Sex Starts, Story Stops

"Next thing I knew, [the female lead] returned to her house to find two women in black catsuits pointing guns at her. I didn't catch any of the ensuing dialogue, but it must have been pretty fucking convincing, because I looked away for one second and after I looked back, the three of them were having lesbian sex on the snooker table."

— Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's review of I Like To Play Games Too

A gratuitous sex scene that is sudden and sends the narrative into a screeching halt to accommodate the ensuing coitus.

Sex scenes are, at times, logical in the sense that given what we know about the characters in the story, yes, it makes some sense that they would make love at this time. Where they become illogical is that there's seldom any narrative purpose to show them actually doing the deed. Functionally, it does nothing to advance the plot if nothing particularly important happens while they're having sex, especially when compared with the far more efficient Sexy Discretion Shot. A number of books on directing films and screenwriting state outright that a sex scene can serve to take the audience out of the story, especially if it is explicit in nature. There is some Truth in Television to this; very rarely can people remember what happens in a movie or TV show right after a major sex scene.

Depending on the venue, the sudden appearance of a sex scene can be controversial. Video game fandom, for example, is split between those who feel sex scenes give a more cinematic feel to a game and those who feel it's an unnecessary distraction from gameplay (not to mention that while technically speaking children and under-18s aren't supposed to play adult-rated games, in practice the reality is very different, and historically youth exposure to violent images is less concerning than exposure to sexual explicitness). The widespread use of "coitus ensues" in TV series has reached the extent where nearly every original scripted series made for cable, streaming, the BBC and some Australian networks that isn't clearly made for children seems to have at least one such scene per episode these days, especially as actual nudity is not a prerequisite.

A warning sign that a series or film relies too heavily on story-stopping sex scenes is if the product is not intended to be wholly about sexual topics (as opposed to something like Fifty Shades of Grey) yet media coverage and reviews tend to focus on the sexual aspects of a show to the near exclusion of all else.

Note that this is a narrative trope; it's not to be confused with any sex scene that might be jarring due to lack of build-up.

See Gratuitous Rape for when it's non-consensual. Contrast Overcome with Desire, in which a sudden detour into sex has longer-term consequences which push the plot forward or redirect it, rather than pausing it.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In this condom commercial the salesgirl at the drug store suggests that the couple try on condoms and they do.

Anime & Manga

• Parasyte: Near the last third of the story, Shinichi sees his crush Satomi waiting in front of his house after he comes back from a gruesome battle with Gotou, in which Migi seems to have sacrificed himself. The two have sex in his room. It doesn't take up many pages in the manga, and the event isn't mentioned again.
• Queen's Blade: Invoked whenever Nyx allows her staff, Funikura, to tentacle rape her in exchange for magical power. First seen during her match against Elina, who was stunned speechless that her opponent was having sex with her weapon in the middle of a duel!
• Vampire Knight: In chapter 89, even though Kaname's established that Yuuki isn't happy with him, and Yuuki's established that Zero sated her (previously stated as what proves love between vampires), the two of them still randomly end up sleeping together, to which it's afterwards treated like it never happened.
• The anime movie A Wind Named Amnesia rolls along like a typical, navel-gazing, post-apocalyptic road film. Then right before the Gainax Ending, the main hero and his alien love interest strip and have sex for no apparent reason.

Comic Books

• An issue of The Avengers opened with Ant-Man and The Wasp having sex. Not vanilla sex, either. He used his powers to shrink and was doing something inside her lady parts. No, this added nothing to the story that a morning-after scene (like the one portrayed immediately after this) could not have accomplished. ^note this was a Take That! at The Comics Code which Marvel had just abandoned.
• The Dark Knight Strikes Again: Superman and Wonder Woman had sex for several pages for no real reason. In the process creating destructive weather patterns and tidal waves that overturn aircraft carriers. Somehow Superman is in better shape physically after that than before the act.

