womanize/womanizer

philander, bedhop, sleep around, seduce, be promiscuous/sexually active/sexually aggressive/indiscriminate, have many love affairs; swinger, philanderer, seducer, bedhopper, sensualist, free-lover, flirt, freethinker, free spirit, voluptuary, sybarite, hedonist, lover, operator. It's difficult to find appropriate inclusive substitutes for womanize and womanizer because we so rarely need that exact word for anything except a man who pursues or courts women habitually or illicitly. Women who philander are either man crazy or promiscuous. Gay men who have many affairs are also promiscuous or they have one-night stands. Ellen Goodman says manize hasn't made it into the language because women have always associated sex with danger (rape, pregnancy, the double standard), because getting men on their backs isn't a power trip for most women, and because so far the power of successful older women does not seem to act as an aphrodisiac on younger, good-looking men. There have been too few highly public and powerful women to know if manizing is something women would do (Golda Meir? Indira Gandhi? Maggie Thatcher?). See also ladies' man, man about town, playboy, rake.