You heard it before: men with dark triad traits get laid more. 

And, partly, it’s true.
We already have seen it here before:

• Casanova & Machiavellianism: Casanova was high in both narcissism, Machiavellianism, and power
• Seducers & Narcissism: many archetypes of seducers have at least a touch of narcissism

And of course, the main article:

• Psychopaths’ sexual strategies: a mind-blowing read

But why are psychopaths more sexually successful?
And is true for all psychopaths?
Is there also something that holds psychopaths back?

This post will answer these questions.

The Attractive Traits of Psychopaths

Here are the traits that make psychopaths sexually succesful:

1. They seek more partners: the single and most underappreciated advantage. It’s not so much that psychopaths are more attractive or better with women but, as several studies show, they simply want and seek more partners than the average guy
2. They go for it: psychopaths also take more chances. While most men are worried about what the woman might think, or what people might think, psychopaths tend to go for what they want
3. Risk-taking: risk-taking means lots of losses, but also lots of wins
4. Confidence approaches: psychopaths tend to approach women with less fear, which makes them seem more confident
5. Gib and charm (at least superficially): not all psychopaths, but many dark triad men have learned to come across as smart and polished 
6. Good game: some dark triad individuals are better at some types of courtship techniques and strategies, including:
   • Power dynamics mastery: psychopaths and dark triad men are more aware of general power dynamics and dating power dynamics, so they come across as more dominant, and more leader-like
   • Love bombing: Initial overload of whirlwind romance, followed by emotional unavailability that leaves the victim desperate and needs
   • Triangulation: psychopaths are notorious for playing triangulation games, which makes them come across as pre-selected, and makes her invest more through jealousy
7. Power and dominance over women: psychopaths crave power, and we know that women like more powerful and dominant men. Later on, they will realize it’s toxic dominance, but it might be too late

Let’s examine a few of these:

#1. Fearlessness & Risk-Taking

A bold entrance can make the difference between a boring seduction, and a whirlwind romance that sweeps women off their feet.

Here is an example of a famous psychopath in movie history: Joe Pesci.

The psychopathic trait that worked for Joe Pesci here is fearlessness.

See it for yourself:

He meets her, greets her, walks her to his car, and pushes her head down for a blow job

You bet that risky approach will backfire a lot of times and lend you into some troubles over a lifetime.
But psychopaths are driven by present rewards while being undeterred by risks and possible future troubles. That risk-seeking approach does help them increase their notch-count.

#2. The “Edgy” Appeal: When Risk Intersects With Excitement

The “edgy” and dangerous side of psychopaths appeals to women.

Especially to a certain subset of women high on extraversion and, themselves, high in excitement-seeking (Brown, 2009).
At the extreme of these women are the serial-killers groupies (but they’re a minority).

The vacuously-intense stare of the psychopaths, for example, can stoke fear and excitement, which heightens and/or is confused with “butterflies love” and sexual excitement.
Adelyn Birch, author of “30 Covert Manipulation Tactics” says that the psychopath stare is scary and unattractive from a stranger, but it makes women weak at the knees when the two are already close and gazing at each other in an intimate setting.

The “bad man” appeals to a certain subset of women, including some women with emotional issues who are sometimes referred to as “Women Who Love Too Much” (Norwood, 1985).
Here’s one of Norwood’s interviews with a criminal as she analyzes the psychology of toxic relationships:

When you’ve done time you learn that there are some women who’ll think you’re a creep and have nothing to do with you.
But there are others (women) who get turned on by the whole idea. It fascinates them. They see you as big and bad and they get real seductive, trying to tame you. Or they think you’ve been hurt and they feel sorry for you and want to help you.

So you get two types of women when you go criminal:

• Those who like bad boys
• Those who like broken men and want to “fix” you

#3. The Power and Dominance Advantage

In many ways:

Psychopaths win because they’re not “too nice guys“, as evolutionary psychologist David Buss notes (Buss, 2021).

Indeed, probably the most important trait that makes psychopaths effective in seduction is the power, dominance, and confidence they can convey.

