Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex

Mr. Bond goes from one big bang to another.

Barney: We and two beautiful women just survived a mugging. Do you know what that means?
Ted: "Thank God we're alive" sex?
Barney: "Thank God we're alive" sex! It's even better than "I can't believe you just proposed to me" sex, which I've only had like, four or five times.

— How I Met Your Mother

The Heroes have survived a harrowing ordeal. It could be a major disaster, a battle or even an encounter with either The Dragon or the Big Bad. Whether they won or lost is immaterial. The important thing is that they are still alive and are so glad to be alive that they decide to celebrate the fact by doing the most lively thing they can think of.

This can take many forms. Perhaps The Team saves a town and decided to enjoy the "hospitality" of the grateful female population. If the setting is a little more egalitarian then it shall be made perfectly clear the female members of the group are as glad to be alive as the men are and thus they shall be more likely to seek out each others' company. As a matter of fact, this more or less defines the sex life of any Battle Couple that has gone all the way; it may constitute their Relationship Upgrade to a Battle Couple. Perhaps the Damsel in Distress doesn't think the Smooch of Victory is sufficient reward and offers Rescue Sex, especially if she, too, is glad to be alive. Many an Action Girl has become an Action Mom in the immediate aftermath of such a situation. May, in fact, lead to Babies Ever After. Can also be one of the attractions of In Harm's Way. On a darker and more disturbing note, these notions are probably a reason behind the "rape" part of Rape, Pillage, and Burn when a victorious army is marching into town.

This trope is also Truth in Television; heightened libido is a common after-effect of surviving a dangerous and stressful situation. This is, needless to say, a very bad basis for starting a relationship.

If a victim of sexual assault provides this immediately after the assault is ended, they Got Over Rape Instantly.

Smooch of Victory may have to substitute, either for a G-Rated version, or because they lack the time and/or privacy.

Sometimes overlaps with Last-Minute Hookup, particularly in one shot works. Rescue Sex can be a sub trope of this if either the rescuer and/or rescuee were in imminent danger beforehand. Standard Hero Reward is a Lighter and Softer version of this. Must Not Die a Virgin and Pre-Climax Climax occur when they decide not to risk not surviving. See also Intimate Psychotherapy. Florence Nightingale Effect is conceptually similar, but more romantic. Sex Is Good is the supertrope that allows this one to make sense.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Invoked in an advertisement for Bridgestone tires, where the GPS advises an elderly couple the best route to a makeout spot:
  Turn right in fifteen feet (car cuts across several lanes of traffic and into a narrow alley). Stomp on the brakes (car stops just before it drives off a cliff).
  (Couple turns to each other and begins kissing furiously as romantic music swells.)

Anime & Manga

• Black Lagoon: In "Roberta's Blood Trail", Roberta is captured by a Cuban special forces officer. She offers herself to him, saying she's been turned on by all the violence. He's very cautious, but goes along with it... until Roberta shoots him with the gun hidden in her belt buckle.
• City Hunter: Discussed; Ryo knows perfectly that part of his immense libido is owed to him being in near-constant danger, and explains to his friend Mick it's why he's not sure if his feelings for Kaori are romantic or platonic.
• In Cross Ange, Tusk and Ange have Their First Time after the former reunited with Ange after he seemingly died to get her away from Embryo. In this case, it's Ange being glad that Tusk is alive, and his return saves Ange from the Despair Event Horizon that she had earlier crossed because she thought he'd died.
• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within: Aki and Grey have tearful sex in a gravity-free environment shortly after seeing the Deep Eyes team get killed, and barely escaping a fallen New York City.
• Golgo 13: Duke Togo and a beautiful woman are seated next to each other on an airliner which has to make a dangerous emergency landing. Both note each other's Dissonant Serenity when everyone else is panicking. She says it's because she no longer cares if she lives or dies, but Togo rejects this, pointing out that her hands are trembling. Sure enough when the landing happens without incident, she gives him a Smooch of Victory and has sex with Togo afterwards. Unfortunately, she then gets curious as to why he's Not Staying for Breakfast and follows him...
• Kasei Yakyoku: This happens between Akiko and Saionji in the fourth OAV, right after the Great Kanto Earthquake. With a big catch, though: their relationship issues are not solved by their sexual act, as Saionji reveals to her that he has met the guy whom Akiko truly likes, Taka, and knows he's just the Romantic False Lead. That leads to: Akiko suffering a Heroic BSoD, them breaking up, and to her leaving Tokyo to rebuild her life on her own, whereas Saionji gets together with Akiko's lady-in-waiting Sara.
• Princess Lover!: After Teppei saves her from an out-of-control train, Charlotte thanks him (off-screen) in a gratuitously erotic way. Silvie's facial expressions tell the story.
• Wicked City: Dark Action Girl Makie and Badass Normal Taki have sex after a Black World extremist ambush nearly kills them both. In a subversion, it's actually a HUGE plot point: a part of The Plan of their boss Giuseppe included them getting emotionally and sexually involved since not only would Makie become a Pregnant Badass and experience a big power-up from that... but her and Taki's future child would be the first human/demon hybrid kid, the living proof that humans and demons can live in peace together.
• In Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Kencho ends up having sex with the flight attendant Maki after they hit it up while taking shelter from the Zombie Apocalypse in an underground mall. Unfortunately for them, Maki is soon infected by Reika, who then tries to bite Kencho before he hightails it with Akira to safety.

