” Frodsham continued:
There’s no scientific foundation to any of these convictions. You might say some desperately insecure people — people who suffer from mental illness, perhaps, but not just them — might see sex as a way to ‘prove’ or validate themselves to the other person. But it really varies case by case. And it’s important to never, ever make oversimplified assumptions on matters like this, nor take advantage of the situation.
I can think of another group of people, if we’re generalizing foolishly, who are desperately insecure, who see sex as way to prove or validate themselves. Who use sex in place of actual intimacy. Who have no trouble being dishonest and manipulative to get it, and who only care about their own pleasure over the more important values of sane, stable, committed relationships. Who are too damaged to actually connect with people and instead just go around fucking. We don’t call them mentally ill though. We usually just call them men.
Tracy Moore
Tracy Moore is a staff writer at MEL. She covers all the soft sciences like psychology, sex, relationships and parenting, but since this is a men’s magazine, occasionally the hard ones. Formerly at Jezebel.
