Beth Dutton of Yellowstone is a monsterfucker.
Rip is the latest in a line of modern beauty's beasts that includes Bill Compton, Edward Cullen, and Christian Grey. In this essay I will examine the historical roots of monsterfucking and how they evolved from cautionary tales to modern wish fulfillment.
Feeding conventionally attractive young women to monsters is nothing new.
That goes back at least to Andromeda before Perseus stepped in.
Monsterfucking as a desired scenario likely stems from de Villeneuve's Beauty and The Beast in 1740. At the time, it was considered propaganda in favor of Nuveau Riche merchants marrying into impoverished noble families. Beauty is originally a merchant's daughter established as considerably less greedy than her sisters, and grows to love Beast as she learns about his world.
The first half of the 20th century only occasionally presented monsters as objects of pity (The Phantom of the Opera, King Kong, The Creature from the Black Lagoon). But Lugosi's take on Dracula added a charm and sexual magnetism unknown in the novel, an idea echoed in Karloff's The Mummy a year later. These stories often featured their leading ladies spending some time with their monstrous suitor before returning to their rescuers and normal lives.
Television too, dipped their toes in the concept as best they could.
Herman and Lily Munster were one of the first television couples to be seen sleeping in the same bed, while Gomez and Morticia were undeniably passionate about each other.
(One critic quipped that the Addamses seemed to be the only TV couple even capable of having children)
Some would say that the true genesis of monsterfucking came in 1985 with the release of Anne Rice's Interview with the vampire. It did firmly establish the Vampires Are Sex Gods trope in popular culture, with Anita Blake's Jean Claude, Twilight's Edward Cullen, and True Blood's Bill Compton soon joining the ranks.
A telling point is aspects of this being notable in the latest round of classic monster movie remakes. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), introduced a subplot of Mina Harker being a reincarnation of Dracula's ill-fated wife from his human years. Turning Dracula from a formidable parasite into the passionate angle of a love triangle upped the stakes all around and heightened the drama. (Gary Oldman is said to have taken the role of Dracula just to say the line "I've crossed oceans of time to find you.")
In 1999, the remake of The Mummy also features a villain whose main goal is to resurrect the lover he suffered and died for. While Evy isn't quite falling for her own beast as she smooths Rick's rough edges, she is fascinated by Imotep's plight. And in 2001's The Mummy Returns, Rick and Evy's ride-or-die bond is a vicious contrast to Anuck-Su-Namun abandoning Imotep to his fate.
While all this was going on, on television, two out of three of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's long-term lovers were vampires.
Since the turn of the millennium, monsterfucker stories have gained a lot of their story conflict over the question of whether to start or whether to continue fucking the monster in question.
An interesting note particularly in Bram Stoker's Dracula and in Andrew Lloyd Webber's take on the Phantom of the Opera is that while the beautys do go home with their designated human lovers in the end, they do so after experiencing time among the monsters with at least some agency.
And here's where we get into the true appeal of monsterfucking.
While monsters have always stood in for various social and sexual taboos, monsterfucking is an attempt to rebel against the seemingly contradictory modern expectations.
Whether it's the madonna-whore complex or the impossible to be a woman speech from the Barbie movie, monsterfucking provides a way to, at least in a fantasy sense, have your cake and eat it too.
Monsterfucking is inherently a desire to merge "bad boys are hot" with "all dudes are potential predators" without having the brain divide by zero.
I've said for years that there's no shortage of American women with submission fantasies,
but there is a distinct shortage of American dudes who can be trusted to fulfill them.
And the rest of the world is usually worse.
The thing about fuckable monsters is, they come with their own trust.
Fuckable monsters rarely have any sort of deception, and those that do have ones that are paper thin.
They are unapologetically monstrous.
They're dangerous and deadly to the whole of humanity.
Except... to the object of their affections.
To HER.
The monster will not hurt her.
The monster will not lie to her.
The monster will not cheat on her.
The monster will not soil her reputation.
The monster will do absolutely nothing to her that she fears on the daily from mortal men.
He will, however, ravish the unholy hell out of her, if given the chance.
As Terry Pratchett's Otto says in The Truth, "Vell, let's just say zey don't alvays scream."
THAT is the common thread through every monster I've mentioned here.
So how does that apply to Rip and Beth?
Because Rip effectively is a monster.
He's got a hair-trigger temper, has never lost a fight, has absolutely no qualms about using violence to achieve his personal or job goals, and is a murderer multiple times over.
However,
He is intensely loyal to the Dutton family in general and to Beth in particular.
He refuses to even look at another woman, despite being conventionally attractive to barflies and buckle bunnies alike.
He's madly in love with Beth, and yet he refuses to pursue her.
It takes him rescuing her from a hit squad and taking two rounds in the process for him to even admit his feelings, much less act on them.
In short, he fulfills every quality of a fuckable monster.