Comic Books

• Green Lantern: In Green Lantern Corps #20, AKA the prologue to Wrath of the First Lantern, John Stewart and Fatality make love on Mogo the living planet after the battle with Volthoom.
• Savage Dragon: Issue #207 opens with Battle Girl and Mr. Glum having passionate sex amidst a sea of corpses, in the aftermath of a successful battle against an alien horde.
• Spider-Man:
  • Played straight and very effectively in Kraven's Last Hunt. After being Buried Alive for two weeks, the first thing Spider-Man does is return home to the arms of his wife Mary Jane, who had spent these two weeks worried sick and on at least one occasion getting into a very dangerous situation looking for him.
  • Subverted near the end of The Other. Peter ends up carrying Mary Jane in his arms because she's moving too slow, leading Luke Cage to believe he's rushing to get laid. Next scene shows that Peter simply wanted to take Mary Jane out web swinging.
• Squadron Supreme: Done in the J. Michael Straczynski series Supreme Power. Mark Milton's government-assigned parents had just seen him vaporize a puppy by accident with Heat Vision that nobody knew he had and were so overwhelmed that they sneaked off into a closet with no cameras and did the nasty.
• Watchmen: In the comic, after the heroes come to terms with the fact that the Big Bad attacked their city while they were away, killing millions. Strangely enough, averted in the Darker and Edgier movie.

