History Main / PsychosexualHorror

[[[https://nofilmschool.com/defining-psychosexual-thriller-genre Psychosexuality as a subgenre]] frequently involves fears and anxieties around sexual activities and developments. Most characters (protagonists or otherwise) do have some form of sexual anxiety as the story deals with themes of sexual awakenings, sexual fears, sexual inadequacies, and sexual traumas. However, this can also address themes of puberty, homoeroticism, and losing one's virginity.

[https://nofilmschool.com/defining-psychosexual-thriller-genre Psychosexuality as a subgenre]] frequently involves fears and anxieties around sexual activities and developments. Most characters (protagonists or otherwise) do have some form of sexual anxiety as the story deals with themes of sexual awakenings, sexual fears, sexual inadequacies, and sexual traumas. However, this can also address themes of puberty, homoeroticism, and losing one's virginity.

Psychosexuality as a subgenre frequently involves fears and anxieties around sexual activities and developments. Most characters (protagonists or otherwise) do have some form of sexual anxiety as the story deals with themes of sexual awakenings, sexual fears, sexual inadequacies, and sexual traumas. However, this can also address themes of puberty, homoeroticism, and losing one's virginity.

This trope is when eroticism, sexuality, and scenes of a sexual nature are [[FreudWasRight the theme or genre of a story]], usually done through psychological horror, supernatural horror, or represented by characters and monsters with Freudian associations. Psychosexual Horror addresses themes of sexual activities and sexual development.

** This version of Clayface is also based on AIDS, as represented by how he's naked, has his skin wasting away as a result of his disease, and how he wants to "share his disease" with Batman. This is directly referenced by Grant Morrison himself in his script notes.

* ''ComicBook/{{Crossed}}'' is about a HatePlague that transforms its victims into psychotic sadomasochists, committing horrible acts of evil for the sheer sake of it. So naturally, sexual violence is a ''very'' prominent theme. And it's not just limited to the Crossed themselves...

* ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'': The film is a rape-revenge story where Jennifer Hills is sexually assaulted by 4 red rednecks and she seeks revenge for what they did to her.

* ''Literature/{{It}}'': In the story, Beverly Marsh's childhood trauma is the fear of puberty and her own growing sexuality, as well as the realization that her own father is sexually attracted to her.

* ''Literature/120DaysOfSodom'' is this trope ''incarnate.'' Revolving around a sequestered group of politicians, aristocrats and their young victims, it remains one of ''the'' most disturbing pieces of human expression despite being written during the French Revolution.

* ''VideoGame/{{Agony}}'' is built by, for and with this trope. Just about everything in this depiction of Hell revolves around sex, death, childbirth and even more sex.

'''Danielle:''' Last year was San Diego. We dressed as sailors and ended up with sailors.

Antagonists serve as an allegory for the consequences of unprotected sex or the human sex drive. The antagonist can be a male who uses weapons with [[PhallicWeapon phallic connotations]] that they use to kill their victims in an up close and intimate way with melee weapons. In other cases, the antagonist can be a [[HoneyTrap female who seduces males to kill them]].

With [[AnthropomorphicPersonification personifications]], [[AllegoricalCharacter allegories]], and [[{{Tulpa}} tulpa]], the sex of the character plays a massive role in psychosexual horror. These antagonists have predominant sexual characteristics that allow them to be easily identified as male or female. These stories can be accompanied by [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything suggestive imagery]], a VisualInnuendo, or [[RuleOfSymbolism symbolism]].

It can go with AllPsychologyIsFreudian, SexIsEvil, ParalyzingFearOfSexuality, SexMiseducationClass, MissConception, NoPeriodsPeriod, MenstrualMenace, GrowingUpSucks, WomensMysteries, CircumcisionAngst, VaginaDentata and LiteralManeater. Compare FanDisservice, FetishRetardant, FullFrontalAssault, and NakedNutter.

* Parts of Shinji's ordeal in ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' are related to his attraction to Asuka and the early urges of his puberty. Indeed, in ''The End of Evangelion'', part of the finale is Asuka, Misato and Rei asking him whether he wants to have sex with them.