Fanfiction

• Though Dark Secrets had been building up the romance between Draco Malfoy and "Mary Sue" throughout (in its own particular way, of course) the actual sex scene comes completely out of nowhere immediately after she's tried committing suicide. It's also something of a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, in that it's completely different in style from anything else in the fic, never gets referenced again and could be (in some versions has been) removed without changing anything.
• Everything the Light Touches (or The Lion King 2 1/2) is made of nothing but this. The sole purpose of the fanfic is for Lion King characters to have sex in every character-on-character combination conceivable with very little plot and still bills itself as a "followup" to The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Numerous Original Characters are included as the story progresses, making room for even more messy scenarios. If you're a dedicated fan of the franchise or its characters, this could very well be one of the most horrifying fanfics you can ever come across for its levels of pure squick.
• In Fallout: Equestria it's a toss-up which one slows down the work more, several scenes of Littlepip and Homage or the one scene of Velvet and Calamity. Though this one spurs an awkwardly expository and heartwarming conversation between the characters after being caught in the act.
• In Blissful Dream, Fluttershy and her lover sudden start making love for close to no discernible reason, other than because they enjoy it.
• "Progress: Luna vs. Threesome" includes the phrase "And then they all fucked!" immediately following a set-up for a sex scene between Luna and her two roommates. In context, it was actually a cut to Pinkie Pie talking to Twilight Sparkle about a porn DVD she got from Celestia. The actual sex is off-screen and integrated into the story more tastefully.
• A New Hope (Danganronpa) had no less than four sex scenes in the middle of the already gripping Killing Game. A particularly egregious one between Kaede and Shuichi happens in the middle of the final investigation.

