Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest

Adachi: I guess I noticed it recently. I can't get off to Yamada anymore!
Kyōtarō (thinking): I didn't need to hear that...
Adachi: I mean, look. Don't they say when you really like someone you can't jerk it to her? That's how you know it's serious!!

— The Dangers in My Heart

One sign that a couple is developing affections for one other can be, paradoxically, that they are unwilling to perform actions with or regarding each other which would be considered perverted or crude humor when done with anyone else. A guy known for making lewd sexual gestures or kissing complete strangers will all of a sudden shape up if the circumstances call for such activities around his Love Interest. His moral decency won't allow for it. There may be irony in that said interest actually finds said lewdness charming in the first place, in a variant of We Want Our Jerk Back!.

This trope does not necessarily involve romantic relationships; sometimes it's just a matter of personal respect to someone who, earlier on in the series, was just considered too faceless to have to worry about their feelings. Note that if the two do have to get involved in such a gesture, it tends to mark an ending to Unresolved Sexual Tension.

This trope dates back to the Petrarchan tradition. The general cultural idea was that sexual competition forced men to "clean up their act" to show legitimate affection. It is also, conversely, where the concept of Playing Hard to Get comes from.

See also Ladykiller in Love, My Girl Is Not a Slut, Nature Adores a Virgin, Chivalrous Pervert, O.O.C. Is Serious Business, and Madonna-Whore Complex.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Rentarou Aijo loves his many girlfriends. For precisely that reason, sexual conduct is one of the very few things he will not do under any circumstances, as his love for his girlfriends overpowers what feelings of desire he does possess. This is best demonstrated in chapter 103, when Lovable Sex Maniac Hakari is feeling extra frisky and trying to entrap Rentarou. Even as she makes clear she understands how he feels on the matter, she appeals to him for just the one time. Rentarou's response is to feel up Hakari's chest as requested, but only after taking a drug that temporarily removes all feeling from him so he, himself, won't feel any lewd thoughts from the encounter. Even with that, there's a degree of psychological rejection that he has to fight through.
• Gender Inverted in Aquarion Evol. Zessica initially is very flirty around Amata mostly because it amuses her that doing so sets off his flight power, and thinks nothing of his or anyone's reaction to her usual skimpy attire, but as she starts to develop genuine feelings for him, stops flirting and begins to become more and more self-conscious around him. Andy on the other hand is still perverted towards MIX and in fact never really acts perverted or interested in any other girl but MIX for that matter. He only stops and gets serious when she's captured and brainwashed late in the series and he realizes he blew his chance with her earlier.
• Moe "Suzu" Suzuya in Asteroid in Love is the Audience Surrogate for its Yuri Fan readers, so it's not surprising that she often has perverted fantasies around the girls, including her crush Misa. However, she never fantasizes doing anything perverted in front of Misa. The only time she expresses some kind of perversion towards the Misa is in Chapter 29, when she tells Mira and Ao that one good thing about Misa moving out for college and Ao moving into her room is that she finally can do some Perverted Sniffing on Misa.
• Ayakashi Triangle: Shadow Mei is normally a Shameless Fanservice Girl, but a Love Potion makes her unable to show her naked body to Matsuri.
  Why am I embarrassed? I gave up on being human a long time ago!
• In Black Clover, it's notable that Finral's interactions with Finesse have all been much sweeter than his usual bad flirting. He has a similar problem when he decides to actually try and win her affections, though: his instinctive response to any other girl is lechery, and that urge gets harder to fight when he discovers that acting aloof actually makes them interested.
• A dark version in Bokurano: Hatagai claims that the fact that he's never had sex with his girlfriend, Chizu's older sister is proof that he loves her. This, however, only serves to make him seem even more vile, by suggesting that only one woman is exempt from his deplorable treatment of all others, especially his gang-raping Chizu.
• Case Closed, Kogoro Mouri will flirt with every cute girl and beauty except his wife, or anyone who looks like her, much to Sonoko's wonder. Mouri sometimes becomes cooler and more perceptive when he meets someone that reminds him of Eri.
• Cross Ange: Tusk tries his best to invoke this with the titular main character Ange... with mixed results. Putting aside the Running Gag of him falling over and landing his face in-between the legs of the tomboyish ex-princess, Tusk initially thinks he isn't worthy of Ange's affections because he once ran away from his duty to protect Ragnamail Villkiss and its pilot. Despite never masking his admiration and attraction towards Ange, he feels he doesn't deserve her and says that if he can protect her, that's enough. Ange, however, finds herself falling for him due to his pure heart, and welcomes his affections to the point of wanting to be with him in that way anyways, encouraging Tusk to be more forwardly intimate with her. Amusingly, they don't get a proper chance to take it all the way until right before the Grand Finale, where they finally get a chance to share Their First Time together.