Fan Works

• Advice and Trust: Shinji and Asuka engaged in this after the battle against Leliel. Asuka nearly died, frightened and lonely, and she decided that she did not want to have any regrets in the next battle.
  Asuka: "I don't care about protection, not right now. I could have died in there, more alone than anyone has ever been. You're already closer to me than anyone else has ever been. I want every bond between us we can have. You gave me strength in there. I want you, Shinji. All of you. Tonight." She brought her hand up to stroke his face. "We're alive, together, and... in love. I love you, Shinji. I want to be yours."
• In Avengers: Infinite Wars, Steve Rogers and Aayla Secura have this in chapter 112 during the celebration of Ultron's ultimate demise.
• Subverted in The Black Emperor. Lelouch and Milly are about to have sex after he returns from the Shinjuku Ghetto, but they get interrupted by C.C.
• Happens in Code Geass: The Prepared Rebellion. After the events in the Shinjuku Ghetto, Lelouch is so happy to be alive, and C.C. is so happy to be free, that they make love not long after returning to Ashford. C.C. later refers to it as a delayed reaction to the psychological stress of combat.
• A Crown of Stars: During the South American war campaign Shinji and Asuka have post-battle celebratory sex constantly.
• Cycles Upon Cycles: After the events on Virmire, which had Shepard knocked-out for two days following a mind-link with Sovereign, Kasumi confronts him about what he did, rakes him over the coals for nearly killing himself, finally admits her feelings for him and the two quickly get to multiple rounds of love-making.
• The Dad Villain AU features a villainous version. After making his reality-altering Wish, Gabriel "wakes up" in the new timeline and discovers that Emelie is alive and well. He immediately engages in this, though Emelie isn't aware of what he's "celebrating". This also provided Nooroo with an opening to escape while he was "distracted".
• Dance with the Demons: Batman and Catwoman spend the night together after the Kobra Cult has been defeated by the Batfamily.
• In the DC Nation universe, this and Intimate Psychotherapy happened between Beast Boy and Fauna after Ra's al Ghul's plague. Their altered, animal-based physiology left them completely immune to the plague's effects while virtually everyone else was dying around them, and one of the ingredients Ra's used in the plague was some of Gar's blood.
• In Death Note fanworks where Matt and Mello survive, they often do this, as they are thought to be partners in more than one sense of the word.
• Assassin Miss Alice Band is very prone to this in the immediate aftermath of a successful contract completion. Only not with men. See Discworld fanfic The Three of Cups (part of the Discworld Tarot sequence).
• In Episode 51 of Dragon Ball Z Abridged, 18 implied in her thoughts that this was in the cards if Krillin and her got through Cell. Of course, she got consumed by Cell shortly thereafter, but given the source material, it's bound to happen eventually. And it did. The end result completely obliterated the Krillin Owned Counter.
  Krillin: Here, allow me. I might not be good for much, but I can lift.
  18: (thinking) If we make it through this, I am going to rock his four-foot world.
  • Episode 60 also has some citizens declare an orgy upon Cell's defeat.
    Grant: YEAH! F*CK THIS CITY!
• In Supergirl fanfic Hellsister Trilogy, Kara and Dev engage in this after surviving the war against Mordru, Satan Girl and the Legion of Super-Villains.
• The Code Geass fanfic In the End it's not exactly clear what happens in the haystack between Lelouch and C.C after she bathes him but the author mentions how they were sleeping side-by-side when Orange found them.
• In the From Eroica with Love fanfiction drama Alles Klar, Klaus and Dorian have hot, intimate sex after surviving torture and (mostly) getting over the trauma of rape together.
• A Persona 4 fanfic, Goes Down Alone, is pretty much about Unresolved Sexual Tension culminating into this trope. It's actually more dramatic than erotic.
• In one episode of Jem, Craig almost died when he was trapped inside a bombed building. How Stormer Got Her Groove Back: Painted Blind implies that Craig and his girlfriend Aja had Their First Time that night.
• Less Than Zero (Kenchi618): After Catman demonstrates his willingness to step up for the team, Cheshire jumps him as soon as they get back to their base.
• The Lost Kingdom opens with Merlin and Morgana seeking the Blood King to cure Bo after she is left in a potentially terminal condition after taking the sleeping curse into herself to save Morgana's life. Once Bo has been cured, after she, Merlin and Morgana are reunited, it quickly develops into this, with Bo musing that she now truly appreciates her new larger bed.
• My Hero Playthrough: Averted. Tsuyu attempts to initiate this when she and Izuku both nearly die and save each other. His response is Let's Wait a While.
• Not Completely, Altogether Here: After Elphaba and Glinda finally defeat Madame Morrible, they end up having sex for the first time. There is a twist here: It's "Glad To Be Dead Sex". Elphaba died of her injuries, but her dying means that she can bypass the allergy that prevented her from being intimate with her ghostly girlfriend Glinda.
• Happens in the original version of the Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL fic "Numbershot C13: True Love Shines Through All" between Yuma and Kotori. The story was banned because of the fact they were 13, so it was reposted with the two simply sleeping together. The chapter in question was then posted on DeviantArt. Yuma did die, but Kotori resurrected him with The Power of Love (albeit it was boosted up by ZEXAL).
• A Peaceful Afterlife: Downplayed. Charlie fumbles with this as the explanation for why she kissed Kira after killing God Given.
• The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic, Relax, features this between a soldier and a prostitute, whom he regularly visits. It's shown how that their encounters have turned into more than just business transactions, whith genuine affection developing between the two.
• Ken Wolfe's series of Sailor Moon fics (found on the Sailor Moon Fanfics Recs page) have as a mostly-background feature an affair between Minako and Ami, founded on this following their revivals after fighting Beryl, and later, Galaxia.
• The Second Try: After the Final Battle, Misato and Kaji had a rather "emotional" reunion. So emotional that she got pregnant.
• In the Mob Psycho 100 fanfic Shigeko Kageyama AKA Mob after surviving the events of the 7th Division arc Mob (gender-swapped) and Teru don't go all the way but in chapter 17 they go much farther than they have before. Mob's reasoning is that she doesn't want to die without knowing what any of it is like.
• Sword Art Online Abridged: As in the original, Kirito and Asuna spend the night together after Asuna curbstomps Kirito's would-be murderer. Unlike the original, it's made absolutely clear they did it.
  Asuna: Why're you pants still on? We doing this or what?
• Tales of the Otherverse: After surviving a battle to the death with a planet killer, Rogue and Kara have sex for the first time.
• Thousand Shinji:
  • Shinji and Asuka engaged in celebratory sex after destroying Leliel.
  • After winning the war, Shinji, Asuka and Rei celebrated both their victory and their survival with a threesome.
• In Undocumented Features, enough children were conceived during the celebration following averting Ragnarok to form their own Cast Herd.
• Vow of Nudity: Happens between Fiora and Haara (and a water elemental, it's a long story) after they barely escape the demon realm.
• In the Berserk fanfic Wagon, Casca and Guts make love to celebrate surviving the Hawks' harrowing battle with Wyald but moreso to allow some Intimate Healing and psychotherapy take place between them, since the canonical event put their newfound relationship to the test and they want to reaffirm their devotion to each other.
• What It Takes: Nyssa and Sara have sex (in Quentin's apartment no less) shortly after learning of Nanda Parbat's destruction. This is both celebrating that Sara is alive and ensouled again, and due to them realizing how close they were to being killed by the nuke as well.

