Basic Trope: Manly men hate sugar.
- Straight: Bob, the Boisterous Bruiser, hates sweets while his Camp Straight best friend Alex loves them.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob hates sweets so much that he gets nausea whenever he passes by a sweet shop.
- Bob, the Anthropomorphic Personification of over-the-top manliness, reacts to sweets the way vampires react to a cross.
- Downplayed:
- Bob prefers his coffee unsweetened, but he doesn't mind eating sweets once in a while.
- Bob works at law enforcement, and while he prefers his coffee black, the donuts that he dip in his coffee are his only preferred sweets.
- Bob prefers unprocessed sugars like honey and raw fruit.
- Justified:
- Bob has diabetes.
- Bob is a manly man who is also a dietitian/health nut or works at a medical field.
- It's hard to maintain a Heroic Build if you don't eat healthy.
- Bob has lost his taste for sweets due to a low-carbohydrate diet of meat, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs, and vegetables.
- Bob didn't brush his teeth enough as a child, and now sugar is painful for him to eat.
- Bob's a macho douche and genuinely considers eating sweets (or indeed, consuming anything at all but red meat, Guiness beer/extremely strong black coffee depending on weather or not it's breakfast, and hard liquor) to be unmanly; little realizing that the manliest thing of all is not caring what anyone else thinks.
- Inverted: Bob, the Boisterous Bruiser, loves sweets while his Camp Straight best friend Alex hates them.
- Gender Inverted:
- Alice, the Tomboy, hates sweets while her Girly Girl best friend loves them.
- Alice, the Valley Girl, despises anything even remotely sweet on account of her obsession with beauty. She prefers to eat exotic charcuterie, pickled vegetables, salads, and crudités.
- Subverted: Camp Straight Alex loves sweets ... and it turns out his Boisterous Bruiser best friend Bob also loves them.
- Double Subverted: Later, Bob is seen throwing up the sweets he ate.
- Parodied: Charlie, the manliest guy on the show, mentions liking sweets. He gets his masculinity card revoked.
- Averted:
- None of the male characters is seen as less masculine for liking sweets.
- None of the male characters says anything about sweets.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Boisterous Bruiser Bob hates sweets, but Camp Straight Alex doesn't seem to like them either. But The Everyman Eddie and Camp Gay Derek are fond of them...
- Bob likes some sweet things but not others; his friends just think he hates all sweet snacks because they've historically offered him those he doesn't like, and he doesn't go out of his way to clarify it.
- Enforced:
- The writer or a producer believes this.
- Alternatively, said person doesn't believe this, and so writes this character in order to show the absurdity of it.
- Lampshaded:"You don't like sweets, Bob? That's a very childish way of proving your masculinity...""Hey, ain't my fault I had to start eating a low carb and protein heavy diet. I just lost my taste for it."
- Invoked: Bob doesn't eat sweets so he can be seen as more masculine.
- Exploited: Alex gets all the sweets he wants without having to share them with Bob.
- Defied: "I'll eat all the chocolate I want and I will NOT be seen as less manly for it!"
- Discussed: "Does Bob like chocolate?" "He's a six-foot-three muscular Hunk. What do you think?"
- Conversed: "Why do these writers think that lacking a Sweet Tooth makes you manlier?"
- Implied: Alex makes chocolate for Bob. He looks noticeably disappointed.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob actually becomes hypoglycemic as a result of not eating any sugar.
- Bob's hatred of sweets is symptomatic of a larger hatred of anything he perceives as "weakness", to his own detriment and the eternal frustration of everyone around him.
- Reconstructed: He boosts his blood sugar by eating more fruit.
- Played for Laughs: Bob forgets why he doesn't eat candy and accepts some when Alex offers it to him. He starts acting like a wild Keet thanks to the sugar rush and remembers that's why he doesn't partake.
- Played for Drama: Alex constantly worries that he'll be seen as less masculine for liking sweets.
Back to the sugar-free, manly version here.
