Sex Is Good
A core value of an Ethical Slut and the counterpart trope to Everybody Has Lots of Sex.
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Souma: Everything about you is cute for me. Ryo, I love you. I love you. —Souma Mizuno and Ryo Fujihashi confessing their love as they have sex, Fire in His Fingertips
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This is when sex not only feels good, but is morally good in general. When this trope is in play, sexual intercourse will always lead to satisfaction and rarely have negative consequences, sex between a protagonist and antagonist will almost invariably lead to a Sex Face Turn, and there will rarely ever be meaningful emotional consequences for sex unless they're a part of a Very Special Episode.
In the worst case, sex will lead to an unexpected pregnancy, but the consequences will be offset—the characters will learn valuable life lessons, neither party will regret it even if it was a drunken one night stand, and even a resultant single parent will be happy because Babies Make Everything Better.
STDs will be effectively nonexistent, with even The Casanova being able to effortlessly avoid them. Any emotional problems caused by a relationship (or lack thereof) will be blamed on the sufferer. In a Will They Or Won't They situation, sex will almost always lead to a long-term relationship without any undesirable repercussions.
In the (very unlikely) scenario that a character has a less than fantastic impression of sex, this will be the fault of an unusually awful partner—you can expect it to be resolved by a better partner in short order.
This trope was especially popular back in the eighties with the rise of modern teen movies.
Often the natural extension of I'm a Man, I Can't Help It. The supertrope of Good People Have Good Sex, Sex Face Turn, "Glad to Be Alive" Sex, and many others. The opposite of Sex Is Evil. Related to STD Immunity. Compare Sex Is Interesting.
No real life examples, please; Real Life is not scripted.
Anime and Manga
- The hilariously bad hentai manga Anal Justice takes this Serial Escalation.
- This is very common in the vanilla genre of Hentai, which depicts it as wholesome and romantic. Fire in His Fingertips, one of the most popular examples of vanilla hentai is the page image.
- Nana to Kaoru, a Romantic Comedy that revolves around the main couple learning most of the nooks and crannies of having fun while having sex, is a more realistic example - in that Sex is Good while out of genuine emotional attachment and love.
Comic Books
- Subverted in Sparks: An Urban Fairy Tale. Jo doesn't necessarily believe this trope (as can be seen when she drags a heavily inebriated acquaintance outside of a room of horny frat guys), but she is willing to be optimistic about it in the right circumstances. And it turns out to be a terrible idea. In spite of the heartfelt conversation they have beforehand, the actual sex act physically hurts Jo, and afterwards the guy says it's a one-time-thing, meaning that for all his consternation about living the pigeonholed life of a high society playboy he's not willing to actually fight against it. The experience ends up leaving Jo even worse off than where she started.
- Elf Quest. Sex is good in just about every situation, as per the Everybody Has Lots of Sex universe. Even if nature decides two elves should have a child together against their will, they inevitably enjoy it and the child is always celebrated as precious new life because Babies Make Everything Better. For what it's worth, these in-universe rules only apply to elves - one storyline has Mender seducing a couple of human women, but as "normal" human women, it only succeeds in seriously screwing up their lives. Pini came up with this storyline after becoming concerned that an impressionable teenager might read Elf Quest and conclude that sexual relationships lacked meaningful negative consequences.
Film
- Used to an absurd degree in Risky Business. At the beginning of the movie, Joel is a virgin, and an insecure loser. As a result of his having sex with a call girl (and subsequent snowballs) he- gets into Princeton, gains an incredibly hot girlfriend, and develops a great deal of self-confidence. Moreover, it's implied that this confidence was also gained by all the guys who dipped into their trust fund for the one-night brothel. His ridiculous ability to evade any negative consequences for these acts of poor judgment is lampshaded by the pimp near the end, who states that he really ought to just kill Joel outright considering all the trouble he's caused.
- Alice in Wonderland: An X-rated Musical Fantasy.
Literature
- Forever Amber takes this view of sex in regards to its setting of 17th-century England. It fits this trope clearly as there are only ever two situations where sex is presented as bad - when done with the wrong expectations, and when you don't do it for whatever reason. It's still up to debate, though, whether the characters' views on this status quo are necessarily correct. It's worth noting, after all, that near the end it takes Lord Carlton several chapters to realize what a terrible idea it is to have sex with Amber now that he's married. The liberal views Charles II holds on sex are almost certainly the reason why his wife ends up too frail to give him a legitimate heir. And to top it all off, Amber's a pathetically fragile emotional wreck at the end of the book, ditching the entire posh lifestyle she had been working so hard for on the off-chance that Lord Carlton would take her back.
- Everything by Robert A. Heinlein, particularly Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.
Live-Action TV
- Nip Tuck has this in spades. Regardless of the context, sex only ever seems to make any situation or relationship better, as it seems to magically make any character that engages in it stronger and more self-confident. Take the twins in the second episode of the series, who are emotional basket-cases when they realize that getting surgery to make themselves look different was a bad idea, but all of three scenes later are happy and well-assured having just engaged in a threesome with Christian.
Theatre
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"Sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, pederasty... Father, why do these words sound do nasty? Masturbation can be fun - join the holy orgy, Kama Sutra, everyone!" |
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- ↑ Source Episode 8 of [[Fire in His Fingertips Season One