Films — Live-Action

• In the film version of 300, King Leonidas and Queen Gorgo make love the night before he goes off to battle. It could have been an appropriate scene, showing a fleeting moment of tenderness before a bloody war, but then it showed them going from missionary to doggy style and it started getting silly.
• The sex scene in Alone in the Dark (2005). Tara Reid's character shows up and just bones the main character. They never speak of it again.
• Anon (2018): All of the sex scenes have little to no buildup. Sal is simply seen while having sex with a woman in the first case. The second is justified as she's a sex worker he hires. In the third, he and The Girl just briefly flirt before they're shown having sex.
• Below Her Mouth: The film actually opens on Dallas and her girlfriend having sex. A number of other sex scenes follow, and although they largely make sense in the story, they're also gratuitous. This has been a main source of criticism toward the film.
• Blue Is the Warmest Color: The long porn-length sex scenes between Adèle and Emma (becasue Girl on Girl Is Hot), of course, not to mention other prolonged full-frontal nude scenes that show, well, everything. These scenes go well beyond what's needed for exposition. Arguably, what this film is best known for.
• Cynara: Poetry in Motion: Though the plot is solely about their affair to begin with, the rest halts as Cynara and Byron have a very long sex scene (around seven minutes) with them shown in various positions together fairly explicitly.
• The sex scene in Jean-Claude Van Damme's film Double Impact, it serves no other purpose than Fanservice, and the thing is that it's not even real: it's played entirely in the head of one Crazy Jealous Guy who thinks that his twin brother is screwing his girlfriend at that moment.
• Tom Atkins (plays Dan above) seems to make a habit of this. In The Fog (1980) he and Elizabeth hop into bed having met at best half an hour ago before they even know each other's names. The remake justifies this by making them an on-off couple.
• Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives: Near the end of Laura's story, she and Mitch have a pretty gratuitous sex scene that is a bit more explicit (not to mention lengthy) than seems strictly necessary. Then again, perhaps this was common in the pulp novels it was based on.
• Giant Little Ones: Natasha rather explicitly gives Franky a hand job after they grow close to each other, which is not really necessary to show and had little buildup.
• Halloween films:
  • In Halloween: Resurrection, Donna just randomly decides to have sex with Jim, who she completely hated up until that point.
  • Halloween III: Season of the Witch has Dan and Ellie randomly start kissing and having sex when they get to the motel room. Bear in mind they've known each other for less than two days.
• The Hour of the Pig: Courtois' encounter with the maid at the inn apparently comes out of nowhere until it's revealed later that the inn doubles as the town brothel, so this was all part of the services provided. Even so, it seems to be there largely as fanservice. Courtois' sleeping with Samira at a later point makes much more sense in the storyline.
• Jason's Lyric: After a brief argument, the title characters engage in an intense and passionate sex in the electronic store and reconcile just like that, with neither of them even talking or apologizing.
• Kingdom of Heaven's theatrical cut makes the sex scene between Balian and Sibylla seem a little out of nowhere, but the director's cut restores a lot of subplots to justify the affair.
• Kiss of the Damned: The sex scenes are not very long, but all fairly gratuitous, since they don't advance things in the plot much.
• Maverick: Jodi Foster and Mel Gibson's characters have a pretty prolonged scene on the river boat during a break in the poker tournament. There's not much build-up save for some flirty energy beforehand and flirty energy afterwards.
• The Miseducation of Cameron Post: Erin abruptly has sex with Cameron, without any buildup, before acting almost like it never happened. It's Played for Drama as both are in a conversion therapy camp where Erin had been trying to repress herself, with this being apparently her giving in after a long time.
• In Missile X: The Neutron Bomb Incident, Alec beds Nina after knowing her for about three hours.
