Hypothesis: When put through an extensive and detailed domestic violence screening test, the relationships that the male leads in Wattpad's "bad boy" genre have with the protagonists will come back as toxically unhealthy, but not downright abusive.

Procedure: Twelve random bad boy stories were chosen by filtering the Teen Fiction section to only stories tagged "badboy" and the first eight chapters were read. Then, the love interests were put through the Gavin De Becker Threat Assessment Test for male domestic violence offenders and the reports. It assesses the likelihood of the hypothetical abuser to escalate his violence, and the severity of the current situation. A summary of the test questions, their answers, and a score from one to ten were copied into another document. All information that could identify the story was removed, including the names of the bad boy and the protagonist. Lastly, an average of the 1-10 scores was calculated with all twelve.

(For the sake of brevity, the full reports with the specific behaviors of each boy will be posted in the next chapter.)

Results and Conclusion:
Scores of each boy tested, out of ten:
Example One: 8
Example Two: 6
Example Three: 6
Example Four: 5
Example Five: 7
Example Six: 6
Example Seven: 8
Example Eight: 7
Example Nine: 5
Example Ten: 7
Example Eleven: 7
Example Twelve: 6

This averages to a score of 6.6 across the board. For reference, the warning displayed on the test when one's partner registers as a seven are reprinted here in italics:

Based upon the information you have provided [...]this situation appears most similar to cases that -have- worsened and escalated. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being assigned to situations that have most of the factors experts associate with escalation), this situation is a 7. Some similar cases have escalated to include worsening abuse and substantial violence. [..] This situation can escalate to the point that a future assessment would produce a higher number on the 1 to 10 scale. Accordingly, learn more about options and resources by contacting the National Domestic Violence Hotline: www.thehotline.org or 1.800.799.SAFE (7233).

The initial hypothesis was correct to a degree, but the male leads turned out to be even more abusive than anticipated. It was understood that many bad boy behaviors were toxic, and should not be emulated or treated as examples for how real life relationships should function. However, the findings of this study indicate that male leads in the bad boy genre exert an incredible amount of control over their victims and often abuse them.