David, in his comment, points to the negative in "womanizer" that is not found in the word I supplied as more accurate, "woman-enjoyer." I missed that and I've worried ever since that I've underestimated "womanizer" and ought to make an adjustment.
I follow David where he feels the word's strength, in the negative judgment that the man is taking advantage of women. Then, through "simonize" and "martinize," I follow him to an association with products, things industrial, made for our use, to seeing that the man is taking advantage of women in a pretty cold, mechanical way. That makes "woman-enjoyer" and "philanderer" look weak.
I get the best feeling for the strength of all these words when I picture them spoken within the man's hearing. I see him feeling put down some by "philanderer" and taking "woman-enjoyer" in stride. The word he would really like to hear, though, among those he has a chance of hearing, is "ladies' man." That's not far from the image he has of himself. He seduces women, he wins them, he romances them. That's his activity, a kind of romancing.
"The hell it is," says "womanizer." The word puts him in the sex industry. One of the categories in the workers' ads. "I do women." There's its great strength. Industrial strength. It blows all the romance away.
So now I think "womanizer" is a great word. So what if it doesn't fit the model "ize" form. A misfit is a small price to pay for such a benefit.
I'm wondering now about seeing the benefit in this word only in its suggestive power. To ridicule here, to laugh, is to put Casanova in the right perspective. The truth about seduction, according to Elizabeth Hardwick, is that though it "may be baneful, even tragic, the seducer at his work is essentially comic." If she's right the word I found inaccurate is right on the button.
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