• As quoted above, The Dangers in My Heart has Adachi discuss this with Kyōtarō regarding Yamada. Kyōtarō, who also has crush on her, is bothered by this trope since he does tend to see her in a sexual light. Then when Kyōtarō asks Adachi likes about Yamada, he just talks about her chest and legs. Kyōtarō excuses himself, disgusted more than usual by Adachi's perverted talk.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Zenitsu in his desperate attempt to get married as quickly as possible often literally throws himself on women begging for them marry him, usually in a comedic manner, and at one other time he has proclaimed really well his love for a woman’s curves; with Nezuko however he is quite tame, his crush on her is quite the puppy love, innocently presenting her with flowers included.
• Nobita in Doraemon. In a few episodes, he likes to take a peek at Shizuka's panties or when she showers. In others, he doesn't act perverted towards her.
• In Fairy Tail, Erza Scarlet is a Shameless Fanservice Girl who is more than happy to let her male guild mates see her naked, but when her boyfriend Jellal accidentally gropped her breasts at the water park during the Grand Magic Games, she had a Luminescent Blush. In addition, in an omake chapter, where the Fairy Tail guild held a Christmas party, Erza and the rest of her guild mates got drunk and she played a cruel "master" game, where every time she was given the "master" position, she demanded Gajeel, Natsu, and Gray to strip naked and Lucy and Juvia to strip into their underwear. When Gray got the master position, he demanded Erza to walk home naked. She took off her clothes without hesitation and with a smile on her face, much to the chagrin of Lucy as well as all of the boys, including Gray who gave her the command in the first place. He insisted that he was just yanking her chain and begged her to put her clothes back on again, but she just punched him in the face and tells him to "grow a pair" and starts walking home anyway. She was only at worst mildly inconvenienced by the cold air, but then she noticed Jellal... and then she started blushing and acting all embarrassed, contrary to when she took her clothes off in the first place.
  • Inverted with Juvia, who is quite eager to get intimate with Gray, but is Shower Shy even around other girls.
• In GTO: The Early Years both his sister and his best friend Eikichi are amazed that Ryuji still hasn't "done it" with Nagisa, despite her sleeping in the same bed as him for several nights.
• In Happy World!, the main character's best friend is a crude, violent, lecherous Jerkass... who falls in love with the local ill girl, and proceeds to have near-panic attacks at the idea of kissing her, because "It's like a lion attacking a rabbit, you know?!" The main character thinks that it's more akin to "a lion being afraid of a rabbit". Although, the guy is still far cruder and more perverted than most others in the show, he's simply less perverted around the girl.
• The Yuri manga Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu has the "She Wolf" character, a roguish lesbian at a girls school, stop making sexual advances on one girl when she falls in love with her. Much to said character's frustration; she wants to have sex now. In "Little Red Riding Hood Strikes Back" she makes this abundantly clear.
• Inverted in Hatsukoi Limited. Kusuda, known for being a pervert, tells Kei that it'd be one thing to get a kinky outfit as a Christmas gift for her, but it's a grab-bag type gift and he'd be uncomfortable with the other girls (who he's not interested in) getting it. Kei mistakenly thinks this means she's the only one he doesn't see as a girl.
• In Heaven's Lost Property, Tomoki Sakurai acts perverted towards every female he came across, be it human or Angeloid, except the heroine Ikaros. At one point, this is lampshaded when he was asked about it and he couldn't figure out why himself either. It's implied, however, that one of the reasons is because he hates the Angeloid master/slave relationship. Ikaros would let Tomoki do anything he wanted to her because he's her Master, and he's firmly against keeping Ikaros as a Sex Slave.
• Discussed in chapter 62 of Horimiya. Hori starts getting changed in the Student Council room while her Childhood Friend Sengoku present. He asks if she's okay with him being there, and she points out that she'd be perfectly fine bathing or even going to the bathroom with him present. When he asks if she'd be just as comfortable with Miyamura, she snaps at him, saying she could never do something like that. Bear in mind that Hori and Miyamura are already dating at this point, have an active sex life, and (unofficially) get engaged the very next chapter.
• Inuyasha: Played with Miroku. He hits on every pretty girl, asking them "will you bear my children?" (although that question has a double meaning, since his bloodline suffers from an ancestral curse that empowers him but will eventually kill him if he can't kill Naraku before that happens, and he wants to leave behind children to continue his legacy after he's gone), but he conspicuously refrains from posing that question to Sango when she joins the main character's team. (When she points out that he hasn't, he does halfheartedly try to ask but she irritably cuts him off). Eventually, Miroku does get around to asking Sango his notorious question, and when he does, he means it as a marriage proposal. But while he never asked that question to her specifically, that never stopped him from groping her every chance he had. Miroku's restraint only goes so far.
• My Dress-Up Darling: Marin Kitagawa starts out being pretty bold around Gojo, willing to allow him to measure her body while she's only wearing a bikini, and also "reward" him for his work in the costume making by showing him some sexy lingerie she's trying. After their first cosplay outing together, she starts getting more and more nervous around him, owing to her developing feelings for him.
• In NEEDLESS, Adam Blade was a shirt chaser but was never shown acting perverted towards Eve, who was meant to be Blade's soul mate.
  • This is probably more due to the fact that she isn't his type.
