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{{trope}}
{{quote|''Let me explain the lore here, okay? They suffer, they fight. That's business as usual. They get groiny with each other, the world as we know it falls apart.''
|'''Cordelia''' from ''[[Angel]]'', about Buffy and Angel's relationship.}}
{{quote|''So you have to decide between a life without sex, or a gruesome death? Tough call.''|'''Phillip J. Fry''', ''[[Futurama]]''}}
[[Alice and Bob]] are in love. However, thanks to a [[Curse]], [[Curse Escape Clause]], [[Applied Phlebotinum]], [[Clingy Costume]], or some other kind of mystical reason, or practical reason, the two of them
Some couples will try to break the curse, find a cure for the disease or try to otherwise circumvent whatever is keeping them from consummating the relationship, but due to [[Rule of Drama]], [[Finagle's Law]] and [[Status Quo Is God]], [[Failure Is the Only Option]] in many such cases.
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Contrast with [[Asexuality]], which is more like Don't Want Sex, Ever.
{{examples}}▼
{{noreallife|this is All The Tropes, not Tropes After Dark.}}
== Anime & Manga ==▼
▲{{examples}}
* ''[[Chobits]]'' uses this as a source of drama: penetrative intercourse with Chii will activate her reset mechanism and erase all her memories, destroying her feelings of love in the process.
** The manga version, anyway. In the anime, it's more vague, but apparently [[If It's You It's Okay|"only the one who is just for me can ''ever'' come inside."]]
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* ''[[My Balls]]'': The premise is that a guy had a superpowerful demon sealed in his right testicle, so he has to avoid having sex or ejaculating in any way for a month, or [[Horny Devils|she]] will be released and destroy the world. This is the cue for every hottie in Hell to come banging on his door.
* In ''[[Yuria 100 Shiki]]'', Yuria is a [[Sex Bot]] programmed to become the unquestioning love-slave of the first person to insert the proper hardware, something she'd prefer not to happen. The alternative is no sex at all. She's a [[Sex Bot]] programmed to have sex...
* Vaguely used in ''[[Black Bird]].'' {{spoiler|Later on both Misao and Kyo are given permission because of a curse Kyo receives. For whatever reason, if they don't have sex, Kyo ''dies.''}}
* ''[[Fruits Basket]]'': Many members of the Sohma family transform into animals from the Chinese Zodiac if they come into contact with someone of the opposite sex, though the series is never more specific than 'hugging'.
** Shigure mentions this in the explanation to Tohru, saying that since hugs cause the transformations, sex is very awkward. It's also worth noting that as Kagura demonstrates, other Zodiac members don't cause a transformation.
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** M. Alice LeGrow is adorably naïve if she expected such a ploy to actually work.
* While they couldn't mention anything explicit given the age of their target audience, [[GaoGaiGar|Cyborg Guy]]'s relationship with his girlfriend is visibly strained by the fact that the only flesh and blood part left of him is his head.
== Comics ==
* ''[[
* ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (
* [[Superman]], or at least certain interpretations of him. Check out the infamous [[Larry Niven]] essay "[http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex]".
** Brody expands upon this topic in ''[[Mallrats]]'', to Stan Lee's amusement.
** However, Superman is currently married to Lois in the comics; they share a bed and they've been shown after sex multiple times. The most likely explanation is that Superman has some control over the force of his ejaculation.
** TV series ''[[Smallville]]'' actually addressed this issue. Clark and Lana only slept together when Clark was depowered or when Lana was empowered (temporarily). In a much later episode, Clark explains that his Kryptonian "training" from the AI reconstruction of his father included learning "control" when Chloe expressed concern regarding Clark's romantic involvement with her cousin.
