Living Aphrodisiac

Lady Sif: Lorelei bends and shapes the will of men to her own purpose.
May: Only men? Her powers don't work on women?
Sif: No. Men have an inherent weakness we do not share... The mere sound of her voice can ensnare most. For the rare man who can resist, it's her voice joined by her touch that will overpower his will.

— Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., "Yes Men"

You're in a Science Fiction and/or military universe. An extraordinarily hot chick shows up. Your base is now in complete disarray because everybody is suddenly trying to do the horizontal lambada.

This sudden rush of hormones and pheromones is generally due to the fact that The Vamp is the episode's Monster of the Week and is using the good guys' sex drives to distract them from her dastardly plan. She usually does this in secret, but if her pheromones are strong enough, the heroes can know exactly what's going on and not care.

Sometimes, Vampires Are Sex Gods is a supernatural effect and used to lure Muggles to the dinner table. Succubi and Incubi are also fond of just straight-up enchanting their victims supernaturally before sucking out their soul. Oftentimes this is a tool in a Literal Maneater's arsenal so that she can more easily seduce a man and eat him alive.

This trope is when Love Is in the Air is caused by the presence of an alien or fantastic creature, and works like a more passive version of Aliens Made Them Do It. It's generally a first-season ploy by sci-fi shows to get ratings through Fanservice. For the single-target version, see Pornomancer. Also Not Right in the Bed. May lead to Happiness in Mind Control.

Interestingly, most characters with this power will not use it to actually have sex with their victims, preferring instead to just use it as a tool of manipulation. ("If you truly love me, bring me Captain Hero's head on a platter, sweetie.") It's not always clear whether this is due to the villain having a tiny shred of morality, or censors not wanting the story to go there, but any villain that does use this power to take sexual advantage of others would be a rapist and considered particularly vile.

Examples of this trope only targeting cis-straight people of the opposite sex can lead to Fridge Logic over how these powers would affect LGBTQ+ people. Would a queer woman be just as susceptible to Poison Ivy as a man? Could a gay or asexual man laugh off her pheromones and knock her flat? Etc. This is more likely to be addressed in stories from the 2000s and later.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Diamond Cut Diamond has the esper Yodogimi with the ability to use a pheromone-like smell labeled Temptation. It seduces all men in close vicinity that inhale it. She can make them do whatever she tells them to. It only works on men, which actually becomes a plot point multiple times.
• Sakie Satou of Interviews with Monster Girls is a succubus. By her very nature she causes men to be attracted to her. This actually causes Sakie a lot of problems, since she just wants to lead a normal life. For example, she's reluctant to pursue love because she can never be sure if the other party is interested in her or if it's just her effect on them. Sakie is also forced to live in a remote area with no one else around because, while she can control it to a point with tricks like dressing as unattractively as possible, she has no control over her power when she sleeps, which can cause obvious problems were she to live in an apartment building. The only one she's seen unaffected by her natural attractions is Takahashi, who really just has amazing self-control and manages to hold himself back until she's out of sight.
• In Killing Bites, Brute Civet has the ability to disperse pheromones into her surrounding area. Not only does it cause intense feelings of lust in the victims, it also causes them to temporarily Feel No Pain.
• The Sailor Moon character Minako (AKA Sailor Venus) is a downplayed example. Her mere presence causes couples to form, although availability and some degree of latent attraction between the people involved is required. It doesn't work for her, though, which exacerbates the pain of every romantic relationship she's ever had ending in the most tragic, shameful way(s) possible. Sometimes the ability even causes boys she's interested in to fall for others instead.

