Basic Trope: An area of a town or city known for prostitution.
- Straight: Troperville has a street where there are a lot of brothels and strip clubs, pimps and streetwalkers waiting for business.
- Exaggerated: The entire town is like this.
- Downplayed:
- There is trade for sex, but the women also have (and use) other talents, and are marketed as entertainers. They may not even actually perform sexual favors for their clients. Or they might use the sexual favors to get more money even though it's not required or even technically allowed, or sleep with those they entertain outside of a business context.
- The entertainment district does contain brothels and strip clubs and all that, but other forms of entertainment are there too (even very family-oriented entertainment.)
- Justified:
- Troperville is a Vice City.
- Every business has a district, and that includes The Oldest Profession.
- The prostitution is religious prostitution in service to some deity or other
, and the "district" is more of a temple with priestesses or priests who engage in ritual sex with worshippers, among other priestly duties. - Giving it a designated district makes it easier to control than by fully outlawing it
- Inverted: The Old Town historical section is the only left place in the city that isn't filled with thinly veiled brothels, seedy motels, and streetwalkers.
- Subverted: Only one prostitute is seen regularly working this street, and she may even be seen elsewhere.
- Double Subverted: But she reports back to a pimp or madame who lives nearby
- Parodied:
- Names of places seen on this street: "Whorefucks," "Slut in the Box," etc., all with logos parodying those of well-known chain stores and fast-food places.
- The district caters to not only horny humans... But their dogs as well.
- The prostitutes are all painfully ugly and fat
- Zig Zagged: Main Street's appearance changes greatly based on the economy and moods of the era. Some times it is merely seedy, other times squeaky clean, apparently legitimate but well disguised, or too busy with other legitimate mercantile activity for prostitution.
- Averted:
- Prostitution is not restricted to one particular place in this setting.
- May not even happen in this particular setting, either because everyone considers such an act unthinkably sinful or the idea of paying someone for such services is a completely foreign concept.
- Enforced: "We need something to show that this is a Vice City or Wretched Hive."
- Lampshaded: "Sure are a lot of hookers around here..."
- Invoked: Lots of prostitutes hang out on a street, probably not far from other forms of entertainment, where they can more easily find customers.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Moralists in the area rapidly force such activities out.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: May be a Crapsack World ridden with disease... And angry pimps and/or clients who abuse the prostitutes. Some of the prostitutes may, tragically, be minors.
- Reconstructed: No child prostitutes, everyone does "business" fairly and treats everyone fairly well, and use of condoms is de regeur, if not actually required. (Especially if prostitution is actually legal in this setting.)
- Played for Laughs: Drunken Montage
- Played for Drama: A Disposable Sex Worker is killed.
Back to Red Light District.
