Sex by Proxy

So, Alice and Bob are making the beast with two backs, so to speak. Except it's more of a beast with three backs. With or without them being aware of it, a third party is actively enjoying their encounter, and not in the usual way, either.

This trope is when:

• Someone is telepathically or otherwise linked to the characters, and can feel whatever they're feeling;
• Someone is participating in the rompin', but isn't physically there;
• Someone experiences the effects of sex long after it takes place;
• Someone's mind is magically transferred into the body of one of the characters, with the body's actual owner still conscious.

If a body snatching leads to sex with the body's original owner left unaware, then it's Not Right in the Bed, not this trope.

Examples of characters being involved in sex without realizing it^note Hey, it happens! also don't count.

This tends to be a magic trope, although sci-fi versions exist as well. Often an upgrade of Dirty Mind-Reading. It's a Fetish, obviously, and a subtrope of Power Perversion Potential.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Chapter 290 of Ah! My Goddess, Belldandy and Keiichi are overshadowing another goddess and mortal who fell in love. Judging by the last panel on page 23, the past couple were lovers, which means Bell and Kei are lovers by proxy.
• In Ghost in the Shell, Motoko, Kurutan, and Ran all experiment with a new pornographic software that they're developing that allows the users to feel what everyone else is feeling. Batou is given the task of interrupting her "shore leave", and shortly after he hacks his way in, he starts to feel icky because his male cyborg body (and brain) didn't have the receptors needed to process what a female orgasm feels like. It didn't help any that he also got infected with the cyberdrug they were using at the time either.
• In Pet Shop of Horrors, Leon is seduced by two different women in one night. It turns out that they're plant spirits who were using him to spread their pollen from one girl to another.

Comic Books

• This seems to be at least a significant chunk of the principle behind the Shrieky Girls of Doktor Sleepless.
• In ElfQuest, when Cutter realizes that Zhantee has always been in love with Leetah from afar, he mentally shares his memories of his relationship with Leetah with Zhantee as a gift — including their romantic intimacy.
• In Requiem Vampire Knight, there is a character capable of stealing orgasms from others as they are about to happen. "The ultimate safe sex" indeed.
• Topper was a comic about a horny ghost that ran in the Australian edition of Penthouse. In one strip, he manipulated two women into having sex and joined in without either of them noticing.

Fan Works

Examples by subject:

• Multiple Firefly fanfics have explored the implications of River's long-established Power Incontinence while stuck aboard a very small spaceship with her big brother right after he finally scores with Kaylee.
• In Red vs. Blue, AIs are able to possess others by entering the AI slot in their armor, often leaving the possessee still conscious. Fanfic takes this to its logical conclusion with Power Perversion Potential.

Examples by title:

• In the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "The Other Smurfette", Empath's friend Polaris Psyche feels the sensation of Empath being raped by Hogatha posing as a female Smurf named Wonderette.
• A more PG-rated version occurs in Kyon: Big Damn Hero. Due to being in tune with Haruhi's emotions at all times, especially if the emotions are particularly strong, Koizumi ends up extremely flushed when Haruhi and Kyon are making out.

Films — Live-Action

• In Being John Malkovich, Maxine has sex with Malkovich while Lotte is inside his head. She doesn't care all that much for Malkovich — she just gets off on "Lotte in Malkovich". Malkovich slowly becomes aware of what's going on. Things get out of hand.
• Brainstorm features a memory-recording device, and one of the scientists working on it uses it to make a porno.
• The main character of Enter the Void is killed about 15 minutes into the movie and spends the rest of it as a disembodied spirit. There are numerous occasions where he observes people having sex and flies into their heads to experience it from their point of view.
• In Freaks, one of the Conjoined Twins is shown to get aroused when her sister is kissing her boyfriend. Since the sister and boyfriend proceed to get married and have sex, one can assume the trope is in full effect.
• In Ghost (1990), Sam uses Oda Mae's body to say goodbye to Molly one last time. Although it's more of a PG-rated Makeout by Proxy.
• In the Unrated Edition of Pretty Cool, the woman investigating Howard uses a device to tap into his body while he has sex with his sister's friends in their hot tub.
• Species II: The two alien-human hybrids are mind-linked, and also desperately want to hook up with each other to create purer offspring than they could with human mates. There are several times when Patrick is having sex somewhere else, and Eve goes into heat and apparently orgasms at the same time.
• In Star Trek: Nemesis, Shinzon uses his Viceroy's Psychic Powers to Mind Rape Deanna Troi while she's having sex with her fiancé Will Riker. She ends up paying them back for it by using the psychic connection to target the Scimitar's bridge with the Enterprise's weapons.
• Strange Days involves illegal devices which can record and play back memories, giving the user all of the sensory input felt by whoever was being recorded. The recordings include sex, of course (parts of a couple of raunchy memory recordings are shown, both for sale and for personal use). It's probably a huge part of the market.
• In Surrogates, some people willingly let others access their robotic avatars to feel the pleasure of living in a perfect body (and touching it).