** Often [[
** This was very likely the reason he had to lose his powers to be with Lois in ''[[Superman II]].''
** In some versions, like ''[[Lois and Clark]],'' this trope isn't a problem at all; but even so, he and Lois are shown to be unable to have children because he is, technically, not human
* ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X Men]]'' comics have many mutants have a mutation that makes sex impossible. Examples include Rogue and Wither, who respectively hurt or kill whatever living things they touch. Their partners would effectively need full body condoms.
** Wither's case reeks of [[Idiot Ball]] as his power only affects organic matter and there are more than enough inorganic
** In Rogue's case, the problem wasn't insurmountable: there have always been characters immune to Rogue's absorption power (e. g. the Avengers' Wonder Man in her debut story) and also quite a few who could protect themselves through their own powers (e. g. Magneto in the [[Age of Apocalypse]]) or through a machine (e. g. the apparatus Joseph built as a Christmas present). Another way out was exposing Rogue to the powers of mutants (e. g. Leech) or machines (e. g. the one used in the "love grotto" story in UXM #350) or mystical devices (e. g. the Siege Perilous) that can strip mutants of their powers, at least temporarily. In any case, with some help from Professor X and Danger Rogue finally learned to control her absorption power and now can have sex if she wants. {{spoiler|Which she eventually did in ''X-Men Legacy'' #249 with Magneto.}}
* [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|The Thing]] has had several lovers since his transformation (The main ones being [[Blind and the Beast|Alicia Masters]] and Debbie Green) and this has been addressed a few times. The ([[Depending on the Writer|overall]]) interpretation is that he can't have sex because he lacks genitalia, and [[Word of God|Stan Lee himself]] has said that he never really thought about how the Thing could have sex being a giant rock-covered dude and didn't really consider it important in the first place.
* In [[The DCU]], Heatstroke and Coldsnap are lovers who are members of the villain team the Masters of Disaster. Their motivation for committing crimes is to earn enough money to find a cure for their '[[Blessed with Suck|condition]]' that prevent them from touching.
* [[The Darkness|Jackie Estacado]] had this problem ever since he turned 21 and acquired his powers (and takes his frustration out on mob goons using Darklings and actually dropping a rabid one down in a [[Groin Attack|Mafia Boss's pants]]) until they went autopilot and humped an unconscious [[Witchblade (Comic Book)|Sara Pezzini]]. Usually bearers of the Darkness are male and when a baby boy is born the current owner drops dead. Luckily for Jackie, Sara gave birth to a girl
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* Played for laughs in ''[[The Awesome Slapstick]]'', when protagonist Steve Harmon is thrilled that high school beauty Barb Halsey loves his alter-ego, Slapstick. His [[Black and Nerdy]] friend Mike then points out that his Slapstick form lacks the requisite equipment...
* Done with [[Kaiju|Fin Fang Foom]] in ''[[Nextwave]]''.
{{quote|
* In the last issue of ''[[Crystar Crystal Warrior]],'' with his dying breath, the evil wizard Zardeth punishes Moltar and Lavour for [[Heel Face Turn|betraying him]] by restoring Moltar's humanity, but leaving Lavour still a woman made of living magma. And this just after Lavour had finally realized that she genuinely loved him. Fortunately, [[Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid]], so they don't have to avoid each other entirely, but they can never touch.
* Seems to be the case with Princess Kavatah in ''[[Megalex]]'', at least as of Volume 1. A noble general tries to touch her romantically, and he bursts into flame. She believes it to be a curse.
* In the [[Harry Potter]] fic ''Coming Back Late'', Harry and Hermione couldn't do anything physical together because even though she was estranged from Ron, their magical marriage vows were "till death do us part". After {{spoiler|Hermione was killed and Harry brought her soul back from behind the Veil}}, this obviously no longer applied.▼
* Paul agonizes over this in ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', since he's [[Super Strength|way too strong]] to dare make love to Linda any more. He is ''extremely'' happy when [[I Just Want to Be Normal|he's depowered]] at the end of the book.▼
== Film ==
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* The 2008 ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|Incredible Hulk]]'' movie had Bruce and Betty almost start, at which point his wrist-mounted pulse-reader starts beeping. Bruce stops Betty, explaining that he can't get excited or else he'll Hulk out; she responds, in a disappointed tone of voice, "Not even a little?"