Comic Books

• Batman: Poison Ivy has this as one of her powers. Her powerful floral toxins are often secreted from her lips and administered via a kiss. She can use her powers through any skin contact, but enjoys doing it via a kiss. Some versions of her can release these pheromones in the air as well.
• Daredevil: Mr. Fear specializes in pheromones that cause... well, fear. However, he once experimented with others, including one that makes men irresistible to women, and used it to try to convince Betty Brant to kill Spider-Man. Seeing as he tends to be an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, it didn't turn out too well.
• Desolation Jones: Emily Crowe underwent an experiment to augment her pheromone production, but it backfired and she now triggers fear and revulsion in everyone she meets.
• Lady Death: In The Rapture, Lady Death is beset by two agents, one representing Hell and the other representing Heaven, who seek to sway her to their respective sides. While the Hell representative, Demonatrix, tries to use brute force to make Lady Death join the forces of Hell, the Heavenly agent, Aquiessence, instead tries to use her natural beauty and intoxicating scent to seduce the death goddess. It works for a brief moment before Lady Death snaps out of it and promptly defeats Aquiessence and Demonatrix both.
• Several characters in Marvel Comics can induce lust as a main or secondary power. Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) has an involuntary version, while Starfox (Eros), the Mandrill and Daken have similar but controllable abilities. The Purple Man is widely despised, even by many other villains, because he uses his broader mind-control abilities to accumulate sex slaves.
• The Mighty Thor: Amora the Enchantress uses her magic primarily for seducing and manipulating males.
• Relative Heroes: The heroine Allure has this power. It is something of a Cursed with Awesome situation as she cannot control the desire she inspires in others.
• The Zeltrons from Star Wars (Marvel 1977) are red-skinned near-humans who have Pheromones, emotion-affecting abilities, and attraction to Force-Sensitives.
• Sweet 16, a sometime ally and sometimes foe of Teen Titans and Young Justice, has the power of pheromone manipulation: making males fall in love with her and do whatever she wants.
• Vampirella has the "Aspect of Lilith" which allows her to control men by instilling fear and lust in them. She is a rare heroic version of this trope and doesn't use it often.
• Zatanna: Everyday Magic: Evil Sorceress Nimue uses a lot of spells and charms to make herself supernaturally irresistible to men, making her seduce even someone like Constantine, who would usually have the common sense to see through her obvious Honey Trap scheme.

Fan Works

• A Mark Of Appeal: Joyous Release's malfunctioning cutie mark magic causes any sapient being who spends more than a few seconds in her presence to be consumed with near-irresistible sexual desire towards her, which persists for weeks after she is no longer present. This is explicitly shown to override normal sexual orientation and bypasses species barriers (though it fortunately doesn't seem to work on non-sapient species).
• In A Starstruck, Phantasmic Romance, Ghosts from the Ghost Zone can cause Tamaranians to be more emotional. Because they think he's cute, Danny unintentionally causes Starfire and Blackfire to be very attracted to him.

Film — Live-Action

• The nude vampire Space Girl from Lifeforce (1985) is very beautiful, but the extent to which her victims became helpless, infatuated wrecks when confronted with her implies there is more to her allure than just appearance. One of the doctors who survived an encounter describes her as "the most overwhelming feminine presence I've ever encountered". In the case of one of the male protagonists, his obsession with the Space Girl is explained by her taking the form of the perfect woman from his subconscious desires.
• The bad girl in the movie Night Angel is Lilith. After waking up from her slumber, she goes on a rampage supernaturally seducing and killing people left and right. She gets nearly the entire staff of a glam magazine to completely fawn over her (including the female editor) and one guy affected by her spell even shoves his foot through a broken glass door to get near her.
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture had Ilia, a Deltan who emits sexual pheromones that can create reactions in other species. Unfortunately you'd have to read the novelisation to realise why men are acting strangely around her, as this is never mentioned in dialogue.