Many psychopaths are high power, they want power and control… And women like powerful men.

Psychopaths are attractive because men who approach women from a position of power, dominance, confidence and leadership are all attractive, and it can sometimes become secondary whether it comes from a position of positive leadership or from a destructive one.

Indeed, women are also initially attracted to non-psychopathic power-hungry men for the same reason they attracted psychopaths. And, as well, they are also attracted to otherwise moral and ethical leaders: these men all show power and dominance over them.

We saw that with Obama, where his power-position as the president allowed him to make this woman go all giggly just with his presence:

The man who behaved more psychopath-like was Mike, the girl’s boyfriend.
But Obama could have easily taken his girlfriend as an empath, because of the power, position and authority he had.

#4. Machiavellianism and The Willingness to Play Games

Machiavellians and sociopaths see life as a big chessboard.

That helped them learn dark psychology strategies and techniques to help them persuade and manipulate others.

Most normal guys don’t learn persuasion that well, and they are wary to play any games that might hurt people.
Not psychopaths. 
They are well versed in maneuvering others.

#5. No Conscience Might Mean Ruthless “Efficiency”

This is the dark side of psychopathy and seduction.

On top of being good at maneuvering others, psychopaths have no qualms in harming others.

That, of course, offers an “advantage” over men who do not want to harm women or, as the old pick mantra went, over men who to “leave women better than they found them” (Strauss, 2005).

As an old headhunter might say: it’s always easier to bring home the reward if it’s “dead or alive” instead of “alive only”.

How Aboit Violence? Extreme Traits Work Better in Times of Turmoil

Women are highly social creatures, and their attraction cues are far more plastic than men.

So what makes a man attractive is also context-dependent.

Women are highly attuned to what is most likely to provide men with status, success, power, and resources.

In times of violent turmoil, psychopaths probably fare a bit better because they might be perceived as “more adapt to the environment”, and less likely to end up being a loser.

And in times of stable and opulent societies, “nicer” men fare comparatively better and the psychopath high-risk, high-impulsivity approach is more likely to backfire and lead nowhere.
And that makes them less attractive to women in general (exceptions always apply, of course).

In today’s societies, violence and extreme traits fare comparatively worse:

The Psychopaths’ Disadvantages

Psychopathy can provide some mating advantages, as we saw.

But it also comes with some heavy ballast that keeps the psychopath from enjoying the runaway success that the top-tier men enjoy.

And while most people do understand the psychopath’s advantages, few people understand the drawbacks of psychopathy.

Sampling bias we will see later is one of the reasons why some people misunderstand the topic of psychopathy and mating success.
And the second reason stems from a misunderstanding of evolutionary psychology.
Let’s see:

#1. Psychopaths Struggle to Acquire Resources

We talked about this more than once:

Women prefer men with status and resources.

And albeit Machiavellian men are good at gaining status and resources (Buffalmano, 2020), pure psychopaths are bad at acquiring social status and resources.
Some exceptions can be made, and some more violent psychopaths can acquire status in the underworld, but that’s not a prerogative of psychopaths.
On average, men very high in psychopathy, especially the criminal and violent psychopaths, tend to populate the bottom rung of society (or of prison).

That can work against them in acquiring mates.

Also see:

• The traits that make up your sexual market value

#2. Psychopaths Seldom Maximize Looks

We’ve seen it already:

Psychopaths chase quick rewards.

That’s why they often sleep with more women than the average guy: they need that new stimulation.

Aware, they often chase all types of quick rewards, including the high and buzz of alcohol, drugs, and sometimes even food.
Chasing rewards today comes at a cost for tomorrow.

Some psychopaths are drug addicts, alcoholics, or even food addicts.

James Fallon is a neuroscientist who became famous when he found he was a psychopath, and wrote a book about it.
Fallon says he loved seducing women for the power it gave him. But look at James Fallon:

A good caption would be “can I eat that microphone”?

My point is: Psychopaths obey the laws of the sexual market place just like anyone else.
And if they don’t have many attractive qualities, they will struggle to get laid just like anyone else (especially with high SMV women).

