Better in Fiction Than in Real Life: The Protective Lover

To start, the protective lover isn't quite the same as the violent lover--the connection between protection and violence is a Venn diagram. The violent lover may be violent out of a desire to protect, but the violent lover may also be violent for the entertainment value of being violent.

The protective lover is focused on keeping that lover's family, friends, and neighborhood safe. In all honesty, the protective lover is extremely attractive. To be protected--to be defended--to be looked out for: all these treatments are more than a little compelling. Security is a powerful need. Security coupled with affection is often greatly desired and enjoyed.

 

The problem, of course, is when protectiveness becomes control. Even at a mild level, the protective lover whose so-called protectiveness takes the form of advice and lectures and condescending "tut-tuts" begins to grate. A very funny scene in Home Improvement points the difference. Tim and Jill are at a restaurant. When she gets up to go the restroom, he says absently, "Don't forget to wash your hands." She gives him a startled, amused look. "Oh," he says. "Sorry. I thought I was with the boys."

 

His reply makes sense. He would never actually tell his adult, grown wife to wash her hands (one hopes). Between them, the behavior is uncharacteristic.

 

Bones and Booth offer mutual protection. Booth's unapologetic desire to protect (Hey, I'm an alpha male! You're my wife! Of course I'm going to look out for you!) is partly acceptable because of Booth's honesty and his follow-through (it isn't just talk) but mostly because his protection never crosses the line into infantilizing Bones. He has no desire for a child-bride.

 

Of course, some people want to be infantilized! Both men and women. The fundamental issue is whether or not both members of the couple are okay with the fall-out of that type of relationship. In A Dollhouse, the issue on the table isn't feminism but the fact that Nora willingly adopts a kind of child-bride persona, valued by her husband, until he doesn't keep his part of the bargain. He wants her to be a child-bride but he doesn't want to carry out the job of father-protector.

 

Who would?! But to demand one role without performing the other is hardly fair. 

 

Infantilizing is the problem that haunts the protective lover. One decent variation is the protective lover who acts, like Booth, entirely out of a personal need. I need to protect. It's in my nature. Let me do it.  

 

Bones still objects. (Direct negotiations are part of that couple's relationship.) A better variation is when the protection indicates commitment, a willingness--as mentioned above--to follow-through. Responsibility becomes the password rather than control.

 

In BL, one great example of the protective, responsible lover comes in Where Your Eyes Linger. When Taejoo is taken home to be rebuked by his father, the young man raised to be his bodyguard and now his beloved, Kang Guk, fights his way through several of the "Chairman's" bodyguards to reach Taejoo's side. Kang Guk needs to prove his intent to both himself and Taejoo. The act doesn't instantly solve the relationship (they separate, then reunite when they are older) but it does establish their presence in each other's lives, especially since Taejoo was willing to take all the "blame" for the relationship on himself. Now, he isn't alone.

 

Unlike some other dysfunctional relationship problems, such as ruthlessness, protection is natural and normal. But it involves negotiation so it can become a help rather than a burden.