• Monster's Ball has this with its infamous "make me feel good" sex scene. This is an example of how a sex scene can overshadow a film. Despite the movie getting generally rave reviews and Halle Berry winning an Oscar for her performance, try finding anyone who actually can tell you what the movie was actually about. The sex scene, though, they know.
• A Murder of Crows: Lawson abruptly has sex with his publisher rather explicitly, without buildup.
• My Days of Mercy: Mercy and Lucy's sex scenes are not necessary to the film at all, while probably even distracting from the rest of the plot (especially as the clips of them surfaced on the Internet before it was even released).
• The Postman: Abby enters the Postman's room and asks him if he's decided on the request to father a child with her yet (her husband is infertile). He hesitates, so she instantly undresses to convince him. Not only did they have sex right off the bat, but from this point on, the movie introduces the ever-bloating romance subplot, which constantly stops the actual plot, being one of the bigger deviations from the original book (where Abby is barely mentioned after the main character leaves Pine View). There, the actual sex was also never shown, with the scene ending just before, while here it's explicit and at significant length.
• While having the financial partnership of the protagonists lead to a romantic coupling in Rollover was plausible enough, the first sex scene is in the first act when the two hardly even know each other. The other two sex scenes that follow in the second act are just as annoyingly gratuitous. One gets the impression that someone thought the financial apocalypse to which the film was building wasn't going to be enough to keep the audience's attention, and that the sex scenes somehow would. However, the sex scenes only detract from the story, and the movie would probably be a lot better without them.
• There's one in Shark Attack 3: Megalodon after John Barrowman's character gives his infamous and totally out of the blue "What do you say I take you home and eat your pussy?" line. Word of God (Barrowman on numerous occasions) is that this line was meant as a joke ad-lib but was kept in, which intentionally or not results in the ensuing sex scene becoming a lampshading of the trope.
• In the Hebrew novel "Shloshah yamim v'yeled [Three Days and a Child]" the main character goes to his (much older) landlady's apartment to answer a phone call he received there—normal for the time, when getting a residential phone installed could take years. In the film, out of nowhere, the characters start making out. Eventually they remember the phone, and the caller is still on the line, moving the plot ahead.
• Supernova has three gratuitous sex scenes (two of them in zero gravity). The module where the zero-g sex occurs appears to even be built for this purpose.
• Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese go at it and good in The Terminator, even though there's a killing machine hunting them down that absolutely will not stop until Sarah is dead, with the purpose of keeping John, the future Resistance leader, from being born. At least it has a justified reason: if you want a Stable Time Loop, you need to somehow find a way for John to be conceived.
• They/Them (2022): Veronica and Kim having sex, then later Stu with Darwin, really come out of nowhere with their doing this not adding anything to the plot.
• Underworld: Evolution has an awkward sex scene not too far into the movie immediately after the two characters meet the Big Bad. Since Evolution is an immediate sequel (it literally takes place hours after the original ends), it could be argued that it's a culmination of the first film's Unresolved Sexual Tension brought on by the emotional stress of the events around them.
• Waterworld has an odd scene in which a young girl is captured and the main characters go save her... except their ship is broken, so they randomly have sex. Right after a Brick Joke from earlier in the movie comes to help them along, meaning that the scene was completely pointless.
• Parodied in Wayne's World. After a plot-important scene of Cassandra on the phone arranging her music video shoot, Wayne and Cassandra get in bed together, with no plot importance. They aren't shown actually having sex, but the words "Gratuitous Sex Scene" flash on the screen as they unconvincingly simulate sex while clothed.

