Basic Trope: Two people who have a sexual relationship end up genuinely falling in love with each other.
- Straight: Alice and Bob have been having casual sex for some time and they fall in love.
- Exaggerated:
- The morning after they've had sex with each other for the first time, they both realize they've fallen in love with each other.
- Right after they've finished, cleaned up, had their post-sex cigarettes, etc., Bob proposes to Alice.
- Downplayed:
- They have a sexual relationship, and end up liking each other.
- They only see each other nude before realizing, "Oh, I like them more than just this..."
- Justified:
- Both of them have attachment and/or intimacy issues and them having sex was actually them losing their virginities to each other.
- They are already in love with each other but each thinks that the other just sees them as a friend. So they both can't confess, but sleeping with each other was what was needed to give their relationship a push.
- Alice is a Hooker with a Heart of Gold, and Bob was her first client to treat and respect her as a person.
- They had sex around a time either one or both of them needed comfort very badly.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob, after falling in love with each other, start having sex.
- Alice and Bob, formerly a couple, break up after having sex.
- Alice and Bob realize they hate each other after sex.
- After he has sex with Alice, Bob is too disgusted with her to consider having a relationship with her. (Never mind that it takes two to tango!)
- Alice and Bob are from a Free-Love Future where anonymous hook-ups are the norm. Sex with a stranger is fine, since you never have to think about them again, but you show that you're in love with someone by not going to bed with them.
- Subverted:
- Either one of them was just deliberately toying with or manipulating the other's feelings towards them just to gain something out of it.
- They're just pretending to be in love with each other, for a number of reasons.
- It's later revealed that it really was supposed to be a one-time thing, but one of them gains a one-sided crush on the other, and just has been making up stories of the love in question, being mutual. And on top of that, said crush becomes a bit, err ... Unhealthy.
- Alice and Bob become Friends with Benefits.
- Double Subverted:
- ...until the manipulator realizes that not only is he or she really in love with the other, but that it's really heartless for them to do so and changes his or her ways.
- ...until they end up really falling in love with each other.
- They have a Relationship Upgrade.
- Parodied:
- Alice decides she's in love with Bob after he makes her climax.
- Bob decides he's in love with Alice because she let him have anal sex with her.
- After Alice and Bob do it, everyone else in the world turns into hideous monsters.
- Zig-Zagged:
- They constantly fall in and out of love with each other, sometimes for intercourse-related reasons, sometimes not.
- Alice and Bob resolve their Belligerent Sexual Tension through either very agressive sex or "hate-fucking." Afterwards, their dynamic is a Slap-Slap-Kiss one, with some moments that would make the audience go Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other.
- Averted: Anyone in the series who have casual sex are just Friends with Benefits.
- Alice and Bob are already in a relationship or married before the sex.
- Alice and Bob go their separate ways.
- Alice and Bob don't have sex In-Universe.
- Enforced: "We need to find an interesting way to make two characters fall in love with each other besides the cliché Meet Cute!"
- Lampshaded:Charlie: So what made you fall in love with Bob?
Alice: Well...uh...we did have great sex with each other...
Charlie: That's your reason?! - Invoked: After their friends learn about them having sex with each other, they start Shipping them. Some of them even try to set them up together in a date!
- Exploited:
- (Related to Subverted #1) One of them uses this trope to do all the manipulating.
- Rape and Switch
- And Now You Must Marry Me
- Bob is aware that Alice Desperately Craves Affection, with sex being one of the ways she can satisfy this craving. So he uses this to rope her into becoming his girlfriend, or in other words, someone he can use for his own gain and/or satisfaction.
- Defied:
- After having sex, they make and follow a strict, "No Strings Attached" rule.
- Alice and Bob go their separate ways. Alice and/or Bob doesn't even stay for breakfast.
- Discussed: "They're sleeping with each other? Yup, they're gonna fall in love."
- Conversed: "Why do characters fall in love with each other after having sex?"
- Deconstructed:
- Both realizing that they actually barely know anything emotionally intimate about each other and the reason why they fell in love in the first place starts to put a strain on their relationship.
- (related to Zig-zagged #2) Because of how volatile their relationship is and how sex is the only outlet and/or way they can properly express their feelings, Alice and Bob are caught in a Masochism Tango that tends to tip dangerously close to a Destructive Romance.
- Reconstructed:
- (related to Deconstructed #1)...but they decide either to go back to square one, then take it slowly, or actually get to know each other, and after doing so, they still find themselves in love.
- (related to Deconstructed #2) ...until they decide to resolve these issues, which results in a healthier relationship between the two.
- Implied:
- They become each other's Implied Love Interest after having sex.
- It's merely hinted that they slept together. Afterwords, love ends up blossoming between them.
- Played for Drama:
- Bob rapes Alice, leaving her (according to her society) Defiled Forever; no man will want her now that she isn't a virgin, and is considered unavailable to anyone else, because she'd be "damaged goods." What's more, in Alice's society, women traditionally don't work outside the home; they are dependent economically on their husbands. She is forced to marry Bob, even though she doesn't want anything to do with him.
- Bob believes he is entitled to a relationship with Alice now that she's had sex with him. When Alice says no, things get ugly.
Back to Sex Equals Love.