Films — Live-Action

• Alien: Covenant. Two crewmembers have a Shower of Love after escaping back to their spaceship. Unfortunately this means they're too distracted to hear their captain trying to warn them that a Xenomorph has smuggled itself on board.
• In Barbarella, after being rescued from the cannibal children by Ugo Tognazzi, Barbarella (reluctantly at first) has Rescue Sex with her rescuer, discovering that she quite enjoys sex "the old-fashioned way" after all.
• Blood Surf: After the final guy and girl manage to kill the big bad crocodile, they celebrate by making out.
• The Car: Road to Revenge: After barely surviving an encounter with the eponymous car, Rainer and Daria have a Slap-Slap-Kiss moment that immediately segues into sex.
• An interesting example in the Japanese film Departures. The guy comes home from his first session of preparing corpses for burial, and quickly gets hot for his wife. It's not that he was ever in danger of dying, but being around a corpse just spooked him so much that he wants to have sex so he can feel alive again. (Made more interesting by the fact that his wife doesn't actually know what his job is.)
• Enemy at the Gates suggests this happened a lot among the defenders during the Siege of Stalingrad. Given the brutality of that conflict, likely Truth in Television.
• A dark version in The Fourth Protocol. The KGB agent and a female military scientist are Undercover as Lovers, but she turns down the idea of them sharing the same bed. They then have to assemble an atomic bomb, and get rather sweaty doing it. Afterwards she's more willing to share the bed, but on waking up the next day he ruthlessly shoots her dead as per his orders.
• Lampshaded in Fury. A German woman goes to intervene when Norman takes her cousin into a bedroom. Wardaddy says to leave them alone, as "they're young and still alive."
• Defied in In The Army Now after the heroes are attacked by several Libyan soldiers. Jack tells Christine that people who have just survived life-threatening situations often experience massive surges in their libidos. Christine says that she is indeed feeling it, she then grabs him by his uniform and tells him in no uncertain terms that it will not be with him, EVER.
• James Bond:
  • Most of the films end like this (the Trope itself is lampshaded in the Moonraker novelization) though sometimes (like Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun) one of the Big Bad's surviving minions shows up to try to ruin the mood and others (You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me) The Cavalry (sometimes with Bond's superiors in command) show up to 'rescue' Bond. It varies as to whether he goes back to business or not.
  • While the Trope is played straight in The Spy Who Loved Me, it comes close to a dangerous subversion. Anya remembers her vow to kill Bond to avenge her lover's death (which he has already apologized for) and seems about to do it. But she has a change of heart, and the Trope is played straight.
  • In Spectre, Madeleine Swann shoots down the idea that she's going to sleep with Bond just because she's drunk and distraught over her father's recent death. The following night after they've barely escaped being killed, she asks, "What do we do now?" Gilligan Cut to them tearing off each other's clothes in their cabin.
• At least one of the many sex scenes in 9½ Weeks, with Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke.
• Subverted in Raiders of the Lost Ark; Marion tries this on board the ship after leaving Egypt, but Indy falls asleep in mid-kiss. It's implied that he woke up later, though.
• Serenity: When Simon and Kaylee are cornered by Reavers, he laments that he never took the chance with her. Realizing that her attraction isn't so one-sided after all, Kaylee is spurred to fight and drive the Reavers back. In the epilogue, they are seen... 'celebrating' vigorously.
• Speed:
  • This exchange at the very end after Jack rescues Annie from the Mad Bomber:
    Jack: I have to warn you, I've heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.
    Annie: OK. We'll just have to base it on sex then.
    Jack: Whatever you say... "ma'am".
  • Annie lampshades the trope in the sequel where she tells someone that she tried having a relationship with a certain someone after a dangerous situation, only for the relationship to go sour shortly afterwards.

