Basic Trope: An antagonistic character is raped in a work, and the narrative itself acts as though the character deserved it.
- Straight: Bob is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who raped Alice. The film ends with him being raped in turn.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob is a murderer and a rapist, and the film he is in ends with him being gang-raped... and all the rapists have AIDS ... and the Designated Hero, Alice, watches from the sidelines while cheering and cracking tasteless jokes.
- Bob jaywalks on the street, only to get gang-raped moments later.
- Bob’s daughter is raped as a Revenge by Proxy.
- Bob ends up in an And I Must Scream "Groundhog Day" Loop of being raped.
- Bob is kidnapped by sex traffickers and kept as a Sex Slave.
- The Hard-Drinking Party Girl is raped while passed out, and everyone acts like she brought it on herself by "dressing provocatively" (read: not wearing her burka).
- Bob’s punishment in Hell is being raped by an entity so horrifying one would be Driven to Suicide after seeing it, for all eternity. However, Bob was a Complete Monster without any likable/redeeming qualities at all who did things For the Evulz, so everyone throws a party about it.
- Downplayed:
- While Bob never gets penetrated, he still gets fondled and/or sexually harassed.
- Bob is a Handsome Lech who sexually harasses his female coworkers and employees. When he is fired, he finds another job where he has to put up with his boss harassing him.
- Bob is a perverted prankster who tricks women into stripping naked in public and uploads nude photos of them online. In the end, his former victims strip and photograph him and post the pictures online.
- While Alice and the narrative treat the rape as deserved and she tells Bob as such, Alice still comforts Bob.
- An Alpha Bitch has nude photos of herself leaked onto the Internet and is bullied by her schoolmates.
- An Alpha Bitch is stripped naked by a prank during her valedictorian speech.
- Justified:
- Bob is forced to experience all his sins firsthand, making his rape no more notable than his other punishments.
- Bob was specifically targeted by someone seeking to punish him for being a rapist by making him experience his own pain.
- Inverted:
- Bob is raped, and the narration suggests that he deserves it. After that, Bob starts murdering people.
- Bob saves someone from being raped at the beginning. He is raped later on.
- Bob saves someone from being raped at the beginning. He is saved from being raped later on.
- Sexual Karma
- Subverted: Though Bob is a brute, Alice relishing the prospect of him being Prison Raped is shown in hindsight to have been the moment when she crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
- Double Subverted: ...that is, the moment she turned from an All-Loving Hero to a '90s Anti-Hero. The audience is still expected to root for her and treat her as justified.
- Parodied: For turning down an old lady trying to cross the street, Bob bumps into a group of people who proceed to gang-rape him. Onlookers cheer on the guys violating Bob, who deem them good Samaritans, and the local newspaper praises the gang-rapists for appropriating punishment onto evil ol' Bob.
- Zig-Zagged: At first Alice is horrified to see Bob raped, but then she decides it was Laser-Guided Karma. But this is the Start of Darkness for her and she ineluctably commits a Face–Heel Turn as a result of deciding Bob got a Karmic Rape. But what will make Alice see the error of her ways and change them? Being raped!
- Averted:
- All instances of rape are portrayed as horrific, regardless of who the victim is.
- No rapes occur at all.
- Enforced:
- The author doesn't believe in inalienable human rights.
- The author does believe in human rights ... and also believes that those who violate the rights of others forfeit their own in the process.
- Lampshaded: "If you end up conceiving a child, wouldn't a twisted guy like Bob feel rewarded instead?"
- Invoked:
- Alice, explicitly wanting Bob to realize how traumatic his actions were, makes him experience a realistic illusion of being one of his victims.
- The warden locks Bob in a cell with a notorious Prison Rapist and leaves them alone. When Bob screams for help, everybody ignores him.
- Exploited:
- Bob, desperate to get laid, commits rape-like crimes to provoke female anti-heroes into karmically and thematically punishing him.
- Justin is a Prison Warden who rapes his prisoners regularly. He justifies this to himself and to his guards by saying that his prisoners "deserve it", so nobody speaks up about it.
- Defied: Despite the fact that Bob raped and murdered several people, when he is about to be raped, Alice intervenes and saves him by knocking out the attacker.
- Discussed: "Bob hasn't committed any crimes since he was raped." "That's right, because he was raped to death."
- Conversed: "Why did they have Bob get raped? They squandered so much potential. Bob could have had a more natural Heel–Face Turn and it would've been a better story for it."
- Implied:
- Bob, last seen with a One-Gender Race of Blue-and-Orange Morality Succubi and Incubi, is later found complaining about his body healing over ... well ... it is never shown what actually happened.
- The Alpha Bitch loses a bet and has to be the slave of the nerds for a day. She is last seen reluctantly stripping naked in front of them.
- The Alpha Bitch gets drunk at a party. She wakes up the next day naked and horrified.
- The Alpha Bitch brags to everyone that she had sex with the Jerk Jock, which he denies. Two nerds snicker in the background, suggesting a Bed Trick.
- Played for Horror: Alice is Forced to Watch as Bob is raped; she's told watching it will be good for her, but they both have nightmares about it for the rest of their lives.
- Played for Laughs: As punishment for his various crimes, Bob is subjected to a Black Comedy Rape.
- Played for Drama: Alas, Poor Villain
- Deconstructed:
- Bob is shown as being horribly traumatized from his rape and is treated as a sympathetic victim despite his own actions, with the unsympathetic reactions of others marking them as hypocrites.
- People assume that all rape victims deserved it.
- Reconstructed: It's drilled into everybody from a young age that this punishment is only to be meted out in extreme cases, especially rape itself.
Back to Karmic Rape