• In Onani Master Kurosawa the titular character, who masturbates while thinking about various girls from his school, starts to develop feelings for Takigawa. However, in a sort of different example of this trope, he only really realizes he is in love with her when he reacts to his own masturbating to her by vomiting. He refrains from ever using her in such a way again. Until later on, in a moment of extreme despair and desperation. He vomits again.
  • In the end, after he gets over his feelings for Takigawa (who is with somebody else) this is how he realises he's developing feelings for another girl.
• Both Ryo and Kairi Okayasu pretty much state this in Peach Girl, this is pretty much played straight when we learn that Ryo has always been in love with Misao. However, we see that in the beginning, Kairi has no qualms about being his normal pervy self while around Momo.
• Ranma ½: Ranma has, on separate occasions and sometimes repeatedly, manipulated Akane, Shampoo, Ukyou, and Kodachi's affections for some ulterior motive. He's usually interrupted by an outside factor, though, at which point he either flees, curses his luck, or feels remorseful (or a combination of the three.)
  • In a similar vein, Ranma is far more willing to show physical, romantic affection for someone he doesn't care about than to show it for someone he does, due to too much respect for the other's opinion of him in that regard. At one point, after Ranma flat-out refuses to kiss Akane (even though kissing her just once means he'll be able to go back to China), she asks him:
    Akane: Do you hate me that much?
    Ranma: I-Idiot! If I did, it'd be easier.
• In Rosario + Vampire, Ginei acts unusually polite around Sun Otonashi.
• Inverted in Seitokai Yakuindomo. Amakusa Shino is obviously interested in Tsuda Takatoshi and has no problem saying extremely perverted things around him with a straight face. However, whenever Tsuda actually says something perverted (or when she thinks he's saying something perverted) directed at her, she gets flustered.
• Inverted in The Seven Deadly Sins, despite his initial characterization as a shameless pervert, Meliodas never shows any attention to women other than his love interest Elizabeth, whom he gropes constantly. Later bonus material actually reveals he never actually behaved in a perverted manner before meeting Elizabeth.
• In Strike Witches, Eila has comments in her himegoe tracks regarding the chest of every member in the 501st Joint Fighter Wing except for Sanya, who gets agitated Angrish instead. This is made even more humorous when one considers that Sanya knows Eila goes around feeling girls up and questions why she doesn't get the same treatment.
• Inverted in To Love Ru Darkness. Momo is extremely flirtatious towards Rito and is very vocal about her Marry Them All plan. On the other hand, she gets very flustered when it seems like Rito is actually in the mood.
• Urusei Yatsura makes interesting use of this, given that its male protagonist, Ataru Moroboshi, is normally a Loveable Sex Maniac: Ataru never peeps on, fondles, or otherwise acts sexually provocative towards Lum, despite lustfully chasing every other pretty young woman he meets. In the 5th chapter, which became episode 6 of the 1981 Animated Adaptation, we have Ataru telling Lum to Please Put Some Clothes On when she's lying, naked, in his futon and telling him she wants to sleep with him. Although, at this early stage, Lum was still the unofficial villain and Ataru was supposed to hook up with Shinobu; it would take some time before Lum and Ataru really "grew" into the Official Couple. In fact, Lum's greatest source of irritation is that Ataru will try to kiss and hug other girls, but won't touch her. This makes those moments where Ataru is romantic with Lum stand out all the more.
  • In the 1981 Animated Adaptation of a chapter where Lum's dad comes to stay at the Moroboshi house after getting into a fight with Lum's mom, he assures Lum and Ataru that he won't interfere with their "fun". A blushing Lum easily puts two and two together and protests that they've never "played around" in that manner, which stands in stark contrast to how flirty she is in general and the aforementioned incident in particular.
  • Played with in one mid-series story where Lum openly invites Ataru to sleep with her. After he thinks about it a moment and admits that it actually wouldn't change their Slap-Slap-Kiss relationship dynamic, Ataru decides to go for it, only to become unusually shy as they are dressing for bed. Then he finds out that a) Lum meant "sleep together" in the literal sense, and b) she needs him to wear an uncomfortable insulating suit to protect him from her Power Incontinence.
• Downplayed with the titular protagonist of Vermeil in Gold. Vermeil is very seductive and loves to be physically affectionate with Alto as much as possible, kissing him for his mana and showing off her body to him. But as her feelings for him start to grow, she grows shyer and more nervous around him, albeit more when doing things that involve emotional intimacy rather than physical.
• World's End Harem: Mira Suou is so clinically and emotionally detached from her task of getting Reito to mate with her that her efforts only serve to repel him instead, despite his physical attraction to her. Later on, she develops genuine feelings for him and becomes more demure and modest towards him (which paradoxically makes her more attractive to him).
• Taki from Your Name subverts this. During one of the later mornings he wakes up as Mitsuha, he abashedly comments to himself that he shouldn't touch her breasts out of respect for her. When we cut to a few seconds later, though, we see that Yotsuha has found him feeling "himself" up again.
• In Yuri is My Job!, after Hime rejects her old friend Mitsuki's Love Confession, she claims that her feelings for Mitsuki are and always will be platonic, but while she can stare at her other friend Kanoko and her coworker Sumika in the bath, she becomes extremely uncomfortable bathing together with Mitsuki. It's implied that despite rejecting Mitsuki's confession, Hime's starting to fall in love with Mitsuki.