Literature

• In the first volume of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest, after surving the harrowing and hellish Orcus Labyrinth, Hajime and Yue consummate their relationship while relaxing in the bath.
• Invoked, but subverted, in Fortune's Stroke from the Belisarius Series following Irene's first battle.
  "No," whispered Kungas gently. "Not for us, and not now. Passion always comes, after death's wings flap away. But it is cheap, and gone with the morrow. And you will wonder, afterward, whether it was you or your fear."
• In A Brother's Price there is a scene where a woman tries to invoke this. The man doesn't want to, as he's already engaged and doesn't want to be Defiled Forever.
• In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "Black Colossus" Yasmela insists on this immediately in the wake of her rescue. Conan does not need much persuasion, to be sure.
• In East of the Sun, West of the Moon from the Council Wars series by John Ringo, Megan's sexual relationship with Herzer has been delayed because she is recovering from repeated rape and Stockholm Syndrome. She finally demands sex after watching her friend get killed by a mutant-scorpion-thing and downing several shots of vodka to steady her nerves. Fortunately she falls asleep before he can comply, as that doesn't really count as Safe, Sane, and Consensual.
• At the end of The Dresden Files book Changes, when they've safely got back to Chicago after an extremely harrowing Big Badass Battle Sequence, Murphy says she's going to go out and sleep with the first "reasonably healthy male" she can find. Harry's impulsive reply to this heads straight towards the long-teased Relationship Upgrade, and they actually decide to go ahead and see where it takes them, but Harry's assassination puts that plan on hold.
• Earth's Children: Ayla and Jondalar do this several times in The Plains of Passage, as they're making a long and perilous journey across an entire continent and face many dangers (both from the natural elements and occasionally hostile people). One of the most notable times is after they finally make it over the glacier, which Jondalar in particular had been fretting over crossing (while Ayla had never crossed one at all). As the most dangerous part of their journey is now over, Ayla decides on a whim not to make the contraceptive tea she's been taking and so falls pregnant.
• In Larry Niven's A Gift From Earth, a woman is forced to undergo sensory deprivation, and uses this to bring herself back to feeling.
• Discussed in Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester. After he's the Sole Survivor from a shell that kills everyone else in his squad, Manchester has a hallucination of what he calls the Whore of Death, a Fan Disservice image of a sexy New England schoolgirl who, when viewed up-close, has rotting flesh and jagged teeth. Despite this he has a Raging Stiffie and she tries to entice him out into the open where he'll be killed. The explosion of another shell causes her to vanish, but he's driven to masturbate and ejaculates in seconds.
• Occurred in at least one of the Guardians of the Flame novels, with the line:
  But mostly it's about almost having gotten killed. Or doesn't it make you horny, too?
• In By the Sword from Heralds of Valdemar, this trope combines with Rescue Romance and the Florence Nightingale Effect to kickstart Kerowyn and Eldan's relationship within no more than a few hours after she saves him from being tortured by a Karsite priestess. Kero acknowledges the trope in the process, reflecting that she's felt the impulse plenty of times before, just never around anyone she'd care to wake up next to.
• Near the beginning of Hide Me Among the Graves, two strangers who happen to be crossing a bridge at the same time inadvertantly attract the attention of one of the vampiric creatures that are the antagonists of the novel. Following a narrow escape that involves a plunge in the river, he invites her back to his place to get dry, which leads to glad-to-be-alive sex — which, thanks to the Inverse Law of Fertility, leads to a daughter and the rest of the novel's plot.
• In A Clean Kill In Tokyo, John Rain lampshades the trope when he gets in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown with another Professional Killer, then goes to the Love Hotel where he's hiding the Damsel in Distress he's protecting for an After Action Patch Up, only to get a Raging Stiffie the moment he sees her. He saved her life as well the previous day, so that may be why they end up having Slap-Slap-Kiss sex on the floor shortly afterwards.
• In The Labyrinth Makers by Anthony Price, David and Faith have glad-to-be-alive sex after escaping capture by the bad guys. It leads to a Relationship Upgrade, and they wind up getting married.
• Legacy of the Dragokin: Daniar and Kalak re-consummate their marriage after defeating the Big Bad.
• A possible reason Co-President Victoria Rione gives to Captain John "Black Jack" Geary in The Lost Fleet: Fearless after they survive a near-point-blank energy release by a collapsing hypergate. He is initially reluctant, for a number of reasons, but eventually relents. She even frustratingly (and humorously) points out that he is the only (presumably, male) sailor in the fleet who would ask his partner for a reason before doing it.
• Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn: Simon and Miriamele finally get a chance for a frank conversation after the defeat of the Storm King, during which she confesses to him that one reason she's pushing him away is her fear that she'll be forced to take the throne and marry some horrible nobleman, and she'll never get to be with him... her true love. The consummation of their relationship follows.
• In Teresa Frohock's Miserere: An Autumn Tale, Lucian and Rachael get as far as the passionate kissing after a hard-won victory before they remember their past. Lucian tells her he's sorry; she tells him that no, he's not.
• In the Alternate History novel Moon of Ice by Brad Linaweaver, a bullet fired by a hunter barely misses Hilda Goebbels while she's on a Hitler Youth trip in the forest. She reacts by seducing the hunter and losing her virginity to him.
• In The Narrows, Harry and Rachel do some mattress dancing the day after they are nearly blown up by Backus's booby trap bomb.
  "We fell onto the bed and made survivors' love. It was quick and maybe to some degree even brutal—on both our parts. But most of all it satisfied the primal urge in both of us to fight death with life."
• Colonial Union Special Forces in John Scalzi's Old Man's War series have Glad-to-Be-Alive Orgies after every mission. Issues of pregnancy and STDs are dealt with by all special forces members being sterile and by SmartBlood (TM) eliminating any pathogen with impunity.
• In the first Quiller novel, the British spy is captured and interrogated under Truth Serum, during which he mentions a particular woman he met. His captors then order Quiller taken out and shot, but actually to let him escape, knowing they can recapture him as necessary by staking out the girl's place, because this trope will make him compelled to go there.
• A variation in Red Dragon; Will Graham thinks about how funerals often make people want sex, since it's "one in the eye for death". Even though the mourners themselves are not in danger at the time, this trope is still in effect.
• Subverted in A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle, Vicky and Leo discuss how being close to death has made them more interested in expressing life. Leo uses this as a come-on (including mentioning that his parents had sex as part of their mourning process), but Vicky isn't interested.
  Vicky: Why have I been so hungry?
  Leo: Because eating is part of life. So is loving.
  Vicky: Let's concentrate on eating, then.
• In Scarlett, Rhett and Scarlett engage in this after being lost at sea during a storm.
• In Sergey Lukyanenko's Seekers of the Sky duology, based on Helena's (a glider pilot) stories, this seems to be true whenever several pilots survive a crash-landing or a near-miss. This is considering that most of the pilots are male, with Helena being a rare exception. This lifestyle helps her develop a cavalier attitude towards sex. In her first appearance, the main character (a thief) kidnaps her and forces her to fly him from a prison island. After crash-landing, he is badly hurt. Does she run away immediately? No, she has sex with him before leaving "to work out the aching muscles."
• Sword Art Online: After Kirito rescues Asuna from a murderer, Asuna de-equips her clothes, and asks Kirito to do the same... at which point Kirito admits that when he had suggested spending the night together, he meant platonically, in case of further assassination attempts. Asuna still pushes for him to go all the way with her and he does.
• Terror Is My Trade: Private detective Chet Drum and his sexy Love Interest Eve narrowly survive a shootout with gangsters. They make it back to the hotel, and fall into bed together. Afterwards, Chet in his narration thinks of the sex as "the aftermath of violence."
• In Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love, Dora asks Lazarus whether it's odd to want this after a fight; he assures her it doesn't mean she's warped.
• While J.T. Edson character Dusty Fog gets laid less than, say, Mark Counter, he does benefit from this trope when he rescues a complete stranger - previously a man-hating feminist - from being eaten by a grizzly bear in A Town Called Yellowdog. Unfortunately, she is the big wheel behind the crime plot driving the book, and her brother has just beaten Dusty's brother to death.
• In Touch (2017), Bex was apparently conceived from this, right after her father led the effort to stop an Eldritch Abomination from eating everyone on Earth. Its presented more poetically than most examples:
  He returns to his family, holds his son close, and reaffirms his love to his wife, happy simply to be alive. Nine months later, a girl is born.
• The Wheel of Time:
  • Aviendha and Rand's first time might qualify, though two very attractive people with significant UST sharing body heat in cold climates is really jumping the gun on this trope.
  • Faile and Perrin offscreen after the Trolloc invasion is defeated. Again after the assault on the Shaido.
• In Wise Phuul, Teltö and Sufael after surviving an airship crash.
• In Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series, there are two instances of this in the first novel. The first is between Barbara Larssen and her husband Jens after they survive a Lizard bombing of Chicago. Next, Sam Yeager is traveling with Barbara when a strafing run on their ship leads to the both of them getting splattered with blood. They rush to a cabin and have frantic sex, only for Barbara (who's married) to have a My God, What Have I Done? reaction afterwards.