Literature

• Dutch author Tais Teng's book Dode Ogen (Dead Eyes) features an Evil Sorcerer with an entourage of supernatural servants. One of these is a stunningly beautiful girl who embodies lust, to the point where the sorcerer himself is almost tempted to give up his immortality to lie with her. He mentions that she was actually a Mongolian prostitute who died of AIDS before he performed a ritual that turned her into a succubus-like being.
• People do get "in the mood" during dragon mating flights in the Dragonriders of Pern series. All dragons have vast psychic power; so during a mating flight, their feelings influence anyone near them. This fact of life is why Weyrfolk have such a relaxed attitude towards sexual relations - it's unreasonable to expect people to remain chaste until marriage when they are frequently exposed to a Living Aphrodisiac over the course of their lives.
  • The smaller ancestors of the dragons, Fire Lizards, also have this effect but to a much lesser extent.
  • Gold dragons and gold and green fire lizards also have this effect on each other, with sometimes fatal consequences. The males are triggered to a mating flight by a female's heat, and if a non-broody female is in the area when a mating flight happens, she may be triggered into her own heat and fight the first female for possession of the males.
• In The Dresden Files, vampires of the White Court can have this effect on humans in proximity. Whether or not they can control it is another matter entirely. Thomas in particular has a lot of trouble simply holding down a job, since he keeps getting assaulted by the amorous attentions of his coworkers, at which point the Double Standard kicks in and he gets fired because his bosses assume he started it. Their blood has a similar effect, "disabling" a pair of Harry's werewolf allies after they attack one.
• The Veela in Harry Potter have this effect on men. It's never exactly clarified whether male veela exist or what effect they have on women, but it's presumed they exist since Fleur Delacour, the most prominent veela character is identified as being part-veela.^note This may simply be an error on Harry's part, however, since he's the only one who describes her as such. Fleur herself explicitly states that her grandmother was a veela; it's a strand of this grandmother's hair which forms the core of Fleur's wand. This means that Fleur is at least one-quarter veela, but it remains unknown whether she's more than that.
• In Heaven Official’s Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu, Land of Tender are demonic Man-Eating Plant People that use their literal Sex Pollen to feed on humans through sex. The modified fruits that Land of Tender use to feed can take on the form of a person to whom their target is strongly attracted. During the Xianle-Yong'an war, Yong'an forces try to use a field of Land of Tender to neutralize Xie Lian's Virgin Power. He manages to escape.
• In Hidden Legacy, heroine Catalina Baylor has a class of magic classified as Siren; basically, whenever she doesn't keep her power tightly leashed, everyone within sight of her person or the sound of her voice instantly loves her. It isn't sexual, meaning anyone is vulnerable to it. But it's a double-edged sword in several ways; first, everyone enthralled by her will do anything she asks, but this rapidly grows to the point where her thralls will fight to possess her, to the point where they will literally tear her to pieces to have a lock of her hair. This did in fact happen to one of her ancestors. There's only a few people in her world naturally immune to her magic (including her eventual Love Interest); primarily her family, because 'we already love her as much as we possibly can'. Catalina was stolen several times as a child (including by the nurse who delivered her) to the kidnapper's ruin, even though it wasn't actually their fault. As a teen and young adult, Catalina is deeply shy and insecure, both because she never knows if someone likes her for herself or her power, and because she knows that her power can ruin people's lives through no fault or flaw of their own if she doesn't intend any harm.