Fan Works

• Black Mask has Sirius Black, a notorious womanizer who (if his brother is to be believed) has, at some point or another, been romantically involved with almost every pretty girl Hogwarts has to offer, and whose motto is to "love them and leave them". However, with his Love Interest, Colette Battancourt, he is surprisingly chivalrous. Regulus is surprised that he hasn't even kissed her yet, but Sirius claims that he respects her too much to fool around with her.
• In the backstory of Jordan179's My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic novella A Long Night at the Hippodrome, the lecherous but honorable stallion Piercing Gaze, owner and manager of the Baltimare Hippodrome, feels this way toward The Great and Powerful Trixie when she plays his house for about a month. He befriends her and begins to care for her greatly. Unfortunately, they get drunk together one night and he violates this precept, (from his point of view) seducing her. The formerly-virginal Trixie reacts afterward with horror and leaves Baltimare. Piercing totally blames himself for violating his normal code, and hopes that one day Trixie will forgive him. Probably because she returns his love, Trixie doesn't judge him as harshly for this as he does himself.
• HERZ: Asuka makes Kensuke shutting up and stopping bothering her when she threatens with telling his girlfriend what pervert things he did when they were teenagers.
• i'm giving you a nightcall, this was reason Roy and Ed never had sex in their first relationship despite Roy being known to sleep around. Roy wanted his relationship with Edward to last so he put off sex so he wouldn’t drive him off. When they finally get back together Edward is rather miffed this out since it was the longest Edward had been celibate since he was virgin. They quickly work to rectify this.
• Inverted with Haruhi's father in The Superheroics of Haruhi Suzumiya, who loves to act and talk perverted things about his wife just about the entire time. She mostly takes it in stride, but is not above chewing him out or even stomping her foot on his if she thinks he's going too far.
• In chapter 3 of Buy Your Love, Nico gets annoyed at Nozomi always feeling her breasts (especially as punishment for not focusing on her studies) and asks why doesn't she grope Eli since hers are bigger than Nico's. Nozomi's awkward decline of feeling up Eli cues Nico in that her classmate has been using Nico as a substitute for Eli's body because she's too nervous to confess her feelings to Eli.
• Queens of Mewni: Venus, despite her reputation as an Ethical Slut who bedded over 1000 lovers, when reunited with Eric Flowers and show proof of his love for her-genuine love for Venus, not just because she's easy or because she's the queen-she didn't even kiss him until a month after they reunite, was celibate until they got married, and remained loyal to him for their entire marriage. (Only the two of them and Glossaryck know that's true, Common Knowledge is that she took him to bed right away.)