** And yet one never heard Bruce Banner say "You wouldn't like me when I'm horny."
* In ''[[Star Trek: The
** In the novelization, it's claimed that Deltans form a permanent mild-meld with their partners, so Decker and Ilia would wind up as a two-person [[Hive Mind]]. Most humans find this idea terrifying. Moreover, Deltans constantly produce pheromones that make everyone ''want'' to sleep with them [[Schmuck Bait|even if they know better.]] So Deltans serving in Starfleet have to take an oath of celibacy.
*** ''MAD Magazine'''s take on it:
{{quote|
'''Kirk''': With that chrome-dome of yours, I don't think it's necessary! }}
* In ''[[Bent]]'', the main characters are a gay couple in a concentration camp. They are incapable of touching each other, standing within a foot of each other, or even looking at each other. What they ''can'' do, however is have incredibly emotional and vivid verbal sex.
== Literature ==
* Partial trope in [
** Debatable: Either
* In [[Piers Anthony]]'s ''[[Apprentice Adept]]'' series. Stile's wife has been [[Prophecies Are Always Right|prophesied]] to have one child by her second husband. So as long as they don't consummate their marriage, Stile remains safe from death.
* [[Cal Leandros]] is so afraid of impregnating the human he loves (he doesn't trust birth control at all) with his half-evil-[[The Fair Folk|fairy]] sperm that he will only boink other species that he's biologically incompatible with.
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** It's even more difficult for Justine, whose protection against the White Court lasts only if her last sexual encounter was with her true love, i.e. Thomas. She loses protection if she gets with anyone else.
* [[Georgina Kincaid]] of the ''Succubus'' books is a [[Horny Devil]] who can't date anyone she likes without sucking his life force.
* This is a frequent problem in [[Anne McCaffrey]]'s "[[The Ship Who...]]..." series, where the protagonists are very handicapped humans who operate as the "brain" of a ship. They can't get physical when they are an immobilized body in a column. Averted halfway through the series, when one brain deals with the problem by commissioning a remote-controlled full-sensory human body, opening up the same possibility for other brains.
** Also mentioned in the books is that one of the reasons the administrators will reassign brain-brawn pairs if they click ''too'' well is that there have been a few cases where a brawn has decided enough is enough and to [[Dude, She's Like, in a Coma|crack the column to get at the chewy center inside]] (for this very reason, brawns are absolutely not supposed to have the access codes to the column, but sometimes obsession finds a way).
* Confessors from the [[Sword of Truth]] ''can'' have sex, just not with anyone they actually like, because they accidentally release their power while love making, and it would essentially destroy their lover. This causes much drama for Richard and Kahlan in the first book. Once this is resolved, they have another problem because of some prophecy that she'll give birth to a male Confessor (who are [[
* Edward and Bella can't have sex in ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' because he would crush her and/or suck her blood ({{spoiler|this is true for the first 3 books anyway}}).
** To be more exact, Edward refuses to have sex with Bella before marriage due to his old fashioned values.
* Subverted in Spider Robinson's ''[[Callahan's
* ''[[Discworld]]'' wizards can't have sex because there is a risk that the resulting child could be a sourceror, a magician powerful enough to destroy the world by accident. They don't seem to have heard of non-procreative sex.
** Judging by ''[[
*** Good luck hiding that from the wizards raised in rural environments, especially Archchancellor Ridcully.
** It's actually worse than not having discovered non-procreative sex; a sorcerer will only be born if they're the eighth son of an eight son. So in theory, there's lots of sex that can be had before they have to stop, and some wizard could never have a problem. This is mentioned in some of the early books, so there's a good chance it's the kind of canon that can be safely ignored.