• InCryptid: Elsie and Artie are Lilu, better known to humans as succubus (female) and incubus (male). They naturally give off pheromones that attract humans of the opposite sex (other than blood relatives, who are immune^note Elsie and Artie have a human mother and an incubus father). This is a problem, since Elsie is a lesbian but keeps unintentionally attracting men who notice her pheromones, while Artie has even less control over his pheromones, to the point that he's a Hikikomori by necessity. If he ever leaves the house, he wears cologne strong enough to destroy the sense of smell of anyone in a ten-foot radius, since otherwise his pheromones would be overpowering to any female he's not related to. Part of the reason he's in love with his (adopted) cousin Sarah is that she's not human^note Not even a mammal, possibly not of this dimension even, and so she's the only non-relative his age who he has no effect on.
• Played straight with every single one of the Fairies in The Mirrorworld Series. Jacob ends up "spending the night" with his ex-lover Miranda, even though he's rapidly running out of time to save his brother.
• In the Ringworld novels by Larry Niven, "vampires" are a nearly mindless branch of the Pak (ancestors of humans, and also of every humanoid species on the Ringworld) that secrete pheromones which are "close enough" to affect all other Pak-descendants (it's implied there are some hallucinogenic properties as well). The pheromone-fueled orgy that follows serves as a distraction to allow the vampires to feed.
• In the erotic comedy Rock 'n' Roll Babes From Outer Space by Linda Jaivin, the Nufonians have this effect the moment they land on Earth, causing men and women to start making out with each other even if they're of the same sex (though as the Nufonians have landed in Sydney's Oxford Street that's hardly unusual). It's mentioned that while the Nufonians no longer had temples put up to them, they could still make an impression.
• In So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, the mythical Fuolornis Fire Dragons are said to have had this effect:
  There is, for some unfathomed reason, something almost unbearably sexy about having huge fire-breathing magical dragons flying low about the sky on moonlit nights which were already dangerously on the sweet and fragrant side... No sooner would a flock of half a dozen silk-winged leather-bodied Fuolornis Fire Dragons heave into sight across the evening horizon that half the people of Brequinda were scurrying off into the woods with the other half, there to spend a busy breathless night together and emerge with the first rays of dawn all smiling and happy and still claiming, rather endearingly, to be virgins, if rather flushed and sticky virgins. Pheromones, some researchers said. Something sonic, others claimed.
  • And then the text goes on to say that the Fuolornis Fire Dragons might as well clock off early this evening, because Arthur Dent and his new girlfriend don't particularly need any extra encouragement at the moment.
• Michael in the Star Shards Chronicles has this ability when possessed by his parasite. Women are preternaturally attracted to him, no matter the age gap or marital status of said woman (he is introduced to the story when another main character walks in on him making out with a teacher at school). There is a downside, however: if he has sex, then his parasite will devour his partner's soul. And his sex drive is constantly set for maximum due to the parasite's influence.
• The Novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture explains that Ilia has this effect on humans. The movie itself just makes it look like Sulu has the hots for bald chicks.
• The Falleen from Shadows of the Empire are reptilian humanoids with much more powerful "date-rape" pheromones. (The Big Bad of the novel, Prince Xizor, is a member of this species; he has only partial success using this ability on Leia.)
• Who Needs Enemies: The short story "The Dark Light Girl" features a town whose children have luminescent, firefly-like skin as a side effect of nearby nuclear testing. In addition to glowing, they also make almost anyone who looks at them feel an overpowering sense of lust (which is why their families are afraid to entrust them to scientists who can potentially cure them but might also succumb to urges to sexually abuse them).