Film

• The Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Iron Man has this with Tony Stark towards his Girl Friday, Virginia "Pepper" Pots. He is a Pornomancer par excellence, but he just... isn't that way towards Pepper. After his harrowing ordeal being captive by the Ten Rings, he starts becoming conscious of this affection in himself, leading to some awkwardness with Pepper. By the end of the second in the Iron Man trilogy, he's steady with her officially.
• In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jay's shoulder Angel tells him he can't be the same perv he usually is with Justice, and must instead be "Don Juan Delanooch".
• In North to Alaska, John Wayne's character hires a prostitute to come back to Alaska with him as a replacement for his friend's fiancée, who had run off with another man while waiting. Near the end of the movie, it's confirmed that John Wayne really does love her, when it's discovered that he didn't try to take advantage of her on the trip.
• Summer Lovers. Cathy has read some books on sex and tries an experiment where she ties Michael to a bed and drips candle wax on him. He doesn't like it, and tells her not to read any more because he doesn't want to know what she might find next.
• In Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Zack constantly shows reluctance to have Miri on screen with anyone else but him, and when it comes time to shoot their love scene, he doesn't want her to show her breasts or be overly provocative. Zack also clearly makes love to her instead of normal porn sex, and doesn't follow the script (which calls for him to ejaculate on her breasts), to the producer's chagrin. Everybody else thinks it's very romantic, though.

Literature

• Gleefully averted in the Night Huntress books. Chivalrous Pervert Bones takes great delight in being as crude and as sexually explicit as he can, under the pretense of helping Cat overcome her blushing naïveté.
• Subverted in Atlas Shrugged: Rearden fantasizes of using Dagny to satisfy his "degrading need," but when he turns his fantasy into action, he finds to his shame that she's as "depraved" as he is, and is quite proud to have slept with him.
• In The Familiar of Zero, Louise casually changes clothes in front of Saito because she sees him as a mere Familiar and less than human. When she eventually develops feelings for him, she changes in the closet instead.
• In the Full Metal Panic! novels, Nami is perfectly willing to be harmlessly flirty towards men (like Lemon) to try to get her way, and is very open about teasing and making mock advances. However, there's one person she just can't do it with: Sōsuke. She turns extremely shy and nervous whenever she's around him, and has a very hard time acting open, flirty, and how she normally does whenever she interacts with him. So obviously, the one guy she has a hard time with is the guy she's head over heels in love with. Especially noticeable when she feels so shy about the idea of rooming with him and sleeping in the same bed with him, and tells him they can't do that. They end up with the arrangement of Sōsuke sleeping on the floor under the bed, and she sees no problems with sleeping in the same bed as Lemon. Evidently, she can only feel modesty whenever Sousuke is involved.
• Haruhi Suzumiya:
  • One sign that Haruhi and Kyon are getting closer has to do with Haruhi's habit of nonchalantly stripping down for gym while male classmates are still in the room. Kyon supposes this behavior reflects how little respect Haruhi has for men, essentially treating them like inanimate objects. When she demands Kyon leave the club room when she changes, it's significant.
  • On the flip side, Kyon is so used to Haruhi's behavior by that point that he is quite indifferent to whether she strips in front of him or not. He knows her well enough to know that she could strip in the same room and he wouldn't even try to ogle her. Ironically, the two of them came to these separate understandings in the exact same scene.
• The main point of High School D×D is averting this almost entirely, as Issei's growing harem finds his perversity rather charming in its own unique way. In fact, when Issei doesn't act like a horndog, it's a sign that there's something very, very wrong (which has been Played for Laughs and Played for Drama in equal measure during the series' run). That's not to say he doesn't have limits, though; while he fantasizes out loud with great enthusiasm, when it comes to actually doing anything, informed consent is something he will not compromise on.
• Defied in KonoSuba: even after Kazuma acknowledges that Megumin and Darkness are clearly love interests, he decides to stop hiding his true (perverted) nature, and continues to sexually harass them as he did before.
• A variant in The Outsiders: Sodapop was known to brag about his various conquests, but Ponyboy is actually a bit surprised that his longtime girlfriend, Sandy, "went to live with her grandmother in Florida" since Sodapop had never talked about her that way. (It's later confirmed by third brother Darry that Soda couldn't possibly be the father of her baby, but proposed marriage to her anyway.)
• Jin towards Misaki in The Pet Girl of Sakurasou. Even though it's pretty evident Misaki is willing to do anything with him, he always acts Above the Influence towards her. A huge example occurs during episode 14, when Misaki asks the Sakura Hall residents to leave the building during Christmas Eve. Both alone, she appears before Jin naked, embraces him and confesses to him again. He finally tells her he loves her, but doesn't want to do anything towards her, which once again breaks her heart.
• Shakugan no Shana: Shana doesn't just strip in front of Yuji. This is significant because as a Torch, Yuji would be considered a mere "thing" and not a person.