Note: it’s different for dark-triad men
The above is truer for pure and low-functioning psychopaths.
But it’s not true for men with some psychopathy traits and who are also high in narcissism. Those guys do care about their looks.

Also see this article on male archetypes of seducers:

10 Types of Male Seducers: Pick Your Niche!

#3. Psychopaths Struggle With High-Quality Women Who Seek “Total Packages”

It’s true:

When you meet a woman who is treated poorly but she is in love with him, she is often in a relationship with a man high in psychopathy.

Some of those psychopaths get drunk, sleep around, treat her like crap… And women still clean after them.
However, as you can imagine, women who stick with poorly behaving psychopaths and bankroll their debauchery are rarely the highest-quality women around.
Usually, they are lower SMV women, or women with low self-esteem and/or who come from abusive families.

It’s simple math: women with high sexual market value can get high-quality and hence often demand high-quality men (David Buss, 2018).

Studies also show that dark triad men, especially psychopaths, have lower standards when selecting mates (Jonason et al., 2011).
Even their strategies are often targeted at women with fewer options. 
Love bombing is about chasing hard, and showering with attention. And that usually works best with women who have fewer options.

Psychopathy expert Sandra Brown never say so, but if you read her book “Women Who Love Psychopaths“, you will quickly realize that in her sample size there are no women who would normally have lots of dating options.

And if psychopaths are not great at dating high-quality women, they are even worse at keeping high-quality women -or simply just healthy women, for that matter-.

Clearing the “Psychopaths’ Myths”

Let’s now review some manosphere myths about psychopaths and their success with women.

#1. Psychopaths Don’t Better Defend Women

Says Rollo Tomassi, a popular red pill author:

“(dark triad triad) were survival traits in the past.
Those were the guys who got things done. Those were the guys who took care of their own. Those were the guys who were volatile enough to be fun in bed. Those were the guys who had the capacity to kill off a rival, to defend the woman with his life.

This is a common mistake on top of “psychopathy is sexual success”.

On one side, it’s true that a woman’s genetic inheritance might be better off mating with a powerful psychopath as compared to a weak, powerless “nice guy”.

However, that romanticized view of “strong men who can defend women” runs into trouble when taking into account the fact that psychopaths develop no emotional attachment.
And that often means that psychopaths do not defend their women. 
Psychopaths are selfish, do not love, and do not bonds with others. If anything, a factor-two psychopath or a “full-blown” psychopath in lay terms, might be more likely to harm their women, either directly, or through their reckless lifestyle.

#2. Psychopaths Don’t (Necessarily) Make For Great Leaders

The myths here are similar:

1. Psychopaths can be heroes
2. Psychopaths make for strong leaders (to serve their community)

The idea that psychopaths can be heroes is a common one, but that doesn’t make it correct (see Dutton, 2012).

It’s a popular, romanticized view of the “bad guy who’s actually good”.
You know, the guy everyone thinks he’s bad, but that he truly has a heart of gold and defends people with his life?

Yeah, that’s good for a Hollywood script, but it’s wrong 95 times out of 100.
I have addressed that fallacy in “do good and evil overlap” but, in short, here it is: psychopaths lack empathy and are extremely selfish. 
They get the small stuff done, but rarely do they accomplish the big things:  psychopaths can’t stick to things.
And especially the more violent-prone ones, they rarely manage to make others want to follow them.

It’s more like the opposite: psychopaths need a larger society to leach off to.
Psychopathy indeed is a frequency-dependent strategy (Mealey, 1995). That means that psychopaths depend on a larger society of collaborators, and cannot function effectively on their own.

#3. Serial Killers Are Not Attractive Across The Board

This is pure sampling bias.

People see a famous serial killer and a few women who want to fuck them, and from “some women are attracted to some psychopaths”, they generalize to the whole population with the wrong conclusion that “women are attracted to psychopaths”.

Rollo Tomassi, author of the popular manosphere book “The Rational Male“, falls for this bias in this interview:

(..) every time a new violent criminal like Nikolas Cruz the guy who shot up the school in Florida, or Chris Watts the guy who killed his pregnant wife and their two daughters (…) as soon as they get convicted almost immediately they get female fan clubs.