** Mostly, though, wizards don't have sex because they usually [[Chaste Hero|find magic]] [[Asexuality|more interesting]]. They're [[
** This is then possibly averted in ''[[
*** Ah, '[[Insistent Terminology|Postmortem Communications]]'.
** In ''[[Unseen Academicals]]'' it is mentioned that Professor Macarona, at Unseen University on exchange, has apparently left a trail of angry husbands and at least one angry wife in other cities he's visited. [[Bi the Way|Not
** In [[The Colour of Magic|the first book]], Rincewind is describes as looking like an "apprentice enchanter who had run away from his master out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste for heterosexuality." Make of that what you will.
** In ''[[The Light Fantastic]]'' Rincewind knows what orgasms are - he's had a few. Sometimes in company. His first use of real magic is compared to a good orgasm, and most wizards can use magic when they ''want''.
* Played on a villain in ''Exiles at the Well of Souls'', when the sexually-perverse and licentious [[Big Bad|Antor Trelig]] is transformed into a Makiem, a frog-like alien race. Makiem don't copulate at all, they just release gametes into the water once a year without any physical contact. Karma's a bitch, eh?
* In [[Isaac Asimov]]'s novel ''The Gods Themselves'', it is emphasized a few times that Earthborn and Moonborn people suffer from a ''slight sexual incompatibility'' due to Earth people's tendency to subconsciously move as in normal Earth-gravity during moments of
* The titular [[Catgirl]] of ''[[The Nine Lives of Chloe King]]'' technically can have sex, but her claws pop out when she's aroused, and they apparently have some sort of venom on them, so it's [[Death by Sex|not recommendable for her partner]]. Apparently, {{spoiler|she can have sex with others like herself.}}
** It's indicated to be a curse on the Mai. In the end of the books, the curse is broken. The TV series never made it that far.
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* In ''[[The Vampire Chronicles]]'', once you're a vampire, you can't have actual sex. However, everything else practically becomes a substitute. Even the pattern on a carpet can bring rapturous pleasure to one's enhanced senses.
* In a Polish vampire trilogy ''Nocarz'', this can happen to a vampire couple if one of them gets neutralised {{spoiler|with Sator's anti-symbiote vaccine}}. The victims not only lose their vampiric traits, but also react with deadly allergy to any physical contact with a normal vampire (it's implied this effect will pass with time). Knowing this, Vesper assigns his human friend to provide medical first aid to the neutralised vampires, as any other member of the team would kill them with barely a touch.
{{quote|
** After {{spoiler|Icta}} gets neutralised, Vesper imagines her having a normal life, {{spoiler|but decides that Echis would make a better husband and protector than him}}. It's implied that it will work out in the future, unlike the rest of his hare-brained plan.
* There's a cat character in Clare Bell's ''[[The Book of the Named|Clan Ground]]'' series who's like this. He's half Unnamed, and as most of the Unnamed are dumb, brutish, unintelligent cats, he fears passing on his Unnamed genes to any potential offspring. So, he leaves the clan during breeding time each year.
* Every time Laurent and Thérèse try to have sex after they get married (or even try to sleep for that matter) in ''[[Therese Raquin]]'', they are haunted by memories of Thérèse's first husband Camille.
* From ''[[Warrior Cats]]'': Medicine cats, although it's forbidden for Medicine cats to have mates and have kits some did anyway Like Yellowfang and Leafpool.
* In [[Tales of Kolmar]], [[Our Dragons Are Different|Kantri]] have incredibly high internal temperatures. A human once helps one of the Kantri deliver a baby, has to reach in and turn it, and the flesh on the human's arms is so burned it ''comes off in rags''. Humans and Kantri are not sexually compatible. The very idea that they could be is seen as absurd; there is a prophecy of human-Kantri children spelling the end of the world as we know it, but someone outright says that there might as well be a prophecy warning them to beware of a bull and a butterfly. So when the Lord of the Kantri falls in love with a human woman, they can't consummate. {{spoiler|Until he's [[Humanity Ensues|turned into a human himself]]}}.