Live-Action TV

• All Saints: Mitch Stevens and Terri Sullivan at the end of the episode "Swept Away", in which Mitch had been in quarantine over a (false) Ebola scare. The scene marked their Relationship Upgrade after three seasons of Will They or Won't They?.
• Bodyguard (UK 2018)
  • After a harrowing attempt on Home Secretary Julia Montague's life, she and David Budd are relocated to a hotel for safety. Unused to such visceral violence, Julia starts to break down and asks David for a hug. The hug slowly morphs into kissing which leads to an "I can't believe we survived that" session in bed. As Budd is her bodyguard, this involves him crossing a professional line.
  • Averted in the first episode when Budd's estranged ex-wife invites him to stay after he talked down a suicide bomber, only to reject him when he tries to kiss her (because she's involved with someone else). Budd then leaves the house instead.
• Breaking Bad:
  • In the pilot. Walter White has just escaped two drug dealers who were about to kill him and a fire that one of them set accidentally. And then he crawls back home to his wife.
  • In "Seven Thirty-Seven" it goes much worse. He comes home half-whimpering after a really traumatic ordeal and needs some sexual healing from his wife. When she's not in the mood for it he almost rapes her.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Faith and Xander have sex in "The Zeppo". Faith implies she may like to indulge in this trope often, stating outright "Isn't it crazy how slaying just always makes you hungry and horny?"
  • Buffy and Angel having sex at the end of "Surprise", though it was less celebratory and more "I almost lost you, so I want to be as intimate as possible with you."
  • In "Forever" Xander and Anya have sex after Joyce's funeral, with Anya lampshading the trope. Angel, who's turned up just to comfort Buffy over the death of her mother, has to leave her when Buffy's kissing becomes too passionate.
• Michael and Fiona from Burn Notice indulge in this at least once per season. In the pilot, Fiona punches out a Mook sent by a drug dealer (who later becomes Michael's biggest fan) to scare Michael off. Fiona then starts going up to Michael's place with obvious intentions, only for Michael to stop her and tell her that violence is foreplay for her not him, and that he still needs to clean up "the mess" she left and get some sleep.
• Chicago Fire: Casey and Dawson after the trying events of "I Am the Apocalypse". And that's the only reason.
  Dawson: This is... This is just the reaction to the stress of the day.
  Casey: Absolutely.
• Cracker. A darker version of this trope in "To Say I Love You". A couple murder a Loan Shark to avoid paying him, then have passionate sex (Fitz lampshades this trope when analyzing the crime for the police). The woman enjoys it so much, she encourages her boyfriend to go on a killing spree.
• Daredevil (2015):
  • A non-sexual variant in "Penny and Dime". After a very taxing day, attending Grotto's funeral, then learning the truth about Frank Castle's family, Matt Murdock and Karen Page's kiss in the rain at the end of the episode has a lot of this in the subtext, if Matt's flirting with Karen while at Josie's watching the news of Frank's arrest is anything.
    Matt Murdock: Hey. You okay?
    Karen Page: Yeah. [Matt raises his eyebrows and smirks at her] Okay, that wasn't convincing, was it? [laughs nervously] Umm.....I don't know. I just, uh...Days like today remind me how precious life can be, you know?
  • In season 3 episode 7 "Aftermath", Foggy and Marci make love on the couch after Foggy returns home after having nearly been killed during Dex's attack on the Bulletin. Marci even lampshades this a bit when she tells him she understands why he suddenly became so frisky.
• Doctor Who: Amy Pond all but demands this outright at the end of "Flesh and Stone". Doesn't get further than a kiss before the Doctor puts a stop to it. Then comes the next episode, where he tells Amy's pissed-off fiancé what happened.
  The Doctor: She was frightened. But we survived, you know, and in the relief of it and so, yes, she kissed me.
  Rory: And you kissed her back.
  The Doctor: No, I kissed her mouth.
• Firefly:
  • Wash and Zoe have sex after doing a dangerous maneuver to escape from very, very dangerous Reavers (space cannibals) in "Serenity":
    Zoe: Sir? I'd like you to take the helm, please. I need this man [Wash] to tear all my clothes off.
  • Jayne says something about this to Book in "The Message" when they are talking about how they deal with death. They also say something similar when they are defending the brothel in "Heart of Gold".
• Game of Thrones:
  • Bronn recommends this to Tyrion after his first kill. Tyrion eyes Lady Catelyn Stark (the only woman for miles) and snarks, "I'm willing if she is."
  • Bronn raises the trope again with Tyrion's brother Jaime, along with Pre-Climax Climax.
    "The Dornish are crazy. All they want to do is fight and fuck, fuck and fight. There's nothing like a good fight, to get you in the mood for fucking. And there's nothing like a fuck-mad Dornish girl, to clear your head for the next fight."
  • In "The Last of the Starks", the survivors of the recent apocalyptic battle to save the world burn their dead in a mass cremation, then have a celebration in the main hall. As the wine flows quite a lot of people are seen pairing off, including main characters Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth who finally consummate years of UST. The trope is lampshaded by the Hound when he sees Gendry looking for Arya Stark (with whom he had sex with before the battle).
    Gendry: Have you seen Arya?
    The Hound: You can still smell the burning bodies, and that's where your head is at.
    Gendry: I just want to thank her for—
    The Hound: I'm sure you do.
    Gendry: Look, it's not about that.
    The Hound: Of course it's about that you twat. Why shouldn't it be? The dead are dead, and you're not.
• More like "Glad our child is alive sex" on General Hospital:
  • After daughter Maxie's prolonged illness, Felicia and Frisco celebrate by making love after she finally received a life-saving heart transplant.
  • So do Luke and Laura after daughter Lulu receives a bone marrow transplant, curing her of aplastic anemia.
• The Hanging Gale: After surviving an assassination attempt, Captain Townsend makes an aggressive overture to his maid, but she fends him off. He apologizes for his actions the next day.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • #26 on Lily's reasons to have sex.
  • Also gets a mention in the episode where Ted and Barney pose as tourists visiting NYC in order to pick up girls.
• Iron Fist (2017): In "The Mistress of All Agonies", Colleen Wing has been poisoned by Madame Gao. Bakuto teaches Danny how to use his chi to burn away the poison. Danny succeeds, but the effort causes him to pass out, giving Bakuto's group (including Colleen) more than enough time to take both Gao and Danny to an unknown location. At the start of the next episode, we see Danny and Colleen wake up naked in a bed at the Hand's compound. It's implied that they do the deed, but we cut away to Harold Meachum talking with Joy before we see anything explicit.
• Mad Men: After Roger and Joan get mugged in an alley, they get busy immediately after in that same alley.
• M*A*S*H: Inverted in the first season "Ceasefire". Thinking the war is over, Hawkeye breaks all relationships with nurses he has been bedding by faking being married.
• NCIS: After nearly dying at the hands of a serial killer, Ziva goes to a bar and picks up a guy. Subverted in that she looks more screwed-up than sad. Also, after his old Love Interest Paula Cassidy dies, Tony goes and tells his girlfriend he loves her in a more romantic form of this.
• Travelogue Show Reality Subtext example: No Reservations goes to do a show in Beirut in 2006, gets trapped there by the Israeli bombing campaign, have to be evacuated out by the Marines. Anthony Bourdain gets him, reunites with his then-girlfriend, now wife. Nine months later their first daughter is born. He recounts this at the begining of the show where he returns to Beirut four years later for a do-over.
• Supernatural:
  • Referenced in the third season episode "Jus in Bello". During an assault by an army of demons on a police station, the secretary (established as the only virgin in the building) claims that if she makes it out alive, she is "going to have so much sex." While she and everyone else survives the siege, she never gets to follow through with it; merely hours later, Lilith arrives to clean up her army's failure.
  • In one episode, it's revealed that at various times Sam, Dean, and Bobby worked with a hunter named Annie, and she enjoyed glad to be alive sex with all of them.

