Screw Yourself

aka: Doppel Banger

"I love you, Homer." "I love you too, Homer."

"As regards sexual intercourse with older or younger copies of yourself, it's incest in branching or changeable timelines, and masturbation in inevitable timelines. In either case, yes, it is gay."

— Tailsteak, "Basic Time Travel Etiquette"

It's a simple tale: Person photocopies self, or travels to an Alternate Universe, or another time. Person meets self. Both selves "make beautiful music" together. After all, what better person to be most intimate with?

Probably more prevalent in fanfiction than in original works, but it's out there. Technically, any intimacy between a character and their Enemy Without will be this. Expect much argument amongst the characters, fans, and oftentimes even both as to whether this qualifies as actual sex, incest (it could be considered super-incest since there's no closer relative possible than yourself, as even an identical twin will have some minute, statistically negligible genetic differences), or masturbation. When a good chunk of the fandom agrees to ship a character's alternate selves together despite all of this, including alternate selves the fandom made up, that's Alternate Self Shipping.

In erotica, this is often considered more acceptable than other forms of incest, seeing as it's, well, impossible in reality.^note For now, anyway. Cloning's coming along pretty nicely.

Sometimes, a literal copy of the person in question doesn't need to be present for under- or overtones of this trope to appear. Sometimes, one character can express lustful feelings towards another because they remind them of themselves, usually in their looks (especially common with the Narcissist).

Also known as selfcest, autoincest, clonecest, incesturbation, or doppelbanger.

Compare and contrast Opposite-Sex Clone, Twincest, My Own Grampa, Twin Threesome Fantasy, Truly Single Parent, and Distracted by My Own Sexy.

Nor is it the same as Screw You, Elves!

Often is an invoked case of If It's You, It's Okay. If the character otherwise generally considers themself asexual, might very well be a case of Single-Target Sexuality.

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Example subpages:

• Anime & Manga
• Comic Books
• Fan Works
• Literature
• Live-Action TV
• Video Games
• Webcomics
• Western Animation

Other examples:

Comedy

• In one bit, stand-up comedian David Cross jokes about this guy at the gym fantasizing about pulling himself out of the mirror, and the two themes dance to Barbra Streisand music, make out, and then "they fuck each other on the Flexinator 500!"
• The basic premise of this sketch by the The Whitest Kids U' Know.
• In a broadly similar vein, Woody Allen once quipped: "Don't knock masturbation, it's sex with someone I love."
• A common joke: "My own clone! Now neither of us will be virgins!"
• In one of Jim Gaffigan's specials, he says couldn't have sex with another man, "unless he looked like me." "Jim-on-Jim" action, indeed.

Comic Strips

• The comic strip "Duplicity" that ran in the final issue of Amberzine told the tragic tale of a woman who had an affair with a male shadow of herself in the Amber universe.

Films — Animation

• In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Dr. Finklestein ends up creating what appears to be a wife that looks exactly like him, even sharing half of his brain. This naturally lends fuel to the Alternative Character Interpretation that Dr. Finklestein created Sally for more carnal desires.

Films — Live-Action

• In The 6th Day, Adam Gibson, who was cloned without his knowledge, tells the villain he should clone himself while he's still alive. The villain asks if it would be so he could get Adam's unique perspective. Adam says, "No, so you can go fuck yourself." And when the dead villain falls over an unconscious (and incomplete) clone of himself, Adam's reply is "When I said that you should screw yourself, I didn't mean for you to take it literally."
• A deleted scene in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me has Number 2 from the past and future in bed, smoking cigarettes, and the older one musing that it's not technically cheating. This is based on the gag actually used at the end of the movie, with two temporally displaced versions of Austin ending up in bed with his Love Interest.
  Austin: Paging Dr. Freud!
• In Click, when we're introduced to the year 2017, a newscast can be heard in the background stating that: "Michael Jackson, the first man to clone himself, is suing himself for molesting himself." Now sadly Harsher in Hindsight.
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  • In several film adaptations, Jekyll and Hyde hallucinate each other and so are able to interact. Usually they fight or argue, but sometimes their actions can get a bit... suggestive. Rather appropriate given that one of the possible literary interpretations of the book is as an allegory to the double life that was necessary for Victorian-era gay men.
  • The 2002 John Hannah adaptation is a prime example of this, with Hyde often getting intimately close to Jekyll, and even licking him on the cheek at one point, and in the 2008 film starring Dougray Scott, at one point Hyde pins Jekyll to the wall and kisses him. That's the farthest that any movie adaptation has ventured to go, but several fanfiction works have taken this idea even further.
• The John Waters movie Female Trouble stars a character played by Divine who gets raped and impregnated by a man... who is also played by Divine. She ends up homeless and she calls her baby daddy for help.
• The Erica Durance film I Me Wed features a low-key version of this when Isabelle Darden decides to deal with the people who keep telling her that she can't be happy if she isn't married by proclaiming that she will marry herself. However, this whole wedding was intended to be symbolic of her self-declared independence, and she didn't intend it to come across as self-centred or egotistical.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides has Jack Sparrow kiss someone disguised as him.
  Jack: I've always wanted to do that.
• In Predestination, like —All You Zombies— on which it is based, Jane is made pregnant by a future version of herself who went through a sex change and came back through time.
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: Kirk to fellow Klingon-gulag inmate Martia, who turns out to be a shapeshifter, formerly in the form of an attractive female humanoid and now in the form of Kirk himself. A bit of Adam Westing in there for William Shatner, playing off his perceived enormous ego:
  Kirk: I can't believe I kissed you!
  Martia: Must have been your lifelong ambition!
• As Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies demonstrates, it doesn't always require two people to do this, when an evil Jerkass Genie and a careless wish are involved. It doesn't end well either, as the mutated lawyer literally screws himself to death.