Literature

• Animorphs doesn't give us all the details (it is a kid's book, supposedly), but Visser One and one of her first human hosts did this with another human-Controller, resulting in a pair of twins with four "parents". Of course, other Yeerks probably wind up doing this quite a bit too.
• In the Apprentice Adept novel Unicorn Point, Agape and Citizen Tan are pitted against each other in the book's Tournament Arc in a game of "Seduction by Proxy".^note The players are linked to two volunteer serfs as a voice in their heads, attempting to seduce each other in alternating rounds. The third and final round allows rape as a way to "ensure a finish". The serfs' memories are wiped of the game events.
• Aristoi, which is set in a future where everybody has wireless internet connections in their heads, has a science-fictional example.
• Body Rides is about a man who is given a magic ring which allows him to astral project and inhabit someone else's body. They are unaware of his presence, but he experiences everything they do, including their thoughts. Naturally, this includes sex.
• In Bone Dance, the protagonist has been ridden by two Horsemen in the past. Now the Horsemen are in new hosts, together, and the protagonist discovers that having been ridden leaves behind a psychic connection between host and Horseman. This is particularly traumatic because the protagonist is neuter, and thus has not had much experience with sex before this.
• In Commander-in-Chief by Nikolai Gudanets, a psychic alien squid mind-controls a call girl and arranges for her to be ordered by an American government official. After taking control of him as well, the alien realizes that the man is still aroused, so he has them do it, while connected to both. This leads to a rather graphic scene in which the alien has trouble with pronouns due to being in both minds at the same time. It even experiences orgasm, a strange feeling for its species. The second time it happens turns deadly, when the official accidentally bites a hooker's jugular during sex.
• Dora Wilk Series: In a malicious twist, Joshua experiences this when Dora and Miron finally make out... only from Dora's perspective, which makes things kinda awkward for him, since he's definitely straight.
• Dragonriders of Pern:
  • The mental link between dragons and riders can cause this effect. Generally, when dragons mate, their riders are pulled into the lust and wind up following suit whether they want to or not — but it also works in reverse, most notably in the case of Lord Jaxom, who winds up with a strange, white runt of a dragon. Being apparently asexual, it has no interest in "flying" with female dragons, but it does seem to rather enjoy sharing Jaxom's feelings when he's off with a girl.
  • In Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern, Moreta's away from her queen, Orlith, on a time jump when she and Alessan resolve their attraction. As she's dozing off, Moreta thinks that Orlith would have liked Alessan's lovemaking, too.
• In Geek Love, Conjoined Twins Elly and Iphy have sex with a man. Elly wants it, and Iphy... doesn't. It gets even more squicky because the two share the same bottom half.
• In the Heralds of Valdemar series, Talia has a permanent empathic link with her Companion that can't be blocked, even when her Companion is busy showing the Companion mares what a virile stallion he is. As The Empath, she's also treated to the emotions of her fellow Heralds whenever they're nearby unless she very carefully shields herself. Being initially roomed next to an exceptionally randy trainee, it is no surprise that she later chooses to move her permanent quarters to a remote tower of the Collegium.
• In the Incarnations of Immortality book For Love of Evil, Parry's late wife, Jolie, is bound to him by a spot of her blood on his wrist. One night, she convinces a peasant girl whose home Parry is spending the night at to let Jolie use her body to have a chance to make love to Parry. The act was consensual for all three parties involved, but it violated Parry's oath of celibacy that he'd taken upon joining an order of monks, and left him open to further temptation.
• In the Lilith's Brood series, the Oankali are a three-sexed race, and perpetuate that manner of relationship when they mix with humans. It roughly involves the ooloi being in-between the male and female and connecting their minds, so that they have sex mentally while never touching each other, only the ooloi conduit, and the ooloi enjoys all the feelings of both.
• The Machineries of Empire: As Virtual Ghosts, Kujen and Jedao could only consummate their tumultuous relationship through human anchors. In Revenant Gun, Kujen's anchor abruptly refuses to go through with it out of disgust for the secret behind Jedao's current Custom-Built Host.
• In The Night Angel Trilogy, when Kylar has sex with Elene, it is picked up by Vi, who is telepathically linked to Kylar through magic earrings. As she was also in love with Kylar, she enjoys it, but feels dirty as well as she views it as too voyeuristic.
• In the Night Huntress series, Vlad Tepesh has the rare ability to read humans' minds. On one occasion, he remarks on the shouts going off in his head even though Cat, the main character, and her husband were in a soundproof room. In narration: "Good God, I hadn't considered that. This must be what it felt like to have someone find a sex tape of you."
• In Stranger in a Strange Land, when Jubal finally has sex with Jill and/or Dawn, he discovers that the entire cult has enjoyed their romp through their shared mental link.
• At one point in the Sword of Truth series, Nicci links herself to Kahlan and then lets a violent brute have sex with her, forcing Kahlan to feel every sensation as if she were the one getting it.
• Tower and the Hive: At one point in The Rowan, the powerfully telepathic Rowan, while in the "can't keep her hands off him" early delirious stage of her first sexual relationship, has to be quietly told by one of her other housemates that she's "broadcasting".
• In The Wheel of Time, the Warder bond allows people to feel what others do, so when Elayne and Rand finally have sex, Birgitte (who is bonded to Elayne), Min, and Aviendha (who are bonded to Rand) all have to go off and get drunk so they can't feel precisely what is going on.
• In White Night, resident wizard gumshoe Harry and his apprentice Molly are trying to get an impression on the last moments of a woman who has mysteriously died. Because of Molly's talents with magical detection, she's the one who'd tasked with picking out the dead girl's last sensations. It turns out, her last moments were wrapped up in the lethal sexual ecstasy of a White Court vampire, and Molly catches the full blast.
• The main character of Woman on the Edge of Time travels to the future and has sex with someone she meets there. It's only after the fact that she learns that the mechanism behind her time travel (which relies on a psychic bond between her and another person from the future) means that said other person was aware of the sex as it was going on.

