Why We Root for Villains in the Kink Scene

I watched the whole of Ripley, primarily so I could see Andrew Scott walk from place to place making various facial expressions. We all deserve our pleasures in life. I watched the bad guy for eight hours. I rooted for him just as I’ve rooted for every bad guy who was the main character in a movie. I’m more familiar with him than I am with his victims. I know all his best character traits and have shared moments of vulnerability with him. I’ve grown an attachment, and no number of serial killings is going to get in the way of that.

In October 1992, Sinead O’Connor ripped up a photograph of the pope on Saturday Night Live. Two weeks after protesting the protection of child abusers in the Catholic Church, she was booed off stage for daring to call out a villain the world was still rooting for. If you’ve ever called out an abuser in the kink scene, this predilection will be familiar to you. No matter how harrowing your story, the kink scene will keep rooting for the villain.

They’ll tell you you’re lying.
They’ll tell you your assault wasn’t “That Bad.”
They’ll even tell you that you need to exercise personal responsibility. Nobody says, “you were asking for it” anymore, but they’ll certainly use less inflammatory synonyms.

They’ll tell you the predator once did them a great kindness. They’ll tell you he’s earned their trust over a period of years. They’ll tell you he once saw them through a distressing time as though no predator ever showed kindness.

The vast majority of assaults are perpetrated by someone who’s known to the victim. They, too, trusted the villain. They, too, saw kindness in him. They, too, had given their trust, so you’re not alone in thinking highly of the man. The only difference between them and you is that you’ve been groomed to become a flying monkey and they’ve been groomed to become a victim. The villain spends a lifetime sorting people into protectors and targets, and they become exceptionally good at it.

If you’re rooting for the villain, the odds are fair that you're a flying monkey. Best hope that’s the case because being the target is substantially more traumatising.

The world feels a lot safer when you bundle everything into two different camps: Good and evil. It’s scary to think you can’t detect a predator from 50 strides, so we tell ourselves that those who seem kind are kind. We insist that earned trust is every bit as salient as that rape kit you did on the night of your assault.

Some say that we root for villains because they act on impulses we wouldn’t dare entertain. Some say it’s because women are attracted to evil. I think we’re more interested in predators’ redeeming qualities. I don’t have any letters after my name, so take this from whence it comes, but I think we just struggle to understand that evil people can exhibit good traits. Hell, some evil people even have good traits. They rescue animals. They build supportive friendships. They earn trust. They even try to change sometimes.

As for the victim… who are they actually? We’ve never heard of them. They don’t have any flying monkeys. They haven’t spent a lifetime grooming trusty protectors to help them during their next rape accusation. Clearly they’re lying.