Live-Action TV

• Lorelei in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is an Asgardian that can make men fall in love with her by voice or touch. Most of her victims think they're in love with her, but her control is so great that even when the victim knows who she is and is aware that they're being brainwashed, they'll be so overwhelmed by her spell that they won't even care, as was the case with Agent Ward. When SHIELD went to hunt her down and rescue him, they made certain to only send female operatives.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer had one in "Teacher's Pet", that could turn into a huge praying mantis. It took a while for Xander to recover from that one.
• The Imperfects: Abbi is a Succubus whose pheromones make people attracted to her.
• Alisha on Misfits has this as her superpower; she's able to drive anyone she touches into a state of lust. This is treated as Blessed with Suck, though, as she can't even carry on a proper relationship with her boyfriend unless she wants to risk things entering rape territory.
• Mutant X: Lorna (Krista Allen) the Villain of the Week in "Deadly Desire", had her DNA spliced with that of a scorpion before she was born by Genomex. As a result, she can sprout deadly stingers from her wrists and release a pink pheromone gas from neck pores which cause men to become obsessed with her.
• The New Adventures of Robin Hood: In "Godiva", Little John and Friar Tuck go to a nearby village to organise an engagement party, but become trapped by Godiva, a sorceress and former apprentice of Olwyn. She is seeking revenge on Robin, whom she loves, but who imprisoned her in a tree years previously. Godiva captures Robin, and tries to seize power in the land. It is up to the women to rescue Robin and defeat Godiva, since they are immune to her attractions.
• The Orville has Darulio, a rare male example. His species of Rubber-Forehead Aliens secretes pheromones that works on other species as well, causing them to become romantically obsessed with them. This worked on both Kelly and Ed Mercer, although it's further complicated in that he claims it's something he can't control (the pheromones are not being secreted around the clock), and his people's customs mean it would be insulting for him to turn down an offer of sex. The pheromones were also unintentionally transferred to the alien blob Yaphit, causing Dr. Finn to throw herself at him.
• Smallville: Desirée Atkins, the Freak of the Week of "Heat", qualifies. She uses her powers to enslave men to her will, marry the rich ones and then manipulating another one into killing her husband so she can inherit their money. At one point, she implies that her Start of Darkness was because on the evening of the meteor shower when her power became active, her boyfriend was ripped apart and she was gang-raped by a group of teenage boys who were the first victims of said power, before she learned to focus it. Curiously, she is played by the very same actress from the Mutant X example!
• An episode of Special Unit 2 deals with a Link who emits powerful pheromones when scared (it's stated that Links like that are the inspiration for the Cupid myth). He ends up doing it outside a courthouse, and the pheromones (besides causing everyone around him to start making out with strangers) cause a Hanging Judge to suddenly start letting hardened criminals go free. The team has to find the Link and get him to undo the effect on the judge before a high-profile criminal is set free.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • In the episode "Hathor", a Goa'uld who has taken over the role of the Egyptian goddess of Fertility, Music, and Inebriation finds her way into SG-1's base and turns every man there into crush-addled slaves via some unknown brew of pheromones and other stuff before using Daniel's DNA (and by "using Daniel's DNA," we mean "making him have sex with her while under her mind control gas") to father her children.
  • A brand of the stuff that skips the romance part is used in other Goa'uld's arsenals, such as Seth's for example. One whiff is apparently enough to brainwash someone indefinitely until it can be counteracted, usually by electric shock.
• Star Trek:
  • In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Bound", the famous Orion slave girls make an appearance, and are somehow able to give all the Earth women headaches and all the men hard-ons. Later, the Orion captain admits that men like him are actually the slaves to these women. Fortunately, Mindlink Mates T'Pol and Trip are immune and so help take back the ship.
  • Even in their introductory episode, Star Trek: The Original Series's "The Cage", the green animal women of Orion are said to be irresistible to any human male. One dances for Captain Pike in a Lotus-Eater Machine fantasy, driving the noble Starfleet captain to a frenzy.
  • The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Perfect Mate" has a metamorph. She is a woman who, through deep empathy, is able to automatically become the perfect mate to any male. To say the very least, it is rather distracting to the men on board, including Captain Picard. It's not solely sexual, since she takes on the likes/dislikes/ideal attitudes for each man's ideal mate, but has the same effect.
  • In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Lwaxana Troi briefly became this in "Fascination" after contracting some kind of Betazoid disease that spreads her unrequited feelings for Odo to everyone around her on Deep Space Nine, turning latent attractions into all-consuming desire.
• In the Supernatural episode "Sex and Violence", Sam and Dean are investigating a rash of murders committed by the victims' loving husbands or sons. They discover that a Siren is taking the form of each man's ideal woman, posing as a stripper, using her saliva to drive them crazy with love, and manipulating them into murder. However, things take a turn when the Siren takes the form of a man and tries to get Dean to kill Sam.
• True Blood
  • Maryann has this effect on everyone around her. She's a maenad, a follower of Dionysus, and almost a god in her own right. She uses the orgies she creates around her to disguise her real intention: bringing Dionysus into physical form.
  • All fullblooded faeries are this for vampires. Their smell alone can drive a vampire wild.
• The X-Files:
  • The monster in the episode "Genderbender" is this, seducing its prey with human pheromones, killing them with sex, and assuming their identity.
  • And Jade Blue Afterglow, from the episode "First Person Shooter" who was a stunningly gorgeous suspect in a murder case was also played by Krista Allen from the Smallville and Mutant X examples above. She comes in for questioning in a tiny leather camisole/skirt combo, and every male in the precinct goes insane.
    Mulder: [after watching Jade Blue Afterglow saunter down the hall] I don't know about you, Scully, but I am feeling the great need to blast the crap out of something.