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'': [[Angel]] had one night with Buffy, which enabled his [[Curse Escape Clause]] and led to his infamous [[Face Heel Turn]] as Angelus. Angel has moved on to boink other women he doesn't love, but he can never close the deal again. {{spoiler|Well, until the ''After the Fall'' comic books, but no women he loves are around and he's too busy by that point}}.
** Played with on ''[[Angel]]'' with Cordelia and her beau, the Groosalugg. She has reason to believe that having sex will lead to her losing her precognitive powers; after spending time bemoaning, her response is to find a magical prophylactic so that won't happen.
** ''[[Angel]]'' eventually has the characters work out that Angel's curse isn't the [[No Sex Allowed]] curse they originally thought but is, in fact, this trope played straight. In series 1, When Wesley and Cordelia discuss the idea of Angel and Rebecca Lowell having a relationship, Wesley points out the curse's requirement is "perfect happiness" and also points out how rare that criterum actually is. In series 2, Angel can get away with having sex with Darla, who he has complicated emotional ties to, because he experienced "perfect despair" with her. In series 5, Angel doesn't lose his soul by having sex with Eve because he doesn't trust her and they were under a mystical compulsion. Wesley reiterates that "perfect happiness" is very rare and most relationships are formed from "acceptable happiness" instead which is why Angel can have sex with Nina without his soul being endangered. As a result, the only people Angel
* Every pairing in ''[[Lexx]]'' suffered from this. Afflicted characters included a [[Our Zombies Are Different|dead man]] who lacked certain parts, a severed robot head with ''no'' moving parts, and an alien who was [[Unusual Euphemism|"smooth round the bend"]]. And that was ''before'' the plot device of the ship's coveted
** And the writers loved to taunt the audience with it, too; when 790 gains a working arm, thus becoming a robot-head-with-arm, he tries to get his new hand in Xev's pants...but she's too tired from previous events to care and 790 loses the arm shortly thereafter. 790 would again come close to getting some actual action when Prince arranged for his head to be attached to the body of a moth breeder who had the key to the Lexx, as well as going through the United States military's service record to find the most well-endowed soldier to volunteer an [[Unusual Euphemism|equipment transplant]] to the moth breeder's body. Before 790 could get his freak on, his head was knocked off, leaving him bodiless again, and Xev went to "find" the moth breeder.
** In an earlier episode, 790 attaches himself to a headless cyborg body found in a prison ship. However. reactivating the body causes 790 to be intermittently possessed by the personality of the body's previous owner, a [[Depraved Homosexual]] [[Scary Black Man]] rapist who immediately sets his sights on Stanley.
* ''[[Dark Angel]]'' loved doing this to Max and Logan. At first they couldn't do it because Logan physically couldn't (he was paralyzed from the waist down). Then Logan gets better, but Max has been infected with a designer virus made especially to target Logan's
* ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'': Ned and Chuck. His power allowed him to bring her back to life [[Equivalent Exchange|at the cost of killing a bystander]], but she will die if he even touches her, let alone if they attempt sex.
** Although it's possible that the two of them are coming up with some workarounds: according to a throwaway line in a recent episode, there may or may not be "contraptions" involved.
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* In ''[[Alphas]]'' Rachel's powers leave her prone to [[Sensory Overload]], making sex at least very difficult.
* Nick and Natalie venture into this territory in ''[[Forever Knight]]'', because sex and feeding are very much tied together for vampires, and Nick is mostly unable to control himself once he starts feeding. He knows he'd either wind up turning Natalie or more likely, that he'd kill her.
== Tabletop Games ==
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* Darklord [[Black Widow|Ivana Boritsi]] of the [[Ravenloft]] setting has turned both herself and members of her entourage into ermordenung: living humans whose bodies are permanently saturated with a deadly poison. Ermordenung can't touch anyone normal without killing them, and Ivana cranks up their frustration by using a different poison to create each one, so they'll kill ''each other'' if they touch their own kind. [[Jerkass|Bitch]].
