Horne, 30, who studied physics but made her living, allegedly, as a "glamour model' and escort, is the villainess of the day across the pond. Because Horne has married five times - without first obtaining divorces. She married her high school boyfriend - legally - at 18, but although the two soon drifted apart, the marriage was never legally dissolved, and so her next marriage, three years later, wasn't legal. When she married a third time in 2000, the authorities took note and issued a caution, but this didn't stop her from a third illegal marriage, under a different name, two years later. When she allegedly attempted to leave her fourth husband for a friend of his, he turned on her and ratted her out to the cops. Horne served six months. The judge at the time said, "You are an attractive young woman and you might be described as a very predatory female."

So what, then, would prompt her to marry a fifth man in 2007? And to then confess the reality of her situation mere hour after the wedding, with press clippings to prove it? A "predatory female?" Try, "deeply disturbed." She lied and manipulated and obviously hurt people deeply - apparently she claimed she'd lost a sister and given up a baby, and told husband #5 that she had "womb cancer" - but what was the pathology at work that led this woman to risk certain capture in order to "marry" yet again? She doesn't seem to have used the relationships for material grifting gain - so to dismiss her as some kind of black widow seems an oversimplification, and far less troubling than the reality.

The Daily Mail, of course, asks what the guys saw in her, managing to imply both that she had insufficient beauty to entrap, and that the guys were morons. Huh? They found her attractive, charming, and intelligent, by all accounts. But what was behind her compulsion for some kind of security?

In some ways, she's reminiscent of the "Hipster Grifter," down to the cancer claims - maybe a sociopath, sure, but a lot more tragic than gleeful media accounts like to acknowledge. Beyond the fact that "predatory female" speaks of the worst kind of retrograde stereotyping - a wicked siren, using poor men for her own ends - but coverage has taken the same reflexively gleeful tone, even when the merest glance at the facts tells a different - and more interesting - story. (One imagines that, were she not deemed "attractive," she'd be regarded as some kind of sorceress instead - or, alternatively, pathetic.) Part of this, I think, is a delight at seeing these men humiliated - for some reason "hapless dupe beguiled by Eve" seems to strike some as the height of comedy, allowing for mockery of several different gender stereotypes at once; would a tale of a similar cad provoke glee - or mock-sympathetic hand-wringing for the wronged victims? As it is, people are watching Emily Horne's case with interest, and after her guilty plea this week, doubtless hoping for a long stint in jail that will teacher her a lesson or something - because, obviously, that's gonna do the trick.

Former Glamour Model Faces Jail For Serial Bigamy [Times of London]
'Predatory' Bigamist With Five Husbands Facing Jail [Telegraph]As She Faces Jail For Tricking Yet Another Gullible Man, What DID Five Husbands See In The Brazen Bigamist? [Daily Mail]

The Observer's Irina Aleksander identifies the man-type thusly:

Often the creative type, he projects a deceptive vulnerability, while maintaining an appealing confidence. He’s usually not the best-looking guy in the room, but he is the smartest; he turns these traits to his advantage, playing up the contrast with the typical hot guy or womanizer (physical inferiority, emotional evolvement). His courtship begins with a rushed sense of intimacy and, yet, a disarming lack of forward physical advances; a first date might involve a game of Scrabble or perhaps a cup of tea; his target usually leaves wondering if in fact it was a date at all. And yet the story always has the same ending—he grows distant, stops calling and eventually disappears with little explanation, if any.

As distinct from a self-absorbed emo guy, or what Jessica has termed "the wimpster," l'Homme Fatal manufactures a semblance of emotion as part of his romantic shtick. He's less sleazy than a Gamester, but his M.O. is just as direct. Aleksander identifies several real-life examples of the type: serial womanizers like Ryan Adams, Justin Long, Josh Hartnett and the Gossip Girl character Aaron Rose, all of whom seem to project a wounded humility while surrounded by a suspiciously omnipresent harem of gorgeous women. However, while a scourge on the land, this type is not necessarily villainous: most of those quoted in the article are ready to ascribe the type's antics to immaturity. Says one victim,

“He’s not a bad dude, but he just doesn’t know how not to have this over-the-top magical romance which eventually leaves girls completely broken. He’s like a love monster...I think this type of guy is more dangerous than the typical one-night-stander because there is so much more emotion and attachment involved that is ultimately more destructive.”

Of course, such a type couldn't exist if women didn't respond to it, nor is it necessarily new. Woody Allen, after all, built a career as an unlikely womanizer on the sensitive underdog persona. It's been a while now since the guy who doesn't get the girl has morphed into the hero, but "sensitive" is still equal to "harmless" in the popular imagination. The archetype used to be "secretly-sensitive asshole"; now it's "nice guy with the heart of a jerk." Although we're surrounded by the type, we're still not, on some level, prepared for it. And because this guy is as interested in an emotional conquest as a physical one, we're not trained to fend him off. Perhaps as sexual conquest has become less taboo, a certain kind of man feels the need for another kind of challenge.

In my experience, men of this stripe have a hard time with straightforward platonic friendship with the opposite sex: while they might maintain such a relationship, they insist on introducing an often-flattering, sometimes baffling element of romantic tension into everything, either because they crave drama or need to feel wanted. And when these guys talk about their relationships, they never rule out a hint of conflict, of torture, of uncertainty -they are just that sensitive! Or that immature.

Says one "recovering H.F.," “The empathy is there, but people who do the most harm are people who don’t know what they want, and Hommes Fatales don’t know what they want.” Luckily, we do!

Beware L'Homme Fatale! [Observer]
Related: Manic Pixie Dream Girls Are The Scourge Of Modern Cinema

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