Live-Action TV

• The Office: Michael Scott refrains from making his usual "That's What She Said" jokes when he's with Holly, one of his only love interests that has real potential.
• Jay of The Inbetweeners in the last episode of the second series ("I don't want you to feel rushed. But I want you to know that if you do want to touch me down there, I'd be totally fine with that"). When she dumps him for being too clingy, he returns to his old ways immediately, tearfully insisting that he dumped her ("She was frigid...and she wouldn't go for a threesome I organised with a top lezzer model...and my cock was too big for her!").
• When Barney from How I Met Your Mother gets a crush on his friend Robin, he tries to win her over by being a gentleman. Leads directly into a We Want Our Jerk Back! moment.
• When Tony meets Ziva (his major love interest) on NCIS, he can't picture her naked. Since this is Tony's major talent, he is understandably annoyed. Of course, later he begins to get more okay with it, wanting to hear details about her sex life and so on...
• Chuck with Blair on Gossip Girl. He has no problem forcing other girls, but when it comes to Blair he asks "Are you sure?" the first time, wants to wait later on, and even refuses to have sex until they can admit they love each other.
• Averted by Morgan and Garcia of Criminal Minds. Between Garcia's photoshopped-picture collection, the rated-R phone banter, and the fact that their nicknames include "my vision," "tech kitten," "sexy mama," "sweetness," "baby girl," and "gorgeous," it's safe to say there's no lack of sexualization occurring. And they're not even a canonical romance — they flirt a lot over the phone, but it's all in good fun; they're more like a male-female version of Heterosexual Life-Partners. Garcia even gets one or two genuine Love Interests in the course of the show.
  • What makes it even more hilarious is that the rest of their team no longer notice or comment on their banter anymore. Even when Garcia makes up a fictional child between them to oust a skeevy adoption agency, no one so much as bats an eye.
• Mulder of The X-Files, who concealed his porn habit from Scully out of respect and UST.
  Mulder: Whatever tape you found in that VCR, it isn't mine.
  Scully: Good, because I put it back in that drawer with all the other tapes that aren’t yours...
  • Actually, that could be more embarrassment that she had discovered his Porn Stash than anything else. Mulder is infamous for reading porn magazines and making lewd comments while Scully's around. From "Detour":
    Scully: (while pulling Mulder onto her lap after he gets shot) Mulder, you're in shock. You need to regenerate body heat.
    Mulder: I've heard the best way to generate body heat is to crawl naked into a sleeping bag with someone else who's already naked.
    Scully: Well, maybe if it rains sleeping bags, you'll get lucky.
  • From "Syzygy":
    (debating who will pick up a piece of evidence)
    Mulder: Go ahead.
    Scully: No, you go ahead.
    Mulder: No, no, no. Be my guest. I know how much you like snapping on the latex.
  • From "Arcadia"; Mulder and Scully are undercover as a married couple:
    Mulder: (as Scully is videotaping the house for evidence) You want to make that honeymoon video now?
    [...]
    Mulder: (slides over on bed, pats the spot beside him suggestively) C'mon Laura, we're married now.
    Scully: Scully, Mulder. Good night.
    Mulder: The thrill is gone.
• One episode of That '70s Show has Kitty remember an incident before she and Red were married when he had cheated on her by making out with another woman at a movie. When she angrily demands to know why he did that with another woman but never assumed that she would have enjoyed something like that (which, keep in mind, would have been rather improper around the time they were dating), he more or less invokes this trope.
• The Coupling episode "Inferno" is devoted to Steve's girlfriend Susan finding his collection of lesbian porn videos. And the excruciating consequences afterwards.
• Lampshaded in House. Wilson points out that since House isn't objectifying his hallucination of Amber, he must have feelings for her.
• When the otherwise lecherous Louie starts dating Zena, it turns out that he won't even hold her hand, and Alex eventually comes to the conclusion that Zena is Louie's "first nice girl."
• Cheers: Sam says, "I love you" casually to every woman he dates, but finds himself unable to say it to Diane because he actually cares about her. He also generally acts less sleazy toward her and doesn't put moves on her like he does with other women because, as he says, he respects her and wants her to think well of him.
  • Which led to this great ending line:
  Diane: [excitedly] Everyone! Sam can't say he loves me!
  Carla: Who can?
• Law & Order: UK. DS Matt Devlin flirts with CP Alesha Philips regularly—until she's raped, at which point it becomes obvious to the viewers that his feelings for her go beyond mere lust. From then on, he settles for longing looks, even apologizing for saying something that could be construed as making advances, at which point, she has to assure him that it's okay if he does.