And so does Ogi Ogas in his otherwise wonderful “A Billion Wicked Thoughts“:

It turns out that killing people is an effective way to elicit the attention of many women: virtually every serial killer, including Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and David Berkowitz, have received love letters from large numbers of female fans.

It’s somewhat true: a subset of women are attracted to serial killers.
Many hypotheses have been advanced, including the excitement that turns sexual with the fear (Saltzer, 2011), the (mistaken) belief that the serial killer makes them safer, or the attraction for the “alpha male traits” that the killer supposedly embodies.

Probably all of them -and more- contribute, also depending on the individual groupie.

However, most people forget that many serial killers garner groupies through simple fame.
Fame leverages the simple, and super-effective, law of large numbers.
The famous serial killers who get enough airtime end up in front of many women’s radars. And albeit it’s very few of them who are into the killer type, the law of large numbers dictates that some will be attracted.

To make a comparison, Philippe Petit who rope-walked across the Twin Towers also got a fan club of women.
As a matter of fact, as soon as he ended his stunt and the media frenzied around him, he picked up an adoring admirer and went to her place to have sex.
But it’s not “rope-walking” that’s attractive per se.
It’s the dare-devil mixed with fame, and fame being the main ingredient.

As evidence that fame is the main ingredient, consider there is a fan club for almost any non-ugly, famous man.
As a matter of fact, even famous pedophiles have prison groupies (Jared Fogle, for example).

But if you’re “just” an unknown serial killer, you’re not gonna have any fan club.
A serial killer who meets women at the bar or in the street is going to face rejections just like any other guy.

When it comes to psychopathy, (serial) killers, and attraction, there is also a general poor understanding of the phenomenon and how it overlaps with seduction and sexual success.

Let’s clarify:

1. It’s psychosis more than psychopathy: as psychopathy researcher Kent Kiehl explains, mass murderers are committed by men suffering from psychosis, not psychopathy (Kiehl, 2014)
2. Few psychopaths are serial killers: most psychopaths aren’t serial killers. And not all psychopaths are serial killers
3. Only a minority of women go wild over serial killers: and only a fraction of the number of women who go crazy over your average pop singer talking about heartbreaks
4. Quality of women is low: women who chase serial killers are probably not the highest quality women around
5. Many women see -or dupe themselves to see- the “nice” side of violent men: says a woman who exchanged letters with Richard Ramirez “he was nice, told me to get an education and that I’m sweet and should sort my life out and not end up in prison lol. I really liked him. I told him I wanted to chop his wifes feet off and he was cool about it. he’s a nice guy :-)”

More Like “Crazy Attracts Crazy”

When it comes to quality of women who are attracted to psychopaths, see what these studies show:

• Women high in personality disorder were more attracted to psychopaths (Watts et al., 2018)
• People who self-rated themselves as antisocial were more likely to accept anti-sociality in others (Lamkin et al., 2017)
• People high in maladaptive traits didn’t find other maladaptive personalities attractive, they just found them less unattractive, and thus were more “open to settle” (Sleep, 2017)
• Cluster-B women were more attracted not just to psychopaths, but to all personality disorder features (Grande, 2019)
• Women in their 30s and 40s are more attracted to serial killers, which is not the women in their top sexual prime (Ramsland, 2012)

So what we get here is that:

1. Psychopathy and personality disorders are not attractive per se
2. People who find personality disorders more attractive or, more likely, more tolerated, also score higher in personality disorder

In more lay terms, this seems to be a case of “crazy attracting crazy”.

Picture of the woman who sought to marry 80-years-old Charles Manson. She cut herself to look more like Manson

#4. Psychopathy Is Not Attractive Per Se

Psychopathy is a mental disorder.

By itself, psychopathy is not attractive.
And, as a general rule, women are not attracted to psychopaths (Grande, 2019).

At least, not based on psychopathy alone.
But if the man affected by psychopathy is attractive, then that man can be attractive.