Music

• Mindless Self Indulgence expresses a wish for this in "Make Me Cum".
• "Hot Sauce and Ice Cream", by Tom Smith, features this briefly near the end before it turns into a Twin Threesome Fantasy.
• "Destiny Street", from the LP of the same name by Richard Hell and the Voidoids. A time-travel fantasy. And Richard Hell is smoking hot.
  Yes, I seduced myself
  I took me home
  I whispered that only I could make
  The younger guy feel less alone.
• TV on the Radio. "I Was A Lover" has a section about how the narrator seduces his clone when no one's around. It's probably metaphorical but still counts.
• Tom Waits's "Better Off Without a Wife"
  I've always kind of been partial to calling myself up on the phone and asking myself out. You know... (whoops from the audience) Oh yeah, you call yourself up too, huh? Yeah... Well, one thing about it, you're always around! Yeah, I know. Yeah, you ask yourself out, you know. Some class joint somewhere. The Burrito King or something. You know... Well, I ain't cheap, you know. (...) Well, usually about 2.30 in the morning you've ended up taking advantage of yourself and... there ain't no way around that, you know. Yeah, making the scene with a magazine, there ain't no way around... I'll confess, you know, I'm no different, you know. I'm not weird about it or anything. I don't tie myself up first.
• Rammstein's "Zwitter" is sung from the perspective of a hermaphrodite who is in love with him/herself. The lyrics are explicit about this trope.
  Ich bin alleine doch nicht allein, ich kann mit mir zusammen sein ("I am alone but not alone, I can be together with myself")
  So bin ich dann auch nicht verzagt, wenn einer zu mir "Fick dich" sagt ("So I'm not sad, even when someone says 'Fuck yourself' to me.")
• Schaffer the Dark Lord's "Attack of the Clone Fucker" has the narrator decide to clone himself just so he can use his clones for sex.
• Cat Rapes Dog's song "Adore Myself" is about either this or regular old narcissism.
• The album cover of Total by Sebastian depicts the artist kissing a man identical to him.
• In "I'll Be That Girl" by Barenaked Ladies, the singer fantasizes about becoming an exact duplicate of a narcissistic girl so she'll finally notice him and pay him romantic attention.
• Eminem occasionally implies his own alter-egos do a bit of this.
  • In "Low Down, Dirty", Slim Shady brags that he was convicted for molesting Eminem.
  • In "My Darling", Slim sings to Marshall that he loves him, he wants his body, and they are meant to be together.
  • In "Guns Blazing", Eminem's verse is a string of insults to an ex-lover named Michelle, who apparently left her abusive spouse to be with Slim, then remarried him. Aspects of Michelle's life - her trailer-trash background, her job in food service, the toddler she is protective of, and her marrying/divorcing/marrying/divorcing an abusive partner - are the same as Eminem's, and the name "Michelle" sounds extremely similar to "Marshall", giving the impression that she's a female alter-ego of Marshall. This would mean her relationship with Slim is an allegory for how the real Marshall chose the rap game at the cost of his love life.

Music Videos

• Lady Gaga: Taken to a ridiculous extreme in the video for "You And I", where her lover's role in the video was played by herself in her drag alter-ego, Jo Calderone. She also performed the song live as him at the MTV awards.