* ''Film/GeraldsGame'': In this 2017 film, a woman, named Jessie, is chained to her bed as part of her husband, Gerald's, sexual fantasy. Unfortunately, Gerald dies of a heart attack after taking Viagra and Jessie is left trapped in the bedroom and chained to the bed. [[spoiler:Unbeknownst to Gerald, Jessie has a fear of intimacy and sex after her father sexually abused her when she was 12 and she drifted towards him because Gerald reminded her of her father.]]
* ''Film/GingerSnaps'' follows sisters Brigitte and Ginger whose lives are changed after Ginger is bitten by a werewolf and infected with the werewolf curse. Everyone brushes off Ginger's strange new behavior as a result of her simply "becoming a woman" but in reality it was something far sinister. The film uses a werewolf curse and lycanthropy as a metaphor for puberty and female menstruation. Not to mention the curse can be passed through unprotected sex and not just by being bitten.

* ''Film/JennifersBody'': The story centers around Jennifer, a sexually confident teenager who is possessed by a succubus who [[LiteralManeater seduces men so she can eat them]]. With several implications that one of the themes in the story is how Jennifer is actually deeply insecure about being treated as a sex object and that she is dealing with her own attraction to her best friend, Anita "Needy" Lesnicki.

* ''Film/{{Society}}'': This film mixes psychosexual imagery with visceral BodyHorror in its depiction of the rich, [[spoiler:who are eventually revealed to be a separate species living among humans that regularly performs "[[LovecraftianSuperpower shunts]]", grotesque orgies where members of high society twist themselves into horrifying networks of flesh and feast on the poor]]z
* ''Film/{{Teeth}}'' features a teenage girl, Dawn, who discovers she has VaginaDentata. Because she lives in a universe where for some reason every man wants to get in her pants, willing or no, she's castrating attempted rapists left and right.
* ''Film/TrickRTreat'': A group of flirtacious girls are shopping for Halloween costumes and picking up dates for a party that night. They have in tow Laurie, who is described by her eldest sister as "the runt of the litter". Laurie doesn't want her sister to help her hook up with someone because she wants her "first" to be "special". She is followed to the party in the woods by a man clad as a vampire who had already killed a woman in an alley. He attacks Laurie, and there is a horrific noise that gets the attention of the girls at the party, only for a figure wrapped in Laurie's red cloak to fall from the trees. It's revealed to be Steven Wilkins, the school principal and already having been shown as a murderer a few times over. He begs for help, as Laurie steps out of the woods, snarking that the other girls told her to play hard to get and Wilkins had bitten her for it. It is then quickly revealed that Laurie, her sister, and their friends are all werewolves as they begin to strip down, first their clothes and then their flesh, and the men they'd entinced to join their party were their victims for the night. RewatchBonus comes into play as one realizes their earlier conversation at the costume shop was full of hidden clues about who, and what, they were.

* ''Literature/{{Carmilla}}'': The book that introduced the LesbianVampire to the world, Carmilla is in love with Laura, but is also slowly draining her life away. In an effort to spare Laura for a time, Carmilla drains several of the local village girls.

* ''Night Chills'': In this ''Creator/DeanKoontz'''s novel, Ogden Salsbury, a scientist working on a mind control experiment involving subliminal messaging for the government. Salsbury is a sexual sadist, but is noted to be harmless unless he feels he already has power over women, and Salsbury is quick to realize that with the success of his mind control methods, he has total control over ''everyone'' in the town of Black River. He orders a housewife to make love to him in front of her husband and son, and orders ''them'' to sit and watch. When they're interrupted by a boy who was not present for the mind control drugs and subliminal programming due to being away on a camping trip, Salsbury orders the family to kill the boy, then forget it. The hero of the story later finds Salsbury in the act of raping a woman with an automatic pistol. The hero and his family, after dealing with the problem, realize they must leave their home because they know the key phrase to activate the mind control, and don't want to even have the option as a temptation.
* ''Literature/TheOceanAtTheEndOfTheLane'': The narrator, as a child, witnessed his father having sex with Ursula Monkton, who was actually an EldritchAbomination in human form. She's still dissheveled and half-dressed when she realizes that he's snuck out of the house and flies off to confront him.