But it’s not necessarily because of psychopathy, that he is attractive.
As a better rule of thumb, women tend to be attracted to attractive psychopaths, not to any psychopath. And, of course, not all psychopaths are attractive.

Many psychopaths indeed have NO gib and charm, are ugly or completely socially retarded.
As a matter of fact, the more violent they are, the less likely it is they are socially intelligent and successful with people.
The smart ones tend to do less violent crimes and more white-collar crimes (see “Snakes in Suits“).

And, of course, there are also psychopaths who are total losers.
Dr. Hare, a leading expert on psychopathy, explains that some psychopaths go on a killing spree because they had no success with people and women whatsoever and feel rejected and “wronged” by society (ie.: the definition of a loser).

This is a bit like we’ve seen for the different roles of lover or provider that men take in seduction: the role does matter, but it’s quality matters more than the role (see: lovers VS providers).
In this case, it’s more about individual psychopath and his level of game, skills, and attractiveness, than psychopathy as a disorder.
Psychopaths who don’t know what they’re doing are rapists and only get laid through hookers.
So, even here, quality makes a bigger difference than “psychopath” or “non-psychopath”.

5. Psychopaths Don’t Always Have “Game” (& Rarely Have Truly Advanced Game)

Game is advanced social skills.

And anything advanced takes time and commitment.
And as we’ve seen, psychopaths don’t exactly stick and endure short-term pain for long-term success.

Instead, psychopath’s game is more about hard-charging.
Or about shortcuts.

For example, what would you think if you saw a man trying to pick up women pretending to be in need of help?
These days you might call him a beta male, or a simp.

But that’s exactly what the most famous psychopath, Ted Bundy, did.
Bundy, touted for his attractiveness to women, used pity plays to lure his victims and pretended to need help.

Plus, his girlfriend was an older woman with a child.
Not exactly a great seducer, was he?

6. Amorality and Aggression Are Not Attractive Per Se

Again, there is a speck of truth.

Some women can be perversely attracted to a total lack of ethics and morals.
And aggression can also be attractive, especially to some women.

But let’s not exaggerate and overgeneralize.
Here is a rule of thumb, instead:

Cold-heartedness and aggression would backfire when first meeting a woman far more often than it would succeed. 

Says Geoffrey Miller in “The Mating Mind“:

Very few psychopaths flaunt their lack of sympathy like Hannibal Lecter, because very few of them are glamorous, urbane geniuses.
Mostly, they are just ordinary creeps who beat their girlfriends, stab guys in bars for no reason, get caught (…).

Most psychopaths instead feign kindness and, often, go to the extreme and into what’s been referred to as the technique of “love bombing”.

Love bombing consists of ardent pursuit, fast-pacing the relationship towards more and more commitment, professing unending love and writing, calling and texting more than any normal man would.

Miller says that females’ appreciation for kindness might have evolved to avoid psychopaths and psychopath-like men:

If sexual preferences evolved to avoid anything, they should have evolved to avoid psychopaths.
During human evolution there may have been a three-way arms race: females developed better tests for male sympathy, male psychopaths developed better ways to fake sympathy, and male non-psychopaths developed sympathy-displays that were harder and harder to fake. Just as fitness indicators evolved to advertise freedom from harmful mutations, perhaps sympathy indicators evolved to advertise freedom from psychopathy.

Women who failed to recognize psychopaths faced bigger challenges in raising their children compared to more empathic parents.
Challenges not big enough to completely root out psychopathy from humans’ gene pools, but enough to make psychopathy the exception and not the rule.

Psychopaths Lose Out Against High-Quality Empaths

Yes, psychopaths have an advantage over too-nice guys.

And, probably, over most average guys.
Since most people cluster around the average that, by definition, can mean that a good chunk of psychopaths do better than most non-psychopaths.

However, there is a caveat that we most encounter on this website: the rules that apply to the “majority” change -a lot- when we start getting closer to the top.

And psychopaths don’t look nearly as successful when pitted against equally high-power, empathic leaders.