Music

• Bonnie "Prince" Billy's "Death To Everyone" combines this with a healthy doese of Existentialism.
  Death to everyone
  Is gonna come
  And it makes hosin' much more fun

Video Games

• Referenced in Borderlands 2 by Lilith concerning Roland. She says if he dies she will be pissed, if they are both alive she will rip off his clothes. Sadly, he is killed by a gunshot to the back, courtesy of Handsome Jack, during the mission.
• Done in Yahtzee's adventure game 6 Days a Sacrifice from Chzo Mythos. Unfortunately, the woman involved ends up screwed in a totally different way as a result.
• Darkest Dungeon: Sending your characters to the brothel after a mission is an expensive but wise tactic; if they've brushed death multiple times and are on the verge of a heart attack, giving them sexual pleasure is a great way to restore their sanity, making them fit to re-enter the meat grinder in a week.
• Divinity: Original Sin II:
  • After the third act of the game where the player and their party fail to get to the Well of Ascension before Dallis and her followers destroy it, the party manages to escape the Nameless Isle thanks to Malady. Back on the Lady Vengeance, the player has the option to get in bed with another party member, provided they've done all of their quest-specific tasks and raised their potential relations high enough.
  • In the better endings, the player character's Aloof Ally Malady says she plans to unwind a bit with "a lover or three hundred" now that the end of the world has been averted.
• You can bring up the subject with Zevran in Dragon Age: Origins—specifically, the idea of ravishing him during the celebration.
• This is how Cass celebrates in one of the endings in Fallout: New Vegas, should the NCR come out on top.
• Very strongly implied to be the case with Kaze and his wife, whomever she may be in Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, since in normal circumstances a child's paralogue unlocks as soon as their parents S-Support... but for plot reasons, Kaze's daughter Midori's paralogue doesn't unlock unless Kaze survives his and the Avatar's near-death experience at the end of Chapter 15, leading to this implication.
• The (though optional) sex scene between Madison and Ethan in Heavy Rain could definitely qualify, considering the former almost got killed by Adrian Baker and almost raped by Paco Mendes, and the latter had a near death experience with a drug dealer whom he may or may not have then killed.
• Love of Magic: Glad You're Alive Sex. After the first time that Owyn almost dies, Emily decides that life is too short to wait and has sex with him at the Glade.
• In Mass Effect 3, Jack states her intention to do this, if they somehow manage to survive the final battle with the Reapers. If romanced by Shepard in the previous game, she flat-out orders Shepard to stay alive, dammit!
• With Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater being an extended James Bond Shout-Out, Naked Snake and EVA have sex in the ending cutscene, after barely escaping an enemy base that got hit with a nuclear impact. After that though, it took a very depressing turn.
• In Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, this happens in the Golden Ending. When the Prince rescues Kaileena from the Dahaka, the two sail towards Babylon and have sex along the way.
• Turns up unexpectedly in World of Warcraft. In patch 4.2, a zone opened up for max level players to do repeated daily quests in (the Molten Front), and one of the quests involves bailing out druids who have gotten torched by the fire elementals. Rarely, upon healing one of them to full, they'll have this to say to you:
  Wounded Hyjal Defender says: I owe you a very special thank you. Find me sometime when this fight is over.

Visual Novels

• The first H-scene between Hisao and Lilly during her route in Katawa Shoujo for all intents and purposes boils down this because it happens after Hisao experiences a heart flutter. It is more "Glad-you're-alive sex" in Lilly's case, since she obviously was worried sick (and double because she's blind and couldn't help him.)

Webcomics

• Unusually done in The Order of the Stick where Roy has sex with his girlfriend Celia after coming back from the dead. And the famous strip 400, only it's more "glad that you're alive" implied sex.
• In Welcome to Chastity the main character, after almost getting killed defeating a powerful witch the night before, celebrates by spending the next day making love to her boyfriend.

Western Animation

• Unsuccessfully invoked in American Dad!, when Stan gets in a Mexican Standoff with his wife and expects it to end in "nobody-got-shot-sex", as it usually does.
• Bob's Burgers: After successfully preventing a plane from crashing into a bridge and landing it on the water Bob and Linda tell their kids to get lost as they're going to have a "Prosecco Party".
• Close Enough: After going through a terrifying haunted house which made them believe they where dead Josh and Emily start to make out even as one of the employees tells them to to leave, and then clothes start coming off.
• Done by Peter and Lois in the Family Guy episode "North by North Quahog”, after they survive an encounter with Mel Gibson (who was trying to kill them for stealing a reel with his latest movie on it).
• Samurai Jack: It's more of Glad To Be Alive Kiss, but Jack and Ashi have defeated a monster called Lazarus 92 and, after much panting and covered in the monster's guts, start kissing after a shared glance.
• The Simpsons: The "Treehouse Of Horror XVI" segment "Survival Of The Fattest" ends with Homer and Marge having sex after she saves him from Mr. Burns's safari hunt of Springfield men. However, they forget that Mr. Burns was televising his hunt for Fox, which means the sports analysts are still there to comment on what's going on.
  Commentator: All right, and there you have it! Terry Bradshaw, your thoughts on what just transpired?
  Terry: Well, it's a disgrace, Roger. This network will show a dozen gruesome murders, but I bet they cut to commercial before these two begin the tender act of love. (Homer and Marge moan offscreen) I spoke too soon, huh? There they go! Whoa! That's goin' in my playbook!

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