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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 ''[[
{{quote|''So you have to decide between a life without sex, or a gruesome death? Tough call.''|'''Phillip J. Fry''', ''[[
[[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 [[Can't Have Sex Ever]]. Often this tends to forbid sex between the cursed character and ONLY the one they love -- they could probably boink anyone they don't care about -- though it's not uncommon (particularly in the case of the more practical versions) for the cursed character to not be able to have sex with ''anyone'' without something bad happening. This is not [[No Sex Allowed]], which is an example of nobody ''at all'' being allowed to get down and dirty. Bob and Alice may or may not still try to see each other, sex be damned, but as a general rule this leads to the end of the relationship. This is a guaranteed source of [[Unresolved Sexual Tension]] that can never end, not to mention [[Celibate Hero]].
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== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[
** 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."]]
*** As pointed out in [http://www.tsunamichannel.com/index.php?date=2003-02-20&comic=Parody this strip], other options are not mentioned
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** At one point, Black Haru comments to Tohru that it's possible to do it without actually embracing, though Yuki and Kyo quickly shut him up before he can go into any specific details.
** Over the course of the series, it's gathered that it is very ''specifically'' embracing or hugging another person. Kissing is fine (we see that) and so assumedly sex is fine as long as there's no... uh... [[That Came Out Wrong|lets just leave it at that]].
* Played straight in ''[[Mai
* ''[[Okusama wa Joshikosei]]'' plays this one for laughs. The male lead legally marries his student but her father forbids ''the act'' with a written contract until she graduates.
** {{spoiler|It is strongly suggested on the anime's last episode that they finally did it, although this is left open to interpretation by the fact that the girl had often fantasized about this kind of thing before only to be rudely interrupted just like that last time.}}
* ''[[
* ''[[Ninja Scroll]]'''s Kagero, a female ninja, is so permeated with poison, that her very touch is deadly. A demon by the name of Tessai finds his stone body fatally weakened after attempting to rape her.
** ''[[Basilisk]]'s'' Kagero is similar (''Basilisk'' being based on the novel ''The Kouga Ninja Scrolls'', which is among the works ''Ninja Scroll'' drew inspiration from).
* In [[Bizenghast]], Edrear has an irremovable exoskeleton, which means he can't have sex. [[Word of God]] is that it is supposed to deter slash fiction between Dinah and Edrear ([http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4467250/1/Evening_Watch didn't work]), but he does shed every three months.
** 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, [[
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* ''[[The Sandman (Comic Book)|The Sandman]]'': Dream and Nada.
* ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (Comic Book)|Legion of Super-Heroes]]'': Wildfire doesn't actually have a ''body'', having been turned into an [[Energy Being]] by a [[Freak Lab Accident]]. This puts severe stress on his romance with fellow Legionnaire Dawnstar. Eventually he learns to create a solid body... but it's still made of energy, and Dawnstar gets burned trying to touch him. This is the point where he tells her to just go.
* [[
** 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.
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** 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
** Wither's case reeks of [[Idiot Ball]] as his power only affects organic matter and there are more than enough inorganic characters -- one of whom had a crush on him. Instead, he chose to pine for a wholly organic girl who was dating someone else. This didn't end well.
** 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|The Thing]] has had several lovers since his transformation (The main ones being [[Blind and
* 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
* [[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
** There is a loophole, that Darkness bearers can create [[Artificial Human|constructs]] for this purpose. However [[It Got Worse]] when it was revealed that {{spoiler|The Darkness intended for this loophole, to encourage the Estacado's to eventually create a construct mate that could bear children. The resulting being would be [[Made of Evil|purely of the Darkness]] with no human "weaknesses". Once it was born the Darklings mutinied to the creature's side as it tried to become a [[Self-Made Orphan]]. It went about as well as you'd expect, but left Jackie without access to his powers for quite some time.}}
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{{quote| "Oh, you cannot imagine how annoyed he is."}}
* 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 ''[[
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* Irena Gallier and Oliver Yates from ''[[Cat People]]''. Irena is a werecat, and she and her brother can only sleep with each other without transforming into deadly panthers. However, both of them give in to their urges during the course of the film.
* Frank and Lonette from ''[[Cool World]]'', because 'noids' and 'doodles' (humans and toons) can't have sex without disastrous consequences.
* The 2008 ''[[The Incredible Hulk (
** And yet one never heard Bruce Banner say "You wouldn't like me when I'm horny."
* In ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture
** 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:
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* [[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
* 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 [[Always Chaotic Evil]]).
* Edward and Bella can't have sex in ''[[Twilight (
** 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 Crosstime Saloon
* ''[[
** Judging by ''[[Discworld
*** 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 [[Nerd|nerds]], after all...
** This is then possibly averted in ''[[Discworld
*** 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]] ''[[Bi the Way|his]]'' [[Bi the Way|wife]], [[Even the Guys Want Him|you understand]].
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* 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 abandon--an Earthman would be very likely to injure his partner in the lower gravity of the Moon. {{spoiler|In the end, it's implied that the protagonists can work something out.}}
* 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
** 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.
* Cal from ''Peeps'' has a sexually-transmitted parasite that gives most people who pick it up vampiric traits, something he didn't figure out until his ex-girlfriends went crazy. {{spoiler|This is eventually subverted when (a) it turns out that passing on the parasite is a good thing, (b) the craziness can be cured easily for those that it happens to, and (c) the girl Cal likes eventually picks up the parasite from his ''cat'' (cat breath is another vector) instead.}}
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* In Louise Burton's Hidden Grotto novels (House of Dark Delights, Bound by Moonlight), there are two characters in love who may never touch - Elic, a dusios (type of sex-changing inccubus), and Lili, a succubus. They find ways around not having sex with each other...
* The Narrator and Marianne Engel in [[The Gargoyle]], mostly because {{spoiler|he [[Body Horror|lost his penis in a fire]].}}
* This trope heavily figures in ''[[
* In the last book of the [[The Emigrants|Emigrants]] tetralogy Karl Oskar and Kristina can no longer have sex since they have no reliable birth control and if Kristina gets pregnant again it will lead to her death.
* Neal Shusterman's ''[[Scorpion Shards]]'' features an otherwise-[[Ordinary High School Student]] who is cursed to somehow suck the soul out of any girl he kisses. It also [[Blessed
* 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.
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* 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 [[
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[
** Played with on ''[[
** ''[[
* 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 key -- a [[Bond Creatures|symbiotic energy life-form]] -- abandoning its host at the height of ecstasy...
** 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.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In both ''[[
* ''[[Teenagers From Outer Space]]'' strongly recommends that the GM derail all attempts by players to get further than, say, first base, by [[Moment Killer|having circumstances interfere]] in whatever silly fashion they GM can devise, because endless [[Unresolved Sexual Tension|UST]] is [[Rule of Funny|funnier]].
* 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]].
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== 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 races -- thanks to their weak immune systems, sex is dangerous even between two quarians. However, Tali, the quarian love interest in ''[[Mass Effect 2|ME2]]'' actively works to subvert the trope if you're romancing her.
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** [[Truth in Television]], as a lot of species die after they mate. Some species of arthropods even [[wikipedia:Sexual cannibalism|eat their mate during or after sex.]]
** Also, giant amazons that give you death by SNU-SNU!
* Brock Samson (of ''[[
== Web Original ==
* Artemis, Athena, and Hestia of ''[[O
== Webcomics ==
* Sam's species in ''[[
** 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
== 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 ''[[
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