** And any attempts Jacqueline Renier has ends when she inevitably turns into her [[Our Werebeasts Are Different|wererat]] form and kills them, she can't control this. She also arranges for her sister's lovers to be murdered before they can consummate their relationships out of jealousy (and to keep Louise from usurping her power). Jacqueline's curse only applies if she actually loves her prospective partner. She can have all the casual or [[Foe Yay]] sex she wants.
== Video Games ==
* Both love interests in ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' suffer from this. [[Horny Devils|Grace]] drains the life force of anyone she kisses. Annah heats up to dangerous temperatures once her blood starts racing.
** And since the main character is immortal, it doesn't matter one bit.
* Quarians in the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' universe are generally like this with other
** Turians have a similar
** Some asari are Ardat-Yakshi: they suffer from a condition that fatally burns out the nervous system of anyone with whom they mate. To make matters worse, this also gives the Ardat-Yakshi a boost to their own natural biotic ability, [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|which proves addictive]].
* Sam's species in ''[[Freefall]]'' dies whenever they have sex.▼
** They also don't gain full sapience until after the species equivalent of andro/menopause. So their society is made up entirely of those who either couldn't or wouldn't breed when they had the chance.▼
* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' it's never been spelled out, but it's been heavily implied that, however effective Voluptua's shapeshifter unit that lets her appear human may be, she and Bob would not be ''able'' to do much of anything physical, even if they were so inclined.▼
* Deepblooded (drastically mutated) [[Hell Hound|crater hounds]] in ''[[Wurr (Webcomic)|Wurr]]'' are not permitted to mate, as stillbirths or [[Death by Childbirth]] would likely result.▼
== Web Original ==
* Artemis, Athena, and Hestia of ''[[O-Cast]]''. The first two are more than happy with the arrangement, although Hestia does not seem quite as pleased. In her words: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTDmfcPVFFQ "Forever's a long time to be a virgin."]▼
== Western Animation ==
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** Also, giant amazons that give you death by SNU-SNU!
* Brock Samson (of ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'' fame) can never go past second base with Molotov Cocktease (the only woman he ever loved) because of her chastity belt.
▲== Web Original ==
▲* Artemis, Athena, and Hestia of ''[[O-Cast]]''. The first two are more than happy with the arrangement, although Hestia does not seem quite as pleased. In her words: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTDmfcPVFFQ "Forever's a long time to be a virgin."]
▲* Sam's species in ''[[Freefall]]'' dies whenever they have sex.
▲** They also don't gain full sapience until after the species equivalent of andro/menopause. So their society is made up entirely of those who either couldn't or wouldn't breed when they had the chance.
▲* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' it's never been spelled out, but it's been heavily implied that, however effective Voluptua's shapeshifter unit that lets her appear human may be, she and Bob would not be ''able'' to do much of anything physical, even if they were so inclined.
▲* Deepblooded (drastically mutated) [[Hell Hound|crater hounds]] in ''[[Wurr (Webcomic)|Wurr]]'' are not permitted to mate, as stillbirths or [[Death by Childbirth]] would likely result.
▲== Fanfiction ==
▲* In the [[Harry Potter]] fic ''Coming Back Late'', Harry and Hermione couldn't do anything physical together because even though she was estranged from Ron, their magical marriage vows were "till death do us part". After {{spoiler|Hermione was killed and Harry brought her soul back from behind the Veil}}, this obviously no longer applied.
▲* Paul agonizes over this in ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', since he's [[Super Strength|way too strong]] to dare make love to Linda any more. He is ''extremely'' happy when [[I Just Want to Be Normal|he's depowered]] at the end of the book.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Love Tropes]]
[[Category:Sex Tropes]]
[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]
[[Category:Stock Aesops]]
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