Living Aphrodisiac

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

You're in a Science Fiction and/or military universe. An extraordinarily hot chick shows up. Your base is now in complete disarray because everybody is suddenly trying to do the horizontal lambada.

This sudden rush of hormones and pheromones is generally due to the fact that The Vamp is the episode's Big Bad and is using the good guys' sex drives to distract them from her dastardly plan.

Sometimes, Vampires Are Sex Gods is a supernatural effect and used to lure Muggles to the dinner table.

This trope is when Love Is in the Air is caused by the presence of an alien or fantastic creature, and works like a more passive version of Aliens Made Them Do It. It's generally a first-season ploy by sci-fi shows to get ratings through sex. Can also be Fan Service. For the single-target version, see The Pornomancer.

No real life examples, please; sorry, we have to impose Wikipedia's "reliable sources" rule on this one.

Examples of Living Aphrodisiac include:

Comic Books

  • Several characters in Marvel comics have this is a main or secondary power. Including an alien love God named Eros and Wolverine's son Daken. There's also Jessica Drew's Spider-Woman.
  • Emily Crowe from Desolation Jones underwent an experiment to augment her pheromone production, but it backfired and she now triggers fear and revulsion in everyone she meets.

Film

Literature

There is, for some unfathomed reason, something almost unbearably sexy about having huge fire-breathing magical dragons flying low about the sky on moonlit nights which were already dangerously on the sweet and fragrant side... No sooner would a flock of half a dozen silk-winged leather-bodied Fuolornis Fire Dragons heave into sight across the evening horizon that half the people of Brequinda were scurrying off into the woods with the other half, there to spend a busy breathless night together and emerge with the first rays of dawn all smiling and happy and still claiming, rather endearingly, to be virgins, if rather flushed and sticky virgins. Pheromones, some researchers said. Something sonic, others claimed.

  • There are a few examples in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Marvel Star Wars introduced Zeltrons, redskinned near-humans who had pheromones, emotion-affecting abilities, and attraction to Force-Sensitives. Shadows of the Empire introduced Falleen, reptilian humanoids with much more powerful "date-rape" pheromones.
  • The Novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture explains that Ilia has this effect on humans. The movie itself just makes it look like Sulu has the hots for bald chicks.
  • In The Dresden Files, vampires of the White Court can have this effect on humans in proximity. Whether or not they can control it is another matter entirely. Thomas in particular has a lot of trouble simply holding down a job, since he keeps getting assaulted by the amorous attentions of his coworkers, at which point the Double Standard kicks in and he gets fired because his bosses assume he started it. Their blood has a similar effect, "disabling" a pair of Harry's werewolf allies after they attack one.
  • People do get "in the mood" during dragon mating flights in the Dragonriders of Pern series. All dragons have vast psychic power so during a mating flight their feelings influence anyone near them. This fact of life is why Weyrfolk have such a relaxed attitude towards sexual relations; it's unreasonable to expect people to remain chaste until marriage when they are frequently exposed to a Living Aphrodisiac over the course of their lives.
    • The smaller ancestors of the dragons, Fire Lizards, also have this effect but to a much lesser extent.
    • Gold dragons and gold and green fire lizards also have this effect on each other, with sometimes fatal consequences. The males are triggered to a mating flight by a female's heat, and if a non-broody female is in the area when a mating flight happens, she may be triggered into her own heat and fight the first female for possession of the males.

Live-Action TV

  • In the Stargate SG-1 episode "Hathor", a Goa'uld who has taken over the role of the Egyptian goddess of Fertility, Music, and Inebriation finds her way into SG-1's base and turns every man there into crush-addled slave via some unknown brew of pheromones and other stuff before using Daniel's DNA (and by "using Daniel's DNA," we mean "making him have sex with her while under her mind control gas," and no, it wasn't okay.) to father her children.
    • A brand of the stuff that skips the romance part is used in later Goa'uld's arsenals. One whiff is apparently enough to brainwash someone indefinitely until it can be counteracted.
  • On True Blood, Maryann has this effect on everyone around her. She's a maenad, a follower of Dionysus, and almost a god in her own right. She uses the orgies she creates around her to disguise her real intention: bringing Dionysus into physical form.
  • The monster in the X-Files episode "Genderbender" is this, seducing its prey with human pheromones, killing them with sex, and assuming their identity.
    • And Jade Blue Afterglow from the episode "First Person Shooter" who was a stunningly gorgeous suspect in a murder case. She comes in for questioning in a tiny leather camisole/skirt combo, and every male in the precinct goes insane.

Mulder (after watching Jade Blue Afterglow saunter down the hall): I don't know about you, Scully, but I am feeling the great need to blast the crap out of something.

  • Alisha on Misfits has this as her superpower; she's able to drive anyone she touches into a state of lust. This is treated as Blessed with Suck, though, as she can't even carry on a proper relationship with her boyfriend unless she wants to risk things entering rape territory.
  • Star Trek Enterprise. The famous Orion slave girls make an appearance, and are somehow able to give all the Earth women headaches and all the men hard-ons. Later the Orion captain admits that actually men like him are the slaves, to these women. Fortunately Mindlink Mates T'Pol and Trip are immune and so help take back the ship.

Tabletop Games

  • Guardian parahumans in GURPS: Bio-tech have a combination Sex Pheromones and Dominance Pheromones. They're specifically designed to be masters of normal humans.

Video Games