Live-Action TV

• Telepaths in Babylon 5 already have problems keeping everyone else's thoughts out, so guess what happens when two powerful telepaths get it on in the middle of a telepath colony.
• When Phoebe develops her empathy powers in Charmed (1998), she becomes capable of feeling the emotions of people around her. This leads to a fairly squick implication of this trope when she walks with Piper (her sister) and a guy checks Piper out. Upon beginning to feel his attraction towards her own sister, Phoebe informs Piper of the fact, and the two decide to quickly move right along.
• In the Firefly episode "Objects in Space", River (a telepath) walks by as Wash and Zoe were making out in the cockpit. She is able to feel what both of them are feeling and visibly reacts.
• Fringe:
  • Olivia gets this in the episode "Bad Dreams", as part of an ongoing psychic link with the episode's killer.
  • The killer is later reformed and in a relationship with a pyrokinetic woman. He uses his "specialty" to make her feel his pleasure during sex.
• In Sense8, the cluster of sensates can sometimes feel when one of its members is in the act. Essentially, this can lead to giant telepathic orgies.
• In Supernatural, demons (and humanized angels) abuse their possessed bodies for all the pleasures they can grant. This can include sexual experiences, and some demons can be quite flirty. One demon possessing a woman conceived a child and carried it to term, resulting in the birth of the "Anti-Christ", born with demon influence.
• Witchblade: There's a scene where shadowy chessmaster Kenneth Irons is apparently psychically connected to Sara Pezzini when she has sex with her Irish rockstar boyfriend Conchobar.

Tabletop Games

• There is one alien race in Traveller where all births are in mind-linked brother-sister pairs. These are each linked so closely that they are almost one individual. When they marry, one pair marries another rather than one individual marrying another. This trope is an unstated but obvious inference.

Theater

• Side Show has a scene where the Conjoined Twins and their respective love interests are on a Tunnel of Love ride. Violet seems to be able to feel Daisy's reaction to being kissed by Terry, and notes that it's much stronger than her own response to being kissed by her fiancé.

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed: Expanded Universe materials have confirmed that Animus users do indeed feel the physical sensations that their ancestors felt, which means that all the times Desmond watched Ezio have sex, he felt what he felt.
• In Dragon Age II, this is brought up if Hawke romances Anders (the latter of whom is possessed by a spirit of Justice). When Anders tells Hawke that Justice disapproves of their relationship, Hawke can ask, "So, he's like an unwilling participant in our threesome?". Later, Isabela makes the same joke, commenting, "You, Anders... and Justice? Well, you know what they say — two's company, but three's better."

Webcomics

• BOO! It's Sex: Christine says Tara's goals to get them "mad laid" and "live vicariously through [the girls]" sounds almost like she wants to possess them and have sex by proxy. Tara assures her she would never do that... without consent.
• A rather horrible version happens in Concession, when Artie uses his spiritual powers to Mind Rape Joel while having sex.
• Grrl Power: How does an underage succubus who needs tantric^note sexual energy gets fed without Unfortunate Implications? Well one of the ways is to be in the general vicinity of sexual activity.
• A romantic version (and, presumably, at some point, a sexual one) occurs in A Miracle of Science when Mars falls in love. Prester meets a cute, female Martian, who is part of the Martian Hive Mind, and they get along well... to say the least. When he then visits Mars, he finds that random people keep giving him flowers and smiling at him — because, after all, Mars likes him. (The series ends before their relationship can progress to the final level of intimacy, but one must imagine that it'll be somewhat awkward...)

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