Video Games

• Yuri in the first Shadow Hearts game is a megaperv toward Alice after they first meet, contemplating molesting her in her sleep, and telling monsters that literally want to eat them "If anyone's going to eat her, it's me!" He knocks it off when he starts to genuinely care for her.
• Averted in Final Fantasy IX, where the Chivalrous Pervert Zidane makes open passes at Garnet throughout most of the game. In fact, as he gets closer to Garnet, his passes at other women become less frequent.
• Averted with Thoma in Record of Agarest War. Doesn't matter if one of his three Love Interest gets closer to him. He'll still make a pass towards them as much as any other woman. Even towards a Hermaphrodite goddess.
• Mao toward Raspberyl in Disgaea 3. He's conducting a scientific experiment on skirt lifting; so naturally he tells her to get lost.
  • That's actually pretty in-character with Mao. When he gets focused on something, he sometimes misses painfully obvious things that someone as smart as he is should notice. Like the fact Beryl wears a perfectly liftable skirt. Or like the fact that stealing a Hero's title forces him to act heroic.
• Mass Effect:
  • Engineers Kenneth Donnelly and Gabriella Daniels in Mass Effect 2. Kenneth makes lewd but lighthearted comments on just about every woman aboard the ship aside from Gabby. If they survive and return to the Normandy in Mass Effect 3, the trend continues with Gabby beginning to drop hints. Near the end of the game Gabby fiercely confronts Kenneth, thinking he finds everyone attractive but her. If Shepard supports her, they consummate their relationship.
  • Subverted with Joker and EDI in Mass Effect 3. When EDI shows off her new android body (which happens to be very curvaceous), the usually shameless Joker tries to be gentlemanly and say that she didn't need to conform to some standard of feminine beauty. EDI, quote, "proceeded to call him on his bullshit", and from there they talked normally.
• Zevran of Dragon Age: Origins will hop into bed with anyone, anything, and possibly Oghren, and is very happy to do so with the Warden (male or female), but complete his personal quest and he will turn down the Warden's offers of sex afterwards. Bed-hopping doesn't resume until his earring--which is remarkably similar to a marriage proposal--is accepted.
  • The Warden will subvert this if they want to get with Zevran. A way to quickly ramp up Zevran's approval includes unbashfully hitting on him and making not at all subtle sexual advances. At one point at camp, when he asks the Warden what they intend to do after their quest ends, the Warden can get +8 approval and initiate a romance, by stating they intend to ravish him in celebration. The same will happen if they tell Zevran "there's always a use or two for a handsome elf" in another moment.
• Shonen Doll from The Caligula Effect Overdose acts this way towards Suzuna Kagura. He's a very socially awkward person and loner, but Suzuna was the first person to reach out to him, so he tries his best to not act awkward or creepy in any way, terrified that it would chase her away. Though there is heavy implication that he has also developed a crush on her on first sight.
• Persona 3 has two characters that follow this trope.
  • Junpei is usually a Casanova Wannabe who often makes sexual comments towards the female characters and the girls, especially Yukari, get fed up with him and his antics, but when he meets Chidori, he doesn't act that way towards her and instead, he tries to be nice and gentle with her, especially when she lands at the hospital when he finally gets a chance to get to know her more and when he starts to feel more worried for her.
  • Ryoji is a known womanizer, but in the female route of Persona 3 Portable, he feels uncomfortable using his usual flirting methods on his actual love-interest, the female protagonist, stating, it wouldn't "feel right" to talk about her that way.
• Likewise, Teddie from Persona 4 finds himself starting to stutter when trying to flirt with Labrys towards the end of his story path in Persona 4: Arena, though he doesn't realize why that is. His friend Rise even comments on how unusual it is for a girl to actually make him embarrassed.
  • Also, while he's not actually a pervert, and their goal was mostly revenge for being given a haunted hotel room. When the boys attempt to invade the girls room at the Amagi inn Kanji attempts to sleep beside Chie, rather than Naoto, the one he's actually got a crush on.
• In Fire Emblem Fates, Niles claims in his supports with Nyx that he usually tones down his double entendres around people he cares about. It promptly gets subverted hilariously when she asks him to keep doing it anyway (should they get married).
  • In his supports with Oboro, Niles at first antagonizes her but as the talk chain progresses, he gets more or less genuinely interested in befriending her. Since the serious and kinda straightlated Oboro detests his lewd tongue, he begins to tone down his innuendos in an attempt to approach her without getting her angry enough to shoot him her infamous "Demon Face".
  • When Niles tries to start a talk with Azura in their supports, Azura is reluctant because she knows of his fame as The Tease. She tells him so, and then he tells her that he doesn't intend to hit on her and gives her his word about it. The rest of their talk chain focuses more on his Dark and Troubled Past and how both of them have issues with people as a whole.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Sylvain also gets this - he can support with almost every female character, but most of them only go up to B rank. While he typically flirts with any girl he comes across, for those few he can end up together with, he either doesn't come on to them at all (Ingrid, Mercedes, and Byleth) or tries but gives up due to the girl seeing through his schtick very quickly (Dorothea).
• In Ensemble Stars!, when Anzu first transfers in, Kaoru comes on to her very strongly, to the extent that she often runs away from him on sight. But as time goes on and he starts to really fall for her, he pulls back a lot and stops with the careless flirting.