Tabletop Games

• Guardian parahumans in GURPS Bio-Tech have a combination of sex pheromones and dominance pheromones. They're specifically designed to be masters of normal humans.
• In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Werewolves have an innate ability known as "Animal Attraction" that lets them inspire lust in a target of their choosing. The purpose of this ability is to speed up reproduction, since the only way Werewolves in this setting can increase their numbers is the old-fashioned way. Later editions of the game have tried to make the ability less rapey, by claiming it won't work on someone with an Incompatible Orientation, if the target is spoken for and monogamous, or if they simply are not into the character that way. Unfortunately this just leads to "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization.

Video Games

• According to the backstory for Darkstalkers, Makai's succubi, including Morrigan and Lilith, are able to magically generate intense and spontaneous lust in mortal humans (though how much this is magic and how much of them being Hot as Hell in Stripperiffic outfits is up for debate). Also, their bodily fluids cause instant death.
• "Idunna, the Exotic Wonder of the East" is a prostitute working at the Blooming Rose in Dragon Age II. She uses blood magic to enthrall people to provide information, obey her commands, and even kill themselves if their existence is inconvenient; she's been using it as part of a plot to overthrow the Templar Order in Kirkwall. And yes, she can use it to make them sleep with her too. Hawke, however, is able to break free of her enchantment (either on their own or with the help of a mage companion), which scares the life out of her.
• Larvae in Vangers are this to Bios. Immortal, wormlike creatures originally used by Crispo, insectoid predecessors of Bios, to control the Hive Mind, were eventually forgotten after the Bios have managed to seal themselves away from Crispo. It is not clear if they can even work on humans, but for Bios, they are exactly this trope; the fact that even the dirt drenched by their pheromones is a Fantastic Drug for Bios says something.

Visual Novels

• In Ookamikakushi, Hiroshi Kuzumi is what's called a "Temptation" — emitting a powerful scent that causes the Kamibito to lose control of their bestial instincts and try to forcibly kiss him.

Webcomics

• Female Orcs in Bloomin Faeries have natural aphrodisiac saliva, this is needed for male Orcs to mate with them since female Orcs are (normally) considered to be very unattractive even by their own species standards.
• Keychain Of Creation: Marena's Dusk Caste gives her animal-based superpowers, including a pheromone aura so powerful that it can sabotage machines. But then, it's also strong enough to turn straight demigods into fawning boytoys.
  Marena: Has some side effects.
• Mr. Boop: Betty Boop seemingly can't go anywhere without everyone around her thinking about how hot she is.
• In Steel City Moon, werewolves release pheromones that make them incredibly attractive to the opposite sex the day before they transform. (And possibly more attracted, considering the amount of PG-rated Male Gaze that coincides with this.) To his credit, Justin tries to avoid girls when this is happening, though Rule of Drama/Rule of Funny naturally won't allow it.
• In Unfamiliar, this is what Bab’s siren powers naturally does. They end up drawing a lot of unwanted attention to herself. Babs can also manipulate others into doing what she wants through this power, although it’s established she hates using it.

Web Original

• Deconstructed in one of the files of the SCP Foundation, the Teenage Succubus, which shows what happens when a person both doesn't want such powers and can't get rid of them. Turns out, being a walking supernatural sex bomb turns little things like her "consent" or "well-being" into a non-issue. Her powers are so strong that any guy that even sees the succubus loses all mental control and tries to force themselves on her on the spot. Considering she's training to be a nun, she isn't exactly fond of all this horrible attention, and her containment procedures state that under no circumstances are male guards allowed into her containment complex.

Western Animation

• In Star Trek: Lower Decks, Brad unknowingly becomes this when infected with an alien parasite. Oddly though, it only seems to affect one person, possibly just amplifying an attraction that already existed.
• Ms. Heed from Villainous initially just had the power to vaporize liquids, but after stealing Love Potion research from Mad Scientist Dr. Flug she turned herself into one of these and became a Bad Influencer who used her power to enslave an entire city.
• On Young Justice (2010), Queen Bee has the power to control "most men and some women." Word of God confirms that it's pheromones based on sexual attraction.

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