How dare you let her teenage self flirt with you!
"She beats everybody up for literally no reason. At least in some of these shows, there's a pretense, like, he may have accidentally peeked on her in the bathroom. There was no intent there, but he did peek on her in the bathroom. I'm not excusing that, but it was like in this show if they were walking down the same side of the street and she was like, 'Did you peek at me in the bathroom?!' and he would be like, 'Wh-who are you?!' "
— Dave Riley, Fast Karate for the Gentlemen, Show #314: We Cracked the Case!
Closely related to — and generally intended to follow — the Accidental Pervert, the Unprovoked Pervert Payback is a violent maneuver in which an offended girl screams "PERVERT!" and pounds the crap out of a guy for... smiling at her, or any of a hundred other things that are meant to be accidental perviness, but just aren't. Hell, chances are that nothing dirty happened, at all, or even close to it. Tough luck for that poor guy; he's suddenly an Accidental Pervert and ground-zero for the (self-righteous) bitchslap of his life!
Note: This staple of Harem Series is closely related to Pervert Revenge Mode, but has the twist of being completely unwarranted, rather than just undeserved. This is where the producers intended to have an Accidental Pervert joke but failed to include anything remotely identifiable as perversion (boob grab, getting a faceful of female chest, etc.). Often this moment is so badly constructed that the slap comes after everyone concerned knows that nothing perverted happened.
This trope can also be Invoked by any girl causing the innocent man (generally quite some distance away and in full view) to get jumped and beaten up for no reason. Tsunderes who engage in this behavior too often are sometimes classified by fans as "failed tsunderes".
Not to be confused with False Rape Accusation, where no attempt of abuse (accidental or otherwise) was underway in the first place.
See also: Abomination Accusation Attack, No Sympathy, Hyperspace Mallet, Double Standard, and Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male.
Examples:
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Advertising
- There was a commercial not too long back in which, through a convoluted series of misfortunes, a man ends up falling out of his bedroom window, rolling down a hill, plowing through a hedge, and landing at the feet of a female jogger. She promptly sprays him with mace for absolutely no reason other than he was within range.
- One commercial had a guy with a map walk up to a woman waiting for the bus. He is about to ask for directions when she immediately maces him, emptying the entire can into his face. And then, while he is lying on the ground in agony, she blows a rape whistle while repeatedly tazering him. It was an ad for a hand held GPS.
Comic Books
- In one issue of Futurama comics, Leela has been split into her baby, teen, and elderly selves. Her teen form gains a crush on Fry and starts flirting with him, causing Leela to hit him even though he's clearly uncomfortable with a teen flirting with him.
- Played with in Red Ears in a particular strip. A beautiful woman is eating at a bistro when a young man takes notice and asks her if he can offer her some coffee. She reacts incredibly outraged as if he treated her like a hooker, causing much embarrassment to the guy. She takes a few notes, then gets up and approaches him to apologize and explain that she's a student who was using him for a social experiment on shame in a public setting. He angrily shouts at her so everyone can hear him say "1000 bucks for an hour?! Are you flipping mental?!"
- The same joke was used ca. 1980 by Dieter Hallervorden in the sketch show "Nonstop Nonsens".
Films — Live-Action
- In The Wizard (basically a feature-length Nintendo advertisement):
- The girl is able to get rid of the private detective that has caught up to the runaway kids by pointing and screaming, loudly proclaiming that "He touched my breast!" The man is a good 30 feet away from her and currently engaged in a struggle with one of the boys (why no-one bats an eye at that is anyone's guess). He obviously hasn't touched her, but two security guards grab him, beat him into submission, throw handcuffs on him and carry him off. They don't even detain the kids to find out what he supposedly did to her or who they are.
- Followed by a bunch of truckers who just happened to show up outside the city limits...
Big Lead Trucker: So you touched her breast, huh?
- Cue Curb-Stomp Battle.
Jokes
- A train is taking a general, a private, an old lady and a very comely young lady somewhere. The train goes into a tunnel where it gets pitch black for a few seconds. There is a loud scream, an obvious slap, and when the train comes out of the darkness, the general has a hand-shaped red mark on his face. The old lady is thinking "It was good that young woman showed that she doesn't allow herself to be felt up." The young lady is wondering why the general felt up the old lady. The general is thinking how it's a damn shame that private felt up the young lady, and he got slapped for it. The private is thinking how it's perfect: he screams like a girl, gets to slap a general and got away with it.
Literature
- A Played for Drama version in the Doctor Who New Adventures novel Original Sin, when a Hate Plague leads to a woman beating a man to death because he accidentally brushed against her while practicing tai chi.
- P. G. Wodehouse's short story "A Sea of Troubles" features austere secretary Miss Pillenger, always ready to swing a fist at any man who might try anything—despite, of course, the fact that no man ever has. When her employer—who, unbeknownst to her, is about to commit suicide—gives her a kiss goodbye on the forehead, she nearly knocks him unconscious.
Live-Action TV
- The Golden Girls had a case of this, where after a break-in Rose doesn't feel safe or secure anymore. It reaches a pitch when a strange man comes running after her in the parking lot and she kicks him in the groin, re-establishing her confidence and sense of security. Dorothy and Blanche are initially happy for her... until she sheepishly reveals the guy was only running after her because she had dropped her purse and is probably going to file an assault charge.
