The Final Girl theory emerged in 1985, when Carol Clover — a medievalist and feminist film critic — was dared by a friend to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Back then, most feminist theorists loathed slasher films, and regarded them as classic examples of male misogyny. It wasn’t hard to figure out why: Thousands of young men were trooping into theaters to cheer wildly as masked psychos hacked apart screaming young women. That really didn’t look good.

But as Clover sat in the theaters, she noticed something curious. Sure, the young men would laugh and cheer as the villain hunted down his female prey. But eventually the movie would whittle down the victims to one last terrified woman — the Final Girl, as Clover called her. Suddenly, the young men in the audience would switch their allegiance — and begin cheering just as madly for the Final Girl as she attacked and killed the psycho.

This, Clover argued, was not mere garden-variety sexism. On the contrary, it was a generation of young guys who apparently identified strongly with the situation of a woman who faced agonizing peril yet came out victorious. The slasher dynamic was unprecedented in film history: “The idea of a female who outsmarts, much less outfights — or outgazes — her assailant (was) unthinkable,” Clover wrote. With this new crop of slasher movies, the young men in the audience essentially became the Final Girl: exhausted, freaked out and ultimately triumphant. They weren’t just ogling the sexual violence. They were submitting to it.

The sexuality of young men, Clover concluded, is profoundly weirder than you’d imagine.

I think she’s right, and what’s more, I think her idea maps perfectly onto the success of Tomb Raider. As with the slasher flicks, there’s a Final Girl dynamic: a constantly threatened woman, fighting for her very survival, attacking goons on every side — and a captive audience of young men. Playing as Croft was an emotionally catalytic experience. Young guys had played tons of male characters before, from Nintendo’s Mario to the anonymous marines of Doom. But being Lara was different; it got its hooks into their psyches like no game before.

“I feel like I’m sort of in charge of protecting her — which is to say, protecting me,” as one gamer told me back then. “Both at once. It’s really unusual.” I’ve noticed it myself. When I control my avatar in almost any game, I’m pretty engaged. But when I play as Croft, the game is an order of magnitude more intense: I find myself sucking in my breath, involuntarily ducking at virtual obstacles.

Of course, in today’s gaming world, the idea that young men secretly crave to be hot, imperiled virtual women doesn’t seem as unusual as it might have in 1998. After all, half the women in online worlds are played by young guys who’ve actively chosen their virtual gender.

I’m not suggesting a good part of Croft’s allure is not, in fact, straightforward titillation. (Even more sexually charged than her bouncy pixels is her voice acting: If you’re wearing headphones, those soft grunts as she hauls herself onto a ledge practically qualify as phone sex.) And it’s also true that being Lara — or any other impossibly curvy avatar — is undoubtedly a whole different experience for women gamers.

But the next time you see prepubescent boys playing Legend on the demo machines at Wal-Mart, take a closer look at their glazed expressions of concentration. There’s more going on there than meets the eye.