Visual Novels

• Fate/stay night:
  • Having lived her life as a man, Saber doesn't even think of herself as a woman and isn't bothered by Shirou walking in on her in the bath. But later, when she develops feelings for him in "Fate", she starts to act embarrassed about him seeing her naked and care about lack of endowments.
  • There is also Rin, who loves to be The Tease toward Shirou most of the time, but in the "Unlimited Blade Works" route where they actually do become a couple, she gets easily flustered and embarrassed whenever Shirou shows affection for her.

Webcomics

• In Bittersweet Candy Bowl, Paulo just can't bring himself to be his usual brash, obnoxious and perverted self whenever Daisy's around; instead he instantly shapes up and acts noble.
  • Later partially subverted, when we find Paulo doesn't think of her as a love interest anymore, but sees her as a little sister he needs to impress.
  • Averted with the way he acts towards Lucy. "At least I grabbed some ass" indeed!
• Inverted in El Goonish Shive. At a certain point Tedd finds that he's no longer capable of acting perverted towards people other than his love interest, which prompts a brief identity crisis.
• Rabbit from Skins is generally very sexual, hitting on Jordan and implied to enjoy threesomes with girls and guys. However, when he’s around Tyr, he’s very shy and awkward.This could be because he's in love with Tyr.

Western Animation

• Justice League:
  • When we first met the Flash, he was prone to flirting with just about every female cast member going. Two series and a bit of character development later, he develops a crush on Fire, and becomes completely flustered, while she's the one dropping all the hints.
    • There's also the fact that she's a bombastic self-assured and thoroughly confident Brazilian supermodel. Who can, if you couldn't tell by her code name, surround herself in flames and shoot them at will. He might be rash and reckless, but he's not completely stupid.
  • He's also very respectful toward Linda Park (his main love interest in the comics) in "Flash and Substance". At one point she tries to give him her phone number and he hands it back with an autograph. Though justified as he was more focused on keeping an eye out for his Rogues who were planning an attack.
• In Big Hero 6: The Series, Hiro and Karmi would constantly snarl at each other for any reason. After she returns after having left halfway through season 2, the two of them can barely make eye contact.

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