** Walter was abandoned as a boy in apartment 302, and begins to think it is his ''mother''. There is some nebulous information regarding his early adult life, but he graduates medical school and goes on his killing spree of the "21 Sacraments". Among ten of his first victims were a pair of twins, a boy and a girl -- the girl's body horribly mangled. Later, when he continues his killings, his 16th victim (who represents the in-game archetype of 'Temptation') is a SpicyLatina named Cynthia Velázquez, who wears a sexy blouse. When she dies, Cynthia's body is covered with stab wounds all over her. His next on screen female victim is Eileen Galvin (his 20th sacrifice, filling the archetype of 'Mother'), Henry's neighbour. Again, when Henry finds her in her apartment, she is wearing a purple party dress with a low backline, and badly hurt. The next time adult Walter appears, he is in a hospital room, rummaging through a female body's stomach/womb.
** As for Henry, he is rather isolated and recluse, living almost a hermit-like life in his room, which is commented on by his neighbours. This situation worsens when [[spoiler:Walter's very much alive ghost]] locks him inside the room. Throughout the game, Henry interacts with the world outside his apartment through the peephole, and finds a secret spying hole on a wall of his living room, which allows him to spy on his neighbour Eileen. When he meets Cynthia at the beginning of the game, she comes on to him, but he barely shows any reaction to her proposition. Later, when Henry goes to the hospital to rescue Eileen, he finds a large Eileen's head in one of the hospital rooms, and the player can hear some female moaning in the background.

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': In "Poltergasm", Francines's years of pent-up sexual frustration and dissatisfaction manifest as a spirit that haunts the house. Her problem is Stan no longer takes his time with her and doesn't let her climax. Once Stan fixes the problem, the spirit leaves after Francine has a thunderous orgasm.

* ''Series/BlackMirror'': In ''[[Recap/BlackMirrorShutUpAndDance Shut Up and Dance]]'', the main character, Kenny, gets his computer hacked and is unknowingly recorded while masturbating to Internet porn. [[spoiler he's then coerced into running various errands for the hackers under the threat of having the footage sent to everyone on his contact list, which eventually includes armed robbery where he holds the bank teller at gunpoint, not knowing the gun was fake, and fighting a man in the woods to the death. The man reveals the twist in the episode, Kenny wasn't trying to save himself from the embarrassment of being caught with his pants down, he was caught masturbating to child pornography and he only complied with the hackers to ensure he doesn't get exposed to the public. Kenny kills the man in the woods but the hackers upload the footage anyway, with the episode ending as a traumatized Kenny is arrested by the police.]]

* ''Series/TwinPeaks'': In series, as well as the film ''Film/TwinPeaksFireWalkWithMe'', the main mystery is the murder of all-American high school girl Laura Palmer, in the quaint little town of Twin Peaks. As FBI Agent Cooper delves further into the mystery and Laura's life, the viewer is shown a dark image of her: [[spoiler:she still ''is'' the typical blonde Homecoming Queen, but has been sexually abused by her father since early adolescence, and turns to drug addiction and sexual encounters as a result of the abuse. While her father is the one who abused her, he was under the influence of a diabolical entity named BOB -- yes, with capital letters -- and there is some doubt whether his actions were due to BOB's full possession, or if BOB influenced some hidden, dark part of Mr. Palmer to come to the forefront. Worse still, Palmer, possessed by BOB, raped and killed his own daughter]] -- the death that initiates the original series.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': The third act of the second movie, ''[[Recap/FuturamaM2TheBeastWithABillionBacks The Beast With A Billion Backs ]]'', has a giant tentacle monster named Yivo descend onto the universe and penetrate every living being with its tentacles, converting them all into a massive polyamorous relationship. While the phallic imagery is only implied at first, it becomes explicit right before the fourth act, when Leela (the only one to [[FinalGirl avoid the brainwashing]]) reveals the monster was secretly ''mating'' with the universe. However, the rest of the movie downplays the ImpliedRape as Yivo retracts shkler tentacles, focusing more on Yivo as symbolic of both heaven and a suspiciously idyllic polyamorous relationship.

