Basic Trope: An erection without good reason.
- Straight: Bob randomly gets a boner.
- Exaggerated: Bob's boner lasts for several hours.
- Downplayed: Bob's boner comes and goes, but since he brings no attention to it, no one notices.
- Justified:
- Bob just woke up; it's simply a hormonal response.
- Bob is taking vasodilators. (such as Viagra)
- Onset of puberty; his hormonal system is on the fritz.
- Inverted: Alice and Bob are having sex and for whatever reason(s) Bob can't achieve an erection.
- Gender Inverted: Alice's nipples are visible through her shirt.
- Subverted: It looks like Bob has a boner, but he was just using Pants-Positive Safety...
- Double Subverted: ... and then he got one anyway.
- Parodied:
- Bob has Pants-Positive Safety, and a bunch of people are staring at him. He reaches in...and pulls out a gun.
- Bob's erection is enormous.
- Zig Zagged: Bob looks like he has an erection in public, but it was really just him using Pants-Positive Safety. He removes his gun from his pants, and then appears to have an erection again, but it was actually just an extra magazine for his gun in his belt that shifted...and then he accidentally walks into a doorframe which causes him to pop an immediate boner.
- Averted: This issue is simply not dealt with.
- Enforced: "You know what's funny? Penises! What's funnier? Boners in public."
- Lampshaded: "Is that a gun, Or Are You Just Happy to See Me??"
- Invoked: Bob takes Viagra.
- Exploited: Bob realises that this is going to last a while, and takes advantage of it by getting it on with Alice.
- Defied: Bob wears a garment that will prevent erections and/or tries the Think Unsexy Thoughts method.
- Discussed: "Did you see Bob's presentation, or were you too distracted by his, ahem, 'problem'?"
- Conversed: "What's the big deal? Guys get erections...without them, we wouldn't be here!"
- Deconstructed:
- Since Finagle's Law dictates that this sort of thing will happen at the worst possible time, it can be embarrassing.
- Bob is worried that getting stiff at the wrong time could ruin his chances with Alice.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob plays it off so cooly everyone around him is the one embarrassed.
- Bob gets an inopportune boner right before Alice arrives, but the two of them laughing off this coincidence happens to break the ice between them.
- Played For Laughs: Bob gets an erection, and must make his way home without being seen...amid lots of hot girls and Freudian imagery.
- Played For Drama:
- Bob has priapism, and it becomes a medical emergency.
- Bob is in a Death Trap where if he gets hard, he dies. It's only a matter of time before his next erection.
- Played For Horror : Bob’s boner becomes a living nightmare for him, especially since it can be triggered by downright gruesome sights.
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