Duckie the quintessential sneaky fucker

you sneaky fucker

This probably isn’t the best way to start out my addition to Sneaky Fucker Week, but it’s all I’ve got. The thing is…I’ve tried explaining this topic to a few people in my daily life and it’s been mostly met with complete incomprehension. I think it’s partially because it’s about the animal kingdom, and so much of what we do as civilised members of society is to try and convince ourselves that we’re inherently better than the animals. We are, right? Sure we are.

As long as I kept the topic within the realm of the lowly beasts, I got a lot more interest and discussion. That’s how it was originally intended and introduced, so I’ll actually start there. Amy started the ball rolling with her post Feline Fatal Attraction, which is quite funny and worrisome and a bit odd. Exactly what one would expect from Amy. She rarely fails to deliver.

But little did she know that what she’d done would actually be the spark of something. It was Andreas, who made an innocent aside in one of his comments about the above-mentioned blogpost, and here were his exact words:

‘Feline fatal attraction’ is a good one but it’s not the best. My favourite scientific term is the ‘Sneaky fucker strategy’, aka kleptogamy. It probably is rather self-explanatory but here goes: In species where males aim to gather a harem of females to mate with, there are two male strategies for successful mating.

The first one is to be as big and strong as possible in order to fight off the competition and win access to the females. This is however both costly and risky. You might spend more energy than you can replace, or you might get seriously injured.

The second strategy is to be a Sneaky fucker. This consists of avoiding any direct conflicts with the alpha males, and keep to the periphery of the harem of females. Then, when the leading male is busy fighting off any competing males, the Sneaky fucker male can sneak in and – well – fuck. And as long as he’s out of the way by the time the alpha male is back, he doesn’t risk getting into a fight.

It’s a brilliant strategy, and this is probably why it’s a very common strategy. So beware of the Sneaky fuckers.

Not so earth shattering, right? Wrong. It was such a curious and intriguing theory that it was decided that we would all write something about the Sneaky Fucker. Who’s we? Is there some sort of insular club of people who’d be allowed to take part in this? There absolutely was not. Anyone was (and is) invited.

This was definitely going to change our week, but try to think a bit more globally. What I’m about to describe could easily change not just the way we think about natural selection and survival of the fittest, but it could change the world as we know it. Hyperbole? Why, yes. Thank you.

Amy kicked off the festivities with her I’m a Lover, not a fighter, and I’m really built for speed, which was very entertaining, but made me question some of the immediate assumptions I made about Sneaky Fuckers. More on that soon.

Once again, it’s natural and logical (and a bit less threatening) to focus on animals when talking about this, so Andreas covered the actual theory by focusing on the example of some moose (he does an excellent job of avoiding any moose porn – something I’m not sure I would’ve been able to avoid). Here’s his contribution in The Art of Kleptogamy. So if we’d wanted to avoid the offensive title Sneaky Fucker Week, we could’ve call it Kleptogamy Week. Too late. Doesn’t have the same ring to it anyway.

Then on the heels of that, Lisa followed up the kleptogamism with How to Protect your Eggs from Kleptogamists. Somehow she was able to steer the discussion back to the familiar topic of Truck Balls, which continues to make me worry about her.

A number of people have admitted a bit of hesitation about taking part in Sneaky Fucker Week. For good reason. The title itself is salacious and potentially a bit rude. Although blogs like this one (and one or two of the ones already mentioned) tend to go for that sort of thing, there are some bloggers who’re writing with more sensitive readers in mind. I think Lisa (another Lisa – there can be more than one Lisa, you know) did a very tasteful and comical take on the whole thing in her Benjie: The story of a very sneaky little rascal. She sidesteps the whole reproductive aspect of the story by having little Benjie give his love interest a hug. Very cute. Hugs are cute.

Duckie doesn’t want a simple hug

Which brings us to Duckie Dale. If you don’t remember (or know) who that was, he was the side kick/best friend of Andie Walsh (played by Molly Ringwald) in one of those John Hughes movies back in the 80s. I’m purposely being vague, because I really don’t remember the story all that well. When some people blog about cultural history phenomena, I’m astounded at the things you remember. Some people can remember the entire script of this (or these) movies word for word.