-> ''"It's a way of talking about lust without talking about lust, he told them. It is a way of talking about sex, and fear of sex, and death, and fear of death, and what else is there to talk about?"''

* ''{{Manga/Berserk}}'':

---> '''Grant Morrison''': "Alert readers will perceive him as AIDS on two legs and realise that he represents the fear of what lies beyond the curtain in the Tunnel of Love. If we take all the encounters with villains as corresponding to various psychological states, then this one is Batman's fear of sexuality as something intrinsically unclean."

---> '''Grant Morrison''': "This Batman is a frightened, threatened boy who has made himself terrible at the cost of his own humanity. He is completely incapable of any kind of sexual relationship. He has made himself hard and domineering in order that he might never be hurt or abandoned again."

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

--> "Takes a lot of love for a person to do this".
* ''Film/{{Society}}'': This film mixes psychosexual imagery with visceral BodyHorror in its depiction of the rich: [[spoiler:who are eventually revealed to be a separate species living among humans that regularly performs "[[LovecraftianSuperpower shunts]]", grotesque orgies where members of high society twist themselves into horrifying networks of flesh and feast on the poor.]]

-->'''Janet:''' Last year we were in Tampa.
-->'''Maria:''' And we went as sexy nurses.
-->'''Danielle:''' No, Janet, Tampa was two years ago, I remember because you puked doing a guy in his pickup truck.
-->'''Janet:''' [[spoiler:[[{{Pun}} I ate some bad Mexican]]]], and it was a jeep.
-->'''Danielle:''' Last year was San Diego. We dressed as sailors and ended up with sailors.
-->'''Janet:''' Yeah, and Maria's sailor was a girl.
-->'''Maria:''' So what, she had a nice ass! [[spoiler:(''muttering'') [[ImAHumanitarian It all tastes the same to me anyway...]]]]

--> '''Carmilla:''' ''Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die, sweetly die--into mine. I cannot help it.''

[[/folder]]

* "Fifteen Painted Cards in a Vampire Tarot" is a series of vignettes about vampires, including the fact that vampires are a way of talking about lust without talking about lust, of talking about sex and fear of sex, and death and fear of death. There is also a scene where a young man goes missing and is found in the coffin of his fiance, and someone wonders how they both fit since the coffin was built for one and she was very visibly pregnant (and then someone remembers that she ''wasn't'' pregnant when she went ''into'' the coffin.)

* The film ''Ginger Snaps'' follows sisters Brigitte and Ginger whose lives are changed after Ginger is bitten by a werewolf and infected with the werewolf curse. Everyone brushes off Ginger's strange new behavior as a result of her simply "becoming a woman" but in reality it was something far sinister. The film uses a werewolf curse and lycanthropy as a metaphor for puberty and female menstruation. Not to mention the curse can be passed through unprotected sex and not just by being bitten.

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': In ''Poltergasm'', Francines's years of pent-up sexual frustration and dissatisfaction manifest as a spirit that haunts the house. Her problem is Stan no longer takes his time with her and doesn't let her climax, once Stan fixes the problem, the spirit leaves after Francine has a thunderous orgasm.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': In ''[[Recap/SouthParkS5E7ProperCondomUse Proper Condom Use]]'', the kids of South Park are forced to endure sex education after Stan unknowingly masturbates a dog as a trick in front of his family. However, Ms. Choksondik's scare tactics on unprotected sex and venereal diseases, and Mr. Mackey's incompetence instigate a gender war between the fourth-grade girls and the fourth-grade boys because Ms. Choksondik forgot to mention that sexually transmitted diseases can only be spread through unprotected sex, not regular physical contact. The lesson of the episode is that sex education is an uncomfortable but vital conversation that's best told from parent to child because you don't know how much of a bias educators can have.

-->-- Creator/NeilGaiman, ''Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders''

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* The titular creature of the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise is rife with Freudian imagery and was originally created as an explicit rape allegory. The facehugger phase of the creature has a vagina-like opening with a phallic proboscis that orally violates the victim. The chestburster itself is entirely phallic-shaped. [[spoiler: The adult phase features a similarly phallic head shape, and the way it kills Lambert is rife with sexual assault undertones.]]