• The video for "Sober" by P!nk features Pink, in naughty lingerie, making out with... another Pink in other naughty lingerie. Take a look here. Starts about 2:20 and gets intercut here and there nearly to the end.
• The music video for "The World Is Not Enough" by Garbage has the robot double of the lead singer killing the real singer (Shirley Manson) by kissing her.
• The video for "All is Full of Love" takes place in a factory producing Björk gynoids. Two of them start kissing and fondling toward the end of the video.
• A scene in one version of Janet Jackson's "Together Again" video has Janet Jackson leaning her face and hand on the breast of another Janet Jackson who is wearing a strategically pixelated transparent top.
• Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters in the video for "Learn to Fly". Twice. A pigtailed girl played by Grohl has a crush on Grohl As Himself, and the Camp Gay flight attendant flirts rather suggestively with the pilot, both also played by Grohl.
• Nicki Minaj's guest verse in Kanye West's "Monster" has her doing a Split Personality act with her rap, switching between a baby-girl voice and a strident, dancehall-styled "monster" voice. The video represents this as Monster Nikki (in black lace and fangs) giving a lapdance to Innocent Nicki.
• The video for Torres' track "Three Futures" features three separate characters all played by Torres herself and ends with them having sex.
• The music video of "Somebody Else" by The 1975 has a scene in which Matty (the band's vocalist) starts having sex with a woman inside a car. The woman eventually transforms into Matty in female clothing, but they continue having sex regardless.
• MILGRAM: In "Tear Drop", Yuno Kashiki, who engages in Compensated Dating, is shown taking herself as a client. The main version of her, clad in a skimpy pink outfit, is pampered by other versions of herself and lies with one of them suggestively.

Myths & Religion

• In the Book of Genesis, this trope goes right back to the literal interpretation for Adam and Eve, as it's written that Eve came from Adam's rib.^note Or, respectively, if you take it either literally or the wrong (?) translation. There are some who interpret the Hebrew word as "side" or "aspect" and say, that Adam was a hermaphrodite in some way and the God took the female side/aspect and made it into a separate being. There are also the interpretations that suggest she was made from a different bone entirely, one present in many mammals but not in humans.^note Specifically the baculum, which is a bone in the penis to help with copulation. Humans do not have them, and function entirely hydraulically.
• Narcissus in Greek Mythology fell in love with his own reflection. It also helps that he's the namesake for narcissism.

Radio

• The Arbiter Chronicles: Divergence

Tabletop Games

• The player's handbook to Aberrant (a White Wolf RPG centered around people developing superpowers as a world-wide phenomenon) contains a chapter with various superhero teams and similar groups across the world (some of which are painfully ethnic). One is the Queer Nova Alliance, an informal group of Novas (superpeople) with "alternate lifestyles". One member is Tommy Orgy, whose selection of powers includes self-cloning. Or, as another nova observes, "Gorgeous, gay, and able to duplicate himself; its a wonder Tommy Orgy ever leaves his house." When Tommy tells another nova to "Go fuck yourself", the other retorts, "I thought that was more your forte, Thomas." A listener adds, "Well, according to every other fanfic I read on the OpNet, anyways..."
• Doable in Genius: The Transgression, although most of the available methods are a) major Karma Meter transgressions, b) really stupid, or c) both.
• There are a number of ways to go about this in Mage: The Awakening. Shapeshifting lets one person take the form of another, but it's also possible for a mage to divide into two or more bodies. The more esoterically inclined can journey into their own minds or cause aspects of their personalities to manifest physically: there's a mention of a mage who incarnated their own lust. Archmasters can create avatars; meet past, future, or alternate-timeline versions of themselves; and do it all in worlds generated from their souls, where they are aware of everything happening within. Power Perversion Potential indeed.
  • Mage: The Ascension offers similar options, with Correspondence level 4 letting one be in multiple places at once, Life 3 letting one have each copy think for itself instead of simply mirroring the original. While most issues with such a thing is how vulgar it is, as most consider such an action for practical application, simply creating several duplicates inside one's sanctum is easy, and Life 3 would also let one shapeshift themselves, with Life 4 allowing them to shape others. Power Perversion Potential is something Mage spheres are far too suited for in the hands of a creative mind.
• Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder has three versions of each Mane Cast member (four of Twilight), two versions of every princess, and two versions of Shining Armor. There are goals for this.