But I remember the main idea. Duckie was undoubtedly a Sneaky Fucker. No question. He didn’t want a hug. He wanted to recreate some moose porn, but with him playing the part of the moose and Andie playing the lady moose. Did he tell her he wanted her? No, he did not.

Duckie was certainly there for Andie. He understood her feelings, commiserated when she was mistreated, and did all the slimy things that Amy talked about SNEAKY fuckers doing in her post. He was laying in wait. While I pondered this during the week, I wondered what became of ol’ Duckie after high school.

My contention is that he transitioned from a SNEAKY fucker to a sneaky FUCKER. You can get the intricacies of the difference if you actually go and read Amy’s post (link above). I know it’s long, but it’s worth it. See, I think Duckie started out all sneaky but once he got his heart broken, I believe he’d hone his skills that he’d only begun to develop.

I see him moving out to the coast, and getting a nice crash pad. Probably took some yoga classes and I’ll bet he got in touch with his inner child. But ladies if you run into Duckie, I promise you it’s not just his inner child he wants to get in touch with. Watch out for that guy. He’s the quintessential Sneaky Fucker.

21 comments

  1. Pretty in Pink is the movie. And I think you have nailed just how things turned out for Duckie. A lot of John Hughes have the sneaky fucker character in them now that I think about it.
    Well done, Ken.

  2. Great contribution to the Sneaky fucker week!

    He does look sneaky. I only have vague recollections of this film as it must be 20 years ago since I watched it, but yes, he certainly does seem to fit the bill. Although he represent the failed sneaky fucker; I guess there must be a few of them as well.

  3. Brother,
    That was my strategy before I turned 25…I admit that it was partly sneaky, but it is also very Duckie; sweet, kind, silly, but also immature. Regarding Darwin, people like Duckie and I were not built to fight; we survive by entertaining and taking care of people. 🙂

  4. I love this post, because it references “Pretty in Pink”, one of my favorite movies ever ever ever, and that photo is fantastic, and I’m totally one of those people that can quote movies and trivia more than I should be able to. But also I can’t remember people’s names I met yesterday. It’s a blessing, it’s a curse.

    I used to love Duckie and feel SO BADLY for him and be all, “ANDIE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.” Then I realized something. KEN! He’s not so much a sneaky fucker as he is a closeted gay man! He’s desperately trying to get into a relationship to cover up that fact. How do I know this? I had a Duckie in high school. He followed me EVERYWHERE. It was LUNACY. And then, in college, he told me he’d been gay the whole time and he thought that if I’d dated him, people would think he was straight. (I was completely oblivious of the fact in high school. Mostly because I didn’t know any gay people so my gaydar was at 0%.)

    So Duckie’s a sneaky fucker, but he’s a sneaky fucker looking for not a fuck, but a beard.

    1. I’ve heard this line of reasoning before, and though it’s certainly possible that Duckie was a closet case, I still can’t quite accept it.

      It’s an easy assertion to make, though. Duckie’s a perfect example of the sort of guy you’re talking about. At least on the surface. And the surface is all we have to go by in this case.

      But I still believe he was more like the guy Petr mentioned above. Duckie knew he wasn’t going to succeed as the alpha male, so he had to come up with some alternatives. No way we can really know.

      One thing I did find out: I’d be horrible at fan fiction. You know, that genre where people take existing characters from a work and then create new scenarios/stories. I’d be terrible at that. I can’t keep the facts straight about a character, and I’m sure I’d be writing things that go against the earlier-mentioned traits of the person.

      1. Yet you’re EXCELLENT at Twitter clown fiction. Eek.

        Yeah, I’d be awful at that, too. I’d be making up scenarios that could not possibly happen and making people VERY angry. Lynch-mob angry.

  5. No, he did not! He went to college and found some weird duckie girl who could appreciate him and they got married and had little Duck babies and lived happily ever after.

    Wrong John Hughes character. Wrong character. It was The Geek in Sixteen Candles. Anthony Michael Hall is THE pentultimate Sneaky Fucker.

    1. I’d already carefully pondered that character, but came to the conclusion that he wasn’t particularly sneaky. Fucker? Yes. Sneaky? Not so much.

      Duckie, on the other hand, was equally both.

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