And from there is a major source of his popularity on the show.
Rip is the latest in a line of modern beauty's beasts that includes Bill Compton, Edward Cullen, and Christian Grey. In this essay I will examine the historical roots of monsterfucking and how they evolved from cautionary tales to modern wish fulfillment.
Feeding conventionally attractive young women to monsters is nothing new.
That goes back at least to Andromeda before Perseus stepped in.
Monsterfucking as a desired scenario likely stems from de Villeneuve's Beauty and The Beast in 1740. At the time, it was considered propaganda in favor of Nuveau Riche merchants marrying into impoverished noble families. Beauty is originally a merchant's daughter established as considerably less greedy than her sisters, and grows to love Beast as she learns about his world.
The first half of the 20th century only occasionally presented monsters as objects of pity (The Phantom of the Opera, King Kong, The Creature from the Black Lagoon). But Lugosi's take on Dracula added a charm and sexual magnetism unknown in the novel, an idea echoed in Karloff's The Mummy a year later. These stories often featured their leading ladies spending some time with their monstrous suitor before returning to their rescuers and normal lives.
Television too, dipped their toes in the concept as best they could.
Herman and Lily Munster were one of the first television couples to be seen sleeping in the same bed, while Gomez and Morticia were undeniably passionate about each other.
(One critic quipped that the Addamses seemed to be the only TV couple even capable of having children)
Some would say that the true genesis of monsterfucking came in 1985 with the release of Anne Rice's Interview with the vampire. It did firmly establish the Vampires Are Sex Gods trope in popular culture, with Anita Blake's Jean Claude, Twilight's Edward Cullen, and True Blood's Bill Compton soon joining the ranks.
A telling point is aspects of this being notable in the latest round of classic monster movie remakes. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), introduced a subplot of Mina Harker being a reincarnation of Dracula's ill-fated wife from his human years. Turning Dracula from a formidable parasite into the passionate angle of a love triangle upped the stakes all around and heightened the drama. (Gary Oldman is said to have taken the role of Dracula just to say the line "I've crossed oceans of time to find you.")
In 1999, the remake of The Mummy also features a villain whose main goal is to resurrect the lover he suffered and died for. While Evy isn't quite falling for her own beast as she smooths Rick's rough edges, she is fascinated by Imotep's plight. And in 2001's The Mummy Returns, Rick and Evy's ride-or-die bond is a vicious contrast to Anuck-Su-Namun abandoning Imotep to his fate.
While all this was going on, on television, two out of three of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's long-term lovers were vampires.
Since the turn of the millennium, monsterfucker stories have gained a lot of their story conflict over the question of whether to start or whether to continue fucking the monster in question.
An interesting note particularly in Bram Stoker's Dracula and in Andrew Lloyd Webber's take on the Phantom of the Opera is that while the beautys do go home with their designated human lovers in the end, they do so after experiencing time among the monsters with at least some agency.
And here's where we get into the true appeal of monsterfucking.
While monsters have always stood in for various social and sexual taboos, monsterfucking is an attempt to rebel against the seemingly contradictory modern expectations.
Whether it's the madonna-whore complex or the impossible to be a woman speech from the Barbie movie, monsterfucking provides a way to, at least in a fantasy sense, have your cake and eat it too.
Monsterfucking is inherently a desire to merge "bad boys are hot" with "all dudes are potential predators" without having the brain divide by zero.
I've said for years that there's no shortage of American women with submission fantasies,
but there is a distinct shortage of American dudes who can be trusted to fulfill them.
And the rest of the world is usually worse.
The thing about fuckable monsters is, they come with their own trust.
Fuckable monsters rarely have any sort of deception, and those that do have ones that are paper thin.
They are unapologetically monstrous.
They're dangerous and deadly to the whole of humanity.
Except... to the object of their affections.
To HER.
The monster will not hurt her.
The monster will not lie to her.
The monster will not cheat on her.
The monster will not soil her reputation.
The monster will do absolutely nothing to her that she fears on the daily from mortal men.
He will, however, ravish the unholy hell out of her, if given the chance.
As Terry Pratchett's Otto says in The Truth, "Vell, let's just say zey don't alvays scream."
THAT is the common thread through every monster I've mentioned here.
So how does that apply to Rip and Beth?
Because Rip effectively is a monster.
He's got a hair-trigger temper, has never lost a fight, has absolutely no qualms about using violence to achieve his personal or job goals, and is a murderer multiple times over.
However,
He is intensely loyal to the Dutton family in general and to Beth in particular.
He refuses to even look at another woman, despite being conventionally attractive to barflies and buckle bunnies alike.
He's madly in love with Beth, and yet he refuses to pursue her.
It takes him rescuing her from a hit squad and taking two rounds in the process for him to even admit his feelings, much less act on them.
In short, he fulfills every quality of a fuckable monster.
And from there is a major source of his popularity on the show.
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