Cure Your Gays/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Homosexuality is to be remedied.

  • Played Straight: Alice holds an intervention when Bob shows a little too much interest in Charlie.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Alice does so when Bob holds Charlie's hand.
    • Alice tries to do so when she sees Bob and Charlie merely hugging.
  • Justified:
    • The homosexual inclinations were a defense mechanism against some trauma.
    • The curing is purely voluntary on the part of the gays.
  • Inverted: The culture has reproduction by artificial insemination and sees homosexuality as the only healthy form of sexuality.
  • Subverted:
    • The intervention seems to work, but it just makes Bob repressed.
    • The intervention seems to work, but only because Bob was bisexual, and now focuses exclusively on women.
  • Double Subverted: ...but then Bob thinks about the message a little more and turns straight.
  • Parodied:
    • Alice tries to take Bob to an actual hospital to cure his homosexuality.
    • There is a homosexual rehabilitation center.
    • An Absent-Minded Professor accidentally develops "ze cure for teh gay!1" while looking for a Cure for Cancer.
  • Deconstructed: The intervention damages him psychologically and emotionally, and Bob is no longer able to lead a normal life.
  • Reconstructed: The intervention doesn't work, but Alice doesn't try again and just leaves Bob and Charlie alone.
  • Zigzagged: A story about a homosexual who changes orientation, goes back, tries again, etc. Whether success or failure ensues depends on the author's views.
  • Averted: Either Bury Your Gays or social acceptance of homosexuality.
  • Enforced: The author believes homosexuality is wrong/harmful but has no hatred whatsoever.
  • Lampshaded: "Bob is gay? Uh-oh. You just know someone's gonna try to intervene."
  • Invoked:
    • In an explicitly religious work, a homosexual person wants to change.
    • In a non-religious work, a religious character is afraid for (NOT of) a homosexual Loved One. Whether this is seen as a good thing or a bad thing depends on the author's views.
  • Defied:
    • Bob refuses to have anything to do with such attempts.
    • Alternately: "Hey, if Barb wants to date Carol, everyone wins. I'm not gonna stop her."
  • Discussed:
  • Conversed: The same, about a Show Within a Show.
  • Exploited: Andy and Bob are rivals for Charlie's affection. Andy arranges for Bob to be turned heterosexual, leaving no obstacle to him getting together with Charlie.

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