A Lothario is a man who seduces women and is seen as dangerous. The term comes from a play and is often used in literature and film. There is no female counterpart. Some find the stereotype harmful and prejudicial.
A Lothair is a man who commonly seduces women, or who is seen as intensely attractive to women, even if he chooses not to pursue them. As a general rule, Lotharios are also seen as somewhat dangerous, as it is assumed that after the seduction, they will throw the woman away. Some similar slang terms include “Casanova” and “Don Juan.” Curiously, there is no female counterpart to Lothario, at least in English, perhaps due to a double standard on sexual behavior that dominates many English-speaking societies.
This slang term is a reference to a play called The Fair Penitent which was written by Nicholas Rowe and published in 1703. In the play, Lothario is a character who seduces a woman and eventually cheats on her. Rowe may have borrowed the character from Don Quixote (1605), where a remarkably similar situation also includes a character named Lothario. By the 1750s, “Lothario” had entered common English slang to refer to a seducer, usually with the implication that the seduction would inevitably end in a betrayal of one form or another.
Men are often accused of being Lotharios if they flirt with women, especially if they are attractive. While these men might protest that flirting rarely, if ever, progresses into anything more serious, they are still seen as seducers, especially if they flirt with other people’s wives. For single young men, being a Lothair can be a status symbol in some cultures, since men are commonly expected to be adventurous in their youth.
The concept of Lothair has probably survived so long in English slang because people can easily identify with it and because it crops up repeatedly in poetry, fiction, and film. Lotharios are a dime a dozen in romance novels, for the female leads to swoon in comedic and tragic comedies, and they fill the screen in soap operas. While these men are relatively rare, their frequent appearances in materials designed for entertainment ensures that they are kept foremost in one’s mind.
Some people find the Lothario stereotype harmful, because they believe it reinforces sexist double standards and because it sometimes prejudices people against handsome, flirty men. Such men may be perfectly nice individuals who have no intention of giving up objects of their affection, but people may believe they are “too good-looking” to be serious.
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