- Monty Python's Flying Circus used this in one of their sketches - a shy beachgoer (Terry Jones) trying to find a private place to change into his swimsuit assumes a man standing behind his changing booth (Michael Palin) is peeping. So he leaves and kicks Palin's character in the bum, only to learn that he was just trying to find a place shielded from the wind to light his cigarette.
- Used in NewsRadio when Lisa loses her shirt in the office and slaps Bill as she's walking to get it back.
Bill: What was that for?! I didn't say anything!
Lisa: You were thinking it.
Bill: lecherous grin Fair enough.
Web Animation
- FreedomToons: In "Ben Shapiro REKS Ocasio-Cortez", AOC accuses Ben Shapiro of cat-calling and even attacks him with mace after he takes her up on her claim that Republicans aren't willing to debate her ideas by offering her money for a public debate. Ben responds that she's just proving his point without costing him a dime. And gives her the Eye Beams treatment.
Web Video
- In ProZD's skit "when an anime is clearly padding for filler time", one of the techniques the anime uses to drag the episode out is to have Tomoko slap Sosuke Bosuke for supposedly looking up her skirt even though he clearly didn't.
Webcomics
- In Commander Kitty, Nin Wah thinks CK is trying to cop a feel and promptly headbutts him into unconsciousness. In a rare event for this trope, she's immediately apologetic once she realizes her mistake.
- Dragon Mango: Dr. Yong-Yi changes the clothes of an injured and unconscious Mango to treat her wounds. When she realizes this much later, she has a delayed Naked Freak-Out and doesn't accept his insistence that he's a doctor as an excuse and enters Pervert Revenge Mode, sending him flying out of the building.
Dr. Yong-Yi: [landing outside his clinic] I don't feel I deserved that.
- MegaTokyo:
- Invoked with Ping. As a Robot Girl designed for non-H Dating Sims, she is programmed to attack undressed men if they don't put their clothes on within 270 seconds.
Ping: Piro-kun, I have to keep my eyes closed while I try to hit him. You should move.
- Junko beating up the L33t Gamer when she thinks he looked up her skirt is arguably justified. Her smacking him simply for blearily muttering "Pink...Li'l polka dots..." isn't, especially since she was sitting next to him at the time, making it impossible for him to see up her skirt. Making the situation even worse, he'd also just collapsed from chest pain and had to take medicine, leaving him clearly incoherent. The situation is followed up with the reveal that he couldn't possibly have been perving on her (she realizes that her underpants were striped, not spotted), and Largo expresses confusion over why she attacked someone who had only been trying to help her in beating an arcade game.
- Invoked with Ping. As a Robot Girl designed for non-H Dating Sims, she is programmed to attack undressed men if they don't put their clothes on within 270 seconds.
- Mob Psycho 100: This is Played for Drama when local gang leader Tenga Onigawara is shamed and verbally assaulted for stealing the mouthpieces off of girls' recorders to sniff and lick in private... except that Tenga is innocent, and the whole thing was a Frame-Up by a pair of Student Council members as the first order of business to rid the school of undesirables such as his delinquent gang.
- One artist parodied the whole affair (warning: NSFW site) by having the boy launch into a tirade about the girl not locking the door and blaming him for it, thinking he would have perverted feelings for her. When she asks what she could do to make it up to him for the payback, he bluntly demands she have sex with him.
- A verbal variant: In The Starship Destiny by Squidi, the captain hires a female engineer and tells her he can't wait to get her back to the ship to see what she can do. She immediately laments how this happens every time, but since she's a cyborg and contractually bound, she can't refuse an order. He's horrified and hurriedly clarifies that he meant for her to fix his ship.
Western Animation
- In an episode of Family Guy, Brian asks a woman in the college class he's taking if he's in the right room, and she immediately freaks out and hoses him down with pepper spray. When he calls her out on this, she apologizes and says she's on edge due to a date rape seminar she'd attended earlier.
- In an episode of Kaeloo, there was a Rare Male Example. Mr. Cat hits Stumpy with a baseball bat and accuses him of voyeurism just for being outside the door when he was in the bathroom.
- King of the Hill had an extremely rare male case of this. An over-protective, coddling Scoutmaster (voiced by Andy Richter) was walking down the driveway to his car when Bill, Dale, and Boomhauer needed to distract him. They walk up to claim their car broke down, but before they can even get out the first sentence, he maces them. Repeatedly.
- The Simpsons: In "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment", a new prohibition law is enacted in Springfield, and a "dry" mob is aghast to find their own police chief blatantly disregarding the law and partying at Moe's Tavern. Wiggum's response to getting caught only makes things look worse for him.
Chief Wiggum: Aw, jeez. This looks bad. Better turn on the old Wiggum charm.(he struts toward the ladies with a forced grin while humming; it's obvious he's had a few drinks beforehand)Helen: (gasps, then shrieks) PERVEEEERT!!!Chief Wiggum: Oh, boy. That sounded bad.