Literature

• Simona Ahrnstedt is pretty bad at this. Her novels have plenty of sex scenes, and in her debut Överenskommelser, we also get a really long rape scene. These scenes would have worked just as well (or maybe even better) if they had been shorter and less detailed. Many of them aren't even necessary for the plot. But they're still there, and Simona's latest novel, "De skandalösa", is close to being pure erotica.
• Neil Gaiman apparently decided that what American Gods really needed was three sudden bonking (with a twist) sequences, two of which were completely irrelevant to the plot, took place in a completely different locale, and involved characters who had not been seen or even mentioned beforehand. One sex scene was especially unexpected because it involved two men — a salesman and a taxi driver — and gave virtually no indication that either was gay until a quarter of a page before the thrusting began. The scenes with Bilquis and the djinn do serve a purpose, though — they show us how the former gods are making it nowadays, and exactly how un-glamourous, how far from godlike it really is.
• The Anita Blake series became infamous for this trope. Anita started out as a Chaste Hero, to the point that it was considered a major thing when she finally agreed to go on a date with one of the male protagonists. Flash forward a few books after that and sex scenes started becoming increasingly common until novels were devoting more page count to Anita having sex with random men than Anita doing anything plot-related.
• Deconstructed in The Difference Engine. The novel has a rather long and detailed sex scene between Edward Mallory and a prostitute; the only connection the prostitute, Hetty, has to the plot is that she was the roommate of Sybil Gerard, the Decoy Protagonist. Mallory even abandons his ally Ebenezer Fraser, who had earlier been injured trying to help contain an outbreak of robberies, in order to satisfy his urges. But when Mallory exits Hetty's apartment, he finds that the rioting, pollution, and the "Great Stink" that had been plaguing London during his tenure as the viewpoint character have all of a sudden reached nearly apocalyptic levels of awfulness. Because he was busy whoring while things were really going to the pits, he has lost his last opportunity to evacuate to the countryside to escape the chaos. He ponders what kind of idiocy had gotten into him that he would engage in such pointless debauchery while the rest of the city was going to the pits.
• Vlad's first encounter with Cawti in the Dragaera series. Usually, a recently-resurrected person has a very different first meeting with the person who killed them. It was at least foreshadowed (the book started with Vlad griping about how assassinating somebody always makes him horny), and the suddenness of the jump into sex and relationship is noted afterwards. Neither really ameliorates the effect.
• In the Earth's Children series, from The Valley of Horses onward, Ayla and Jondalar have long, detailed sex scenes quite frequently. Minor characters too, sometimes. Apart from a few plot-important scenes, they do little except to demonstrate the sexual openness of the culture... a point which was already made in other ways, such as through dialogue.
• Knowledge Of Angels: About two-thirds of the way through the book, Palinor has a threesome with his (female and male) servants, which comes up quite unexpectedly while adding nothing to the plot. It also paints him in a somewhat bad light, given the questionable consent on their part as they're dependent on him for livelihood and used to obeying his orders.
• In The Lions of Al-Rassan, an assassin has just killed a minor king and been exiled by his successor. Then the minor king's mistress and the mother of his two bastard sons show up at the assassin's estate and coitus ensues. For no reason at all.
• Lo Mejor Que Le Puede Pasar A Un Cruasan has two sex scenes. The second one at least somewhat fits into the narrative. The first one, with the main character having sex with a prostitute... yeah, that one we could have done without. The movie adaptation even skips it.
• The Mist: Midway through the story, David and Amanda, who are both married, have sex. It's something of a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, so much so that Frank Darabont chose to leave it out of the film version. Even King himself has said he had misgivings about that scene.
• The YA novel Monument 14: Sky on Fire contains a scene where Dean and Astrid spontaneously have sex, mere hours after she made it clear to him that she wasn't interested in sleeping with him. The in-universe explanation is that the two were high on the chemical compounds contaminating the air outside. The sex scene is only mentioned a few more times in the book.
• Near the end of The Steel Remains, Ringil Eskiath suddenly has sex with the book's main villain, and no, it's not rape. Their only prior history was a sword fight directly before the encounter.
• The Teresa Knight Trilogy: Many if not most of the sex scenes have little buildup (often none), and are generally described in explicit detail. Generally this is justified as it's taking place in a sex club or between friends with benefits etc. It's also expected somewhat (this is erotic fiction) though the sheer number of sex scenes becomes pretty staggering.
• In Tigana, the main character suddenly gets to sleep with a duchess he just met, with the encounter being described in great detail.
• In Ian McDonald's River of Gods, a character (who's been previously been introduced to the reader) is on a plane home to India. He chats with the woman next to him, they talk about their family backgrounds and such. Soon, this leads to them surreptitiously having sex right there, with almost no motivation. And she knows he's about to become her new boss, but he doesn't. Nothing involving her is followed up on.
• Their Bright Ascendancy: Midway through The Tiger's Daughter, Princess Minami Shizuka falls seriously ill and her solicits her childhood friend Barsalai Shefali to have sex with her in case she doesn't make it — with the two of them passing it off as Intimate Healing when they're caught in the morning. What makes the scene gratuitous is that 1) their intimacy is described in pornographic detail while all of the other sex scenes in the story are of the Sexy Discretion Shot variety, 2) they're teenagers, and 3) in the context of the narrative it's being recounted by Shefali in her autobiographical letter to Shizuka.