Top-quality women tend to pair up with the top-quality men who are near the top of the social hierarchy (Peterson, 2021).
And, albeit there are always a few notable exceptions, the men at the top of social hierarchies tend to be closer to “normal” empaths more frequently than they are close to full-blown psychopaths.
That’s not to say that men at the top are “good”. They’re often high-power, Machiavellians, and with a touch (or more) of narcissism. It’s just to say that men at the top rarely are full-blown psychopaths.
Many psychopaths spend too much time pissing off people (or in prison) to build the social support that leaders use to get to the top of social hierarchies.

This is true today as it was true in our hunter-gatherer days.
In the ancient world in which we evolved non-psychopaths were most likely not the most successful men of the tribe.

That is why, from an evolutionary point of view, value-adding leadership is more likely to trump and defeat the “psychopath” amoral approach to power and social dominance, which is more likely to be value-taking
Writes Geoffrey F. Miller, an American evolutionary psychologist:

One could imagine a primate species in which females happened to develop a sexual preference for psychopaths, and males could obligingly evolve into violent bullies.
But groups playing that psychopathic equilibrium would go extinct in competition with efficient, peaceful groups playing the good-leadership equilibrium.

Thus, group selection is likely to favor non-psychopathic leadership as much as intra-group selection and social dynamics are likely to favor non-psychopathic individuals.

Geoffrey Miller, by the way, is one of those researchers who hates political correctness as much as I do.

When he writes that he is not trying to promote ethical leadership VS “bad behavior” and nudging his readers towards the former.
He is simply analyzing the status quo.
And bringing psychology and science -game theory, to be precise- to explain what worked in human evolution.

Psychopaths Win With More Average Women

Or, in more technical terms:

Psychopaths win at the lower and middle end of the quality bell curve.

As we’ve seen, many psychopathic traits make it harder for psychopaths to get and stick with the highest-quality women.
However, with women who are somewhat less desirable, a hard-charging, high-dominance psychopath often wins over the other average men she has access to.

Should You Aspire to Psychopathy?

Some men seek to develop dark triad traits as a sexual advantage.

That’s what I realized during my research to write the “Analysis of The Red Pill“.
On that Reddit community, some men discuss how dark triad traits allow men to sleep with a lot of women.

Well, they might be onto something.
Even actual psychologists have written books on the advantages of psychopathy and how to acquire some of those traits.
See for example:

• The Wisdom of Psychopaths
• The Good Psychopaths’ Guide

This same website could be seen as a big guide to becoming a pro-social, high-quality dark-triad individual.
But that “high-quality” and “pro-social” are critical.

Overall, men who score very high in psychopathy are not high-quality people.
And albeit the predisposition for “fast and furious life” can help them do better than some average and below-average guys, they rarely achieve the highest success in life, be it in dating, self-development, business, or whichever common marker for “success” people use.

Finally, don’t forget what we’ve discussed earlier.
The last reason why you don’t want to go all the way into psychopathy is that “crazy attracts crazy”.
If you seek high-quality, attractive women, become a high-quality, attractive man.

SUMMARY

Psychopathy and psychopath-like traits can provide advantages in both mating and dominance hierarchies under some circumstances.

That is especially true in the short term, which is where the bulk of promiscuous men’s partners comes from.

The “advantage” in lay count is in large part because psychopaths seek more mating opportunities.
On the other hand, many men low in psychopathic traits, including many relationship-minded men and men with more secure attachment styles, will be happy to stop with a single partner -and maybe some cheating on the side for some of them-.

That’s why, because of his short-term predisposition, a good-looking, high-functioning psychopath will get laid more than an equally good-looking, but “normal” man.

The psychopath’s advantages are most obvious when pitted against average or lower-quality, submissive men rather than with high-quality, strong, and empathic men.

A psychopath strategy fares relatively better in larger societies and urban environments and works better in the short term and more poorly in the long run.

Overall though, an equally attractive and high-power man is usually better positioned to land and, crucially, keep and increase attraction over time.

In relationships, psychopaths then use a host of different techniques to keep their partners under their thumb, but that’s a topic for a different article.