Basic Trope: A character can, for some reason over another, never have sex.
- Straight: Bob is the victim of an ancient curse that will kill him if he ever has sex.
- Exaggerated: The curse will kill everyone within a mile radius if he ever has sex, gets aroused, or even thinks about sex.
- Downplayed:
- Bob is cursed to only have sex with a woman in the missionary position, and he can't masturbate.
- Bob's curse will activate if he has sex more than once a day.
- Bob's curse will only activate if he has sex with his girlfriend, Alice.
- Bob's curse only gives him a temporary punishment every time he has sex.
- Justified:
- Prior to being cursed, Bob was a rapist. The curse was the perfect way to teach him a lesson.
- The curse is meant to ensure that Bob will never have children.
- The curse makes Bob's genitals disappear.
- Bob is an alien, so it makes sense that he and Alice biogically can't have sex.
- Inverted:
- The curse will activate unless Bob has sex every day.
- Curse doesn't cause any lethal consequence for Bob. instead passively eliminates his libido and pleasure mechanism. He has no interest or reward from sex, making him Asexual.
- Subverted: Bob has sex and there is no consequence...
- Double Subverted: ...however, he didn't release, so the technical requirement of the curse wasn't fulfilled.
- Parodied:
- Bob is a Catholic priest, but still complains at every opportunity about the curse.
- The "ancient curse" preventing Bob from having sex is just him being bald, overweight, unhygienic, overall crass and rude.
- Bob is known to be asexual. A ditzy witch still thinks dooming him to a sexless life is a brilliant punishment.
- Zig Zagged:
- The curse comes and goes; sometimes it is in effect, other times not.
- The curse only activates if Bob has sex with a woman who's an inch or more shorter than him... on a Tuesday. On Wednesdays, it'll activate if he so much as thinks about having sex, and other days of the week tend to have their own unusual variations.
- Averted: Bob's life of celibacy is not the result of a curse.
- Enforced:
- "We're not allowed to show sex in this work, but we can show a guy who really wants it but can't have it!"
- "We need an endless source of Unresolved Sexual Tension!"
- Lampshaded: "Well, we're alone in this hotel room with nothing to do..." "Stupid curse..."
- Invoked: Bob is an asexual in a place where males are derided for being virgins. Having an anti-sex curse is one of the few accepted reasons for being a male virgin, so Bob deliberately hurts Alice's feelings to make her cast such a curse on him.
- Exploited: The Vamp tempts Bob - and if necessary, refuses to take no for an answer - to make his curse activate.
- Defied: "Screw the curse. I need some lovin'."
- Discussed: "We can't steal that gold from the ancient Egyptian temple. We'll get cursed and then we can't have sex ever or we'll die."
- Conversed: "Why didn't I pay attention to that movie about anti-sex curses! Now I've been cursed too!"
- Implied: Bob is seen wanting to have sex, but for some reason can't. The reason why is never revealed.
- Deconstructed: The inability to have sex eventually takes an emotional and mental toll on Bob, as he's not asexual and really misses it.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob learns to accept it and tries to make the most of life without sex.
- Bob is asexual. So, the emotional and mental trauma are effectively non-existent to him, as he couldn't care less about sex anyway.
- Played For Laughs:
- Unparodied: The "curse" preventing Bob from having sex is just him being overweight and unhygienic. It turns out that Bob really was a handsome Nice Guy until a witch cursed him to be overweight and unhygienic, no matter how much he tries to shower and exercise.
Back to Can't Have Sex, Ever - you need something to distract you or else you'll start thinking about...you know.