Live-Action TV

• The That '70s Show episode "Donna's Story" had Eric try his hand at writing. All his stories eventually featured the main characters (based on him and Donna) randomly having sex.
  Eric: God, why do all my stories end like this?
• Dark Desire: Alma and Brenda are shown in a number of sex scenes which are pretty gratuitous (but non-explicit). Few of them are really necessary to show with such detail (not that many viewers will complain).
• Das Boot: At the same time Carla is hiding there in her house, Simone allows Forster in, they're talking softly, and then the next thing we see him having sex with her. We don't hear just what is said leading up to this, and Simone doesn't look happy when Carla sees them. It's left ambiguous if Simone submitted to his advances because it would let her learn more from his Gestapo operations, or didn't feel able to refuse him. As she's a lesbian (who's involved with Carla, in fact) her motive likely isn't actual attraction obviously.
• Dates:
  • Mia and Stephen impulsively have sex in the alley.
  • Mia and David later have sex in her flat, right after he made a point of insulting her.
  • Jenny and Christian are shown talking on their date, then it cuts to them finishing up having sex in bed.
• Good Omens (2019): Like in the book, Anathema and Newt rather abruptly have sex, with basically no buildup prior to this. Justified however, because she's acting on her ancestor's prophecies, who predicted they would do it.
• Guerrilla: Marcus stumbles on Dhari having sex with Eliette in Belgium when before this they were barely even shown as interacting with each other.
• Hightown: Jackie picks up a number of women (plus her ex once) and is then shown having sex with them in pretty gratuitous scenes.
• Played for Laughs in an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In The Gang's movie "Lethal Weapon 5" the plot stops so the evil casino owner (played by Frank) can have a long, drawn-out sex scene with his girlfriend. To the Show Within a Show audience watching the film, it's this trope. To us (and to The Gang) it's clear that the sex scene was only there so Frank could get it on with the actress (a prostitute he hired specifically for the sex scene). Yes, Frank was really having sex with her.
• Kiss Me First: Leila decides to have sex with Jonty without really any buildup beforehand, and especially as until then she'd been heavily implied as having a shared attraction with Tess. She later almost has sex with Kyle too, just after having met him, but backs out. It's possible she's trying to fill a void this way.
• Magnificent Century: Why were Hatice and İbrahim going at in the baths? To de-stress after an awful day? Who knows. But for a show that is usually tamer, it certainly seems to come out of nowhere.
• Mayfair Witches: Rowan and Ciprien's sex scene is abrupt, without buildup, also probably unnecessary to show their relationship.
• NOS4A2: Early in the series, Maggie is sorting books in her library when a woman her age walks in to ask for a book. One cut later, and that woman is eating Maggie out in a scene that serves no purpose other than to establish Maggie's sexual orientation, which a later episode does again, only much better. It's then subverted when the two are interrupted before Maggie can finish.
• The Outer Limits (1995): In "Lithia", Major Mercer has sex with Miranda and then Ariel with really no buildup. Justified though as Mercer is the only man either has ever seen, and they're naturally fascinated. It's possibly implied too that in their society sexual mores are more relaxed.
• Outlander: Like with many Starz shows, there's a lot of gratuitous sex scenes. While some make sense in the plot, the level of explicitness can't really be called anything except fanservice. This is not only done with the leads either-some of the minor characters get into it too.
• Spoofed in Season 46 (2020-21) of Saturday Night Live in a filmed sketch called "Lesbian Period Drama", poking fun at the prevalent tropes of the titular genre in films like Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Ammonite. The skit specifically lampoons the extended, multi-positional Coitus Ensues scene from Ammonite:
  Narrator: Two hours of excruciating tension all building up to a sex scene so graphic you'll think, "Oh, right, a man directed this".
  Ex-lover (Kate McKinnon): Hey gals, it's 1840, I don't think [that position] has been invented yet.
• Spartacus: Blood and Sand: There's no subtext whatsoever in this series. Not even a Sexy Discretion Shot gets in the way. When characters get it on, they get it on in almost hardcore scenes all on screen. It doesn't discriminate by the gender of those involved, giving a nice aversion to But Not Too Gay.
• Tidelands (Netflix): While it seems unlikely that Laura Maney would quite so readily sleep with Augie when she just suspected he killed her husband, they proceed anyway.