* ''Film/GeraldsGame'': In this 2017 film, a woman, named Jessie, is chained to her bed as part of her husband, Gerald's, sexual fantasy. Unfortunately, Gerald dies of a heart attack after taking Viagra and Jessie is left trapped in the bedroom and chained to the bed. [[spoiler: Unbeknownst to Gerald, Jessie has a fear of intimacy and sex after her father sexually abused her when she was 12 and she drifted towards him because Gerald reminded her of her father.]]

* ''Film/{{It|2017}}'': Although it's done differently in the novel, Beverly Marsh's fear of puberty and her fear of being seen as sexually desirable are still present. She's bullied by the girls in school for being attractive and they spread rumors of her being promiscuous. [[spoiler: She's also aware that several adults and her own father seem attracted to her, which accumulates in her father trying to rape her and Beverly having to escape him by beating him unconscious with a toilet lid.]]

* In Alfred Hitchcock's ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' (1960), [[spoiler: Marion Crane gets murdered by Mrs. Bates (really a crossdressing Norman Bates) while taking a shower. The brutal murder itself has undertones of rape with the knife representing the male sex organ, the stabbing representing penetration, and the blood gushing representing ejaculation. The fact that she was murdered because Norman's attraction to her or any woman in general set off his jealous mother only adds to the horror.]] The film's third sequel ''Film/PsychoIVTheBeginning'' (1990) further reveals that [[spoiler: because of his mother's sexual abuse on him growing up, Norman hesitates whenever he tries getting physically intimate with any woman on a date and instead he kills her out of homicidal impulse due to his mother's domineering personality over him.]]

* ''Film/SleepawayCamp'': [[spoiler: In this 1983 horror movie, a girl called Angela is the sole survivor of a boat accident that kills her father and brother and she's sent to a summer camp. In the movie, Angela is revealed to be Peter, her brother, who was forced to adopt his better-received sister's identity by his adoptive aunt because she didn't want to raise another boy. As Angela, Peter is kissed by Paul and it reminds him of a time when he saw his father and his boyfriend Lenny after they had sex. Peter doesn't understand sex, never had the talk (or had the talk properly), and he doesn't understand the harmless nature of John and Lenny's relationship. These feelings are horrifying and deeply confusing for Peter and it causes him to go insane and murder people for mistreating him and for treating him as a girl.]]

* ''Literature/GeraldsGame'': In this ''Creator/StephenKing'' novel, Jessie is chained to a bed as part of a bondage game proposed by her husband, Gerald. However, after Gerald dies suddenly of a heart attack, Jessie is forced to find a way out. [[spoiler: During the story, Jessie is forced to confront her sexual trauma, which was that her father sexually abused her during a solar eclipse. She's been afraid of sex and intimacy ever since and subconsciously married Gerald because he reminded Jessie of her father.]]

* ''Series/TwinPeaks'': In series, as well as the film ''Film/TwinPeaksFireWalkWithMe'', the main mystery is the murder of all-American high school girl Laura Palmer, in the quaint little town of Twin Peaks. As FBI Agent Cooper delves further into the mystery and Laura's life, the viewer is shown a dark image of her: [[spoiler: she still ''is'' the typical blonde Homecoming Queen, but has been sexually abused by her father since early adolescence, and turns to drug addiction and sexual encounters as a result of the abuse. While her father is the one who abused her, he was under the influence of a diabolical entity named BOB - yes, with capital letters -, and there is some doubt whether his actions were due to BOB's full possession, or if BOB influenced some hidden, dark part of Mr. Palmer to come to the forefront. Worse still, Palmer, possessed by BOB, raped and killed his own daughter]] - the death that initiates the original series.

* ''VideoGame/OutlastII'': [[spoiler: The Stalker is a naked creature that represents Father Loutermilch's sexual abuse towards Jessica, whom he had been molesting repeatedly until she died of a broken neck when she fell down the stairs as she was trying to run away from him. Blake blamed himself for not acting on his suspicions or helping his friend during this time, and Loutermilch was never brought to justice since her death was framed as a suicide.]]

* ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose'' can be read as this. The player controls a girl in her late teens named Jennifer, who goes back to the orphanage where she spent her childhood. The game very much hinges on PsychologicalHorror and subtle hints as to what is happening, leaving the story up to the player's interpretation. However, the game ''does'' provide some elements of the genre: [[spoiler: there are hints that the orphanage's director sexually abused some of the female orphans]]; the antagonist shows a very possessive love for Jennifer; there are hints - nothing explicit - of a female-oriented sexual/romantic attraction between some of the orphans of the Aristocrats Club.

** Maria is a physical lookalike of James's wife Mary, which implies there is a connection between them before the events of Silent Hill. Unlike Mary, though, she acts extremely flirty and sultry towards James and dresses in a low-cut skirt and a top that slightly bares her midriff. [[spoiler: Later in the game, it's revealed that Maria is the incarnation of James' sexual frustration while Mary was bedridden due to her illness.]]
** [[spoiler: The Bubble Head Nurses are shambling, twitchy female figures wearing sexy nurse outfits that lurk in the dark hallways of Brookhaven Hospital. The nurses are designed to represent James Sunderland's own sexual urges during Mary's sickness, and their disfigured heads could be an allusion to Mary's own superficial deformities caused by her terminal disease.]]
** [[spoiler: A monster known as Abstract Daddy, which resembles two figures intertwined on a bedframe and covered in a layer of flesh, which represents Angela's history of sexual abuse at the hands of her father and brother.]]
* ''VideoGame/SilentHill3'': Heather [[spoiler: or Cheryl Mason]] is a girl in her late teens that gets caught up in the happenings of Silent Hill. The first boss of the game is called Splitworm: a very phallic-looking, purple, eyeless creature that splits open its head to reveal a fleshy interior and big teeth.

** Walter was abandoned as a boy in apartment 302, and begins to think it is his ''mother''. There is some nebulous information regarding his early adult life, but he graduates medical school and goes on his killing spree of the "21 Sacraments". Among ten of his first victims were a pair of twins, a boy and a girl - the girl's body horribly mangled. Later, when he continues his killings, his 16th victim (who represents the in-game archetype of 'Temptation') is a SpicyLatina named Cynthia Velázquez, who wears a sexy blouse. When she dies, Cynthia's body is covered with stab wounds all over her. His next on screen female victim is Eileen Galvin (his 20th sacrifice, filling the archetype of 'Mother'), Henry's neighbour. Again, when Henry finds her in her apartment, she is wearing a purple party dress with a low backline, and badly hurt. The next time adult Walter appears, he is in a hospital room, rummaging through a female body's stomach/womb.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': In ''[[Recap/SouthParkS5E7ProperCondomUse Proper Condom Use]]'', the kids of South Park are forced to endure sex education after Stan unknowingly masturbates a dog as a trick in front of his family. However, Ms. Choksondik's scare tactics on unprotected sex and venereal diseases, and Mr. Mackey's incompetence instigate a gender war between the fourth-grade girls and the fourth-grade boys because Ms. Choksondik forgot to mention that sexually transmitted diseases can only be spread through unprotected sex, not regular physical contact. The lesson of the episode is that sex education is an uncomfortable but vital conversation that's best told from parent to child because you don't know how much of bias educators can have.

* ''Silent Hill 4'': the plot's spotlight is shared between villain Walter Sullivan and Henry Townsend:

* ''Film/CherryFalls'' has this ''in spades'': the slasher is [[spoiler:a teacher named Leonard]], who is the product of rape between his mother and the local sheriff, while in high school. [[spoiler:Leonard]] is mistreated during his childhood and, as an adult, returns to the titular Cherry Falls, where they begin their killing spree, targeting only virgins, under the cross-dressing disguise of a younger version of their mother. After killing enough teens, the remaining student body decides to hold an orgiastic party where they can "lose their cherries", so they may not be targeted by the killer.

!!The description is a work in progress, help will be appreciated.