Womanizer

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A womanizer or philanderer is a man who engages in love affairs with women he cannot or will not marry. The love affairs are typically sexually motivated, with little emotional attachment. The most famous of these would be Giacomo Casanova. However many specialists and readers of Casanova's memoirs disagree that he was devoid of emotional attachment or was motivated superficially. On the contrary, he proves to be deeply involved in most of his affairs. Fictional womanizers include Captain Jack Sparrow, Don Juan, Don Giovanni from Mozart's opera of the same name and Ian Fleming's James Bond.

In modern Hollywood fiction, womanizers are often, if not always, punished or forced into sudden and complete rethinking of their shallow behavior. Examples of this are Jack Black, Jason Alexander's characters in Shallow Hal and Arvino, and the title character in Hitch. An example of non-reformed womanizer is George Constanza from the sitcom Seinfeld, also portrayed by actor Jason Alexander.

There is no corresponding term of "manizer" in the language as yet, although the type can be found to exist; such women are generally looked down upon and given vulgar names, such as 'slag' or 'slapper'. A famous literary example might be Lady Brett Ashley in Ernest Hemingway's novel "The Sun Also Rises," a woman of a certain age who chases a nineteen-year-old matador. Blanche DuBois, the third member of a sexual triangle in A Streetcar Named Desire by the playwright Tennessee Williams, is another character worth studying.

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