Print Media

• MAD parodied this in issue #132, which had an article on Academy Awards for sexual elements in films. One of the categories was "Best Director for a Sex Scene that Was Created Out of Nowhere". One of the nominees was a sex scene during a debate in the UN General Assembly.

Video Games

• Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's 6 Days a Sacrifice featured a sex scene between Theo and Janine, a woman he had no romantic tension with at all in the second half of the game. Also, they do it while Theo is covered head-to-toe in bandages due to massive injury. This is what ends up getting Janine killed, as Theo "tainted her with his darkness." Yahtzee would go on to say the awkwardness of that scene wasn't meant to be romantic or sexy; it was meant to show how fucked up things had gotten by that point. However, Yahtzee also admitted this had more to do with his own hang-ups about romance and sex than anything else, and that if he had the opportunity to make the game again he'd just straight up show Janine raping Theo to get the point across more clearly.
• AI Dungeon 2 can be a little quick to push fanservice on folks; sometimes with seemingly random actions leading to intercourse with just about anyone.
• The A Dance with Rogues module features many of these. But, of course, despite the many possibilities to do this, every sexual relation is optional.
• Some of the sex scenes in Dragon Age: Origins. While most of the Romance Sidequests have plenty of buildup in the relationship, Morrigan in particular will proposition the player once their Relationship Values is high enough (that is to say, not very high at all). This can lead to a very sudden shift in your relationship, as Morrigan could have been angrily disapproving of a story decision one moment, and seducing you into having sex in the middle of camp the next. The Optional Sexual Encounter the player can have with Isabela is this as well, albeit Played for Laughs... especially if it turns into a three/foursome.
• Both sex scenes in Fahrenheit: The first one being an optional encounter where, if you play your cards just right when your ex-girlfriend drops by at your apartment (play your guitar for her and then kiss her), she and Lucas will have sex together. The second one, however, is much more egregious: Right before the very finale of the game, Lucas and Carla lie on a mattress together for what could very well be their last night together before the Earth becomes covered with ice, while Carla wishes the two could have met under better circumstances... and then Carla decides that she loves Lucas and they fuck. Yes, the previous sentence is basically the only indication that the two have any sort of sexual tension between one another. Also, Lucas is technically dead during the second one. Carla even mentions how cold his skin is shortly beforehand. Sexy!
• A couple of missions in Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony are interrupted by apparently random sex scenes involving Luis. One, occurring near the end of the game, is part of a cut scene and can be skipped, but while playing the "Club Security" side-quest, Luis is occasionally required to interrupt his work in order to rendezvous with the club's (female) head of security for some one-on-one.
• Fahrenheit's successor, Heavy Rain, contains an optional gratuitous sex scene near the end: with only hours left to save the life of his only son, Ethan Mars can opt to take a break and sleep with Madison Paige despite his many devastating injuries, the obvious waste of time, and little to no previous romantic chemistry between the two.
• A minor sidequest in Mass Effect involves doing a favor for a high-class consort. As a reward, the consort gives Shepard a trinket and a few words of inspiration based on Shepard's past. If Shepard expresses dissatisfaction with the reward, the consort and Shepard have sex regardless of Shepard's gender and without input from the player.
• This was one of the most notorious on the long list of things wrong with Ride to Hell: Retribution. Every female character the 'hero' encounters abruptly stops to have sex with him (fully clothed and with unmoving faces), even those immediately just rescued from rape or domestic abuse.
• Two of the three introductory sequences for The Secret World have no sexual content whatsoever. Players who chose to join the Dragon, however, are sent upstairs at a hotel to complete their indoctrination ...and, with very little warning, receive oral sex from a strange woman (whether they are male or female, and with no option to refuse it), which somehow induces post-cognitive visions. Notably, the Dragon never do anything like this anywhere else, this is the game's only sex scene, and it never becomes important again.
• Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has Harry and Dahlia very randomly having sex on the boat near the end of the game with little build-up. Even Harry seems surprised it's happening (though he doesn't really complain). Sure, there were hints that she and Harry had been together/at least interested in each other, and there was a sequence where it was implied they may have been married during one branch of reality, but Harry himself shows little to no interest in her throughout the game and, most of the time, is genuinely confused as to who she is and why she knows him.
• Thief (2014) was controversial with fans of the longstanding franchise because of a mission where Garrett has to infiltrate a brothel. Aside from encountering a number of topless women, to complete the mission Garrett must spy on a guy having sex with a prostitute in order to spot a code. Unlike some sexual content in games, this cannot be skipped and - to make matters worse - the sounds of the couple having sex are clearly audible for quite a distance. While the concept of encountering people having sex in a brothel isn't "coitus ensues", the fact there is no game-related reason to show it is - the room in question could just as easily have been empty.
• The Witcher 2 in The Rose of Remembrance quest. After fighting off some bandits in a rose garden, Geralt and Triss fall through the ground and find themselves trapped in a forgotten pretty Elven bathhouse. They decide to take a bath together. Initially seems to go for a Sexy Discretion Shot, but later as the scene changes to someone explaining an Elven love legend surrounding the garden, it cuts back and forth between him and Geralt and Triss's sex scene.

Visual Novels

• Daughter for Dessert has a sex scene between protagonist and Olivia. The latter is a one-shot character who fixes the broken jukebox, sleeps with the protagonist “because [he’s] a good person,” and is never heard from again in the story.

Web Video

• Discussed in Folding Ideas' three-part video essay on the Fifty Shades of Grey movies and books. He notes that since it was originally published on FanFiction.Net, which at the time had strict rules on how nsfw a fic could get, author Erika Mitchell would post an edited version to FF.net and would crosspost a version with sex scenes onto her own blog. He clarifies this trope in a later video, where he contrasts it to Tuca & Bertie. Dan notes that among others, pacing, aesthetics, and fun are all valid reasons to apply a sex scene, and his main issue with Fifty Shades is that the sex scenes are unmemorable, don't have a good aesthetic, and absolutely kill the pacing, while Tuca & Bertie uses its sex scenes to advance the audience's understanding of Bertie's character, Bertie's understanding of her own character, and provide character development for her.

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