Visual Novels

• The eroge X-Change toyed with the idea, having one of the girls apparently resemble Takuya's female form, but with a different hair color.
• Kichiku Megane:
  • This BL Game features uke salesman, Saeki Katsuya, who turns into a super sadistic seme when he puts on a pair of glasses given to him by a mysterious stranger. Several of the game's bonus scenes feature his glasses-wearing seme self doing very naughty things to the normal version.
  • Played to the hilt in the sequel Kichiku Megane R where two of the bonus scenes revolve around the two Katsuya's getting married. Lampshaded when glasses-wearing Katsuya points out that this is only possible because the sequel is also a fandisc.
• Teased in the paid version of Hatoful Boyfriend. During the maid café scene, Ryouta holds up a mirror so the other birds can check their outfits. Oko San fails to realize the bird in the mirror is his own reflection, and tries to court it.
• During Ren's route of DRAMAtical Murder you find out that Ren is actually one of Aoba's two split personalities that was created to keep Aoba and his other destructive personality in check. Aoba and Ren have sex in Aoba's head, and then Ren's consciousness is implanted into the body of Aoba's twin brother. This doesn't stop them from continuing their relationship.
• In Fate/hollow ataraxia, in the hanafuda game segment, Gilgamesh can interact with his child self. Gilgamesh hits on him.
  Caren: I wouldn't have expected any less of you, King of Heroes. As long as it's blonde and has the body of a child, anything's fine right. But, that's a boy you know?
  Gilgamesh: Mrph. Fool, don't underestimate me peon! As long as it's cute, it's A-O-K. The true hero is not concerned with the likes of male and female!

Web Animation

• The Cyanide & Happiness Show: Forms part of the punchline in "Lookin' Good", in a more plausible yet no less absurd manner; a man, attracted to his own reflection, has sex with a mirror.
• Dorkly Originals gives us the following line in "Wish I Had a Portal Gun":
  "I'd shoot two portals in a vertical line, undo my belt, lean in, and... change pants without having to look down. (Beat) Also I'd suck my own diiiiiiiiiick!"
• In episode 10 of Retarded Animal Babies, the protagonists travel through the internet, find their creator's Newgrounds profile, and end up entering the beginning of the same episode. Effectively, they have traveled a few minutes into the past and are able to communicate with their past selves. The two Puppies immediately decide to have sex.
• The Eddsworld episode Movie Makers reveals that Matt has previous movie-making experience with his personal porno, Matt-on-Matt Action, rated: Not Suitable for Anyone Ever.

Web Original

• In the Whateley Universe, this is a serious problem to Jobe, as his now-identical clone Belephoebe is also in the body of his ideal girlfriend. And is his daughter, legally. He restrains himself from the urge to make sweet monkey love to her. Even after Jobe is turned into a girl. Belephoebe, however, does NOT restrain herself.
• Cracked: The website ran a column by Dan O'Brien entitled "So You're Locked in a Room with Your Clone: Fight or F#@k?"
• Orion's Arm:
  • House Stevens is made up entirely of clones. Their progenitors were the 47 survivors of an early colony ship that suffered a massive Cryonics Failure and they began to reproduce by cloning in order to avoid inbreeding. To prevent "accidents" they made homosexuality mandatory and over the centuries it became tradition to only have sex with others within their own clone.
  • Also implied to be happening at the end of Betrayals between Gus and a copy who had been living in a virch for years.
• Lampshaded in MEL when the eponymous protagonist ends up with not only his love interest but an older version of her from a future where she was embittered by HIS death.
  "He was fiercely aroused all of a sudden, and he realized that his situation was somewhere in between The Graduate and the lucky guy who gets to take home those blonde beer-ad twins—no incest taboo, just something more sublime and disturbing. He didn't want to think about it too earnestly, for fear of blowing up the universe."

It doesn't last however, as the two versions leave him for each other.

• In Cinnamon Bunzuh!, an Animorphs Review Blog, reviewer Ifi ships Ax and Tobias (who are uncle and nephew) while the latter is morphed into the former.
• In Tales of MU, during an experiment with an enchanted box that creates duplicates of whatever is inside it, the elven teacher Acantha makes out with her duplicate for a bit before being interrupted.
• SF Debris's theory regarding the reason Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager always argues with herself when time travel gets involved: Unresolved Sexual Tension. Cue a brief montage set to the Divinyls.
• SCP Foundation: SCP-1587, a machine attached to a bed that makes whatever you dream about become a real place and teleports you there. One of the tests by its inventor didn't turn out the way he hoped.
  Entry 851: Damnation damnation damnation DAMNATION. How am I supposed to enjoy a sex dream when everyone is me???

Web Videos

• In the Funny or Die video "Go Fuck Yourself with Dave Franco", the titular Franco goes to a bar, hooks up with himself, and eventually fucks himself. The link is slightly NSFW.
• Rhett & Link have this video about choosing the perfect profile picture. After taking the appropriate steps and multiple shots, "pick the one picture in which you are most physically attracted to yourself".
• CollegeHumor:
  • Parodied in Looper Has Sex with Himself, spoofing the movie Looper. The Time Travel in the film is employed specifically to invoke this, but the duplicate versions of Old Joe can't agree on who is going to give who oral sex.
  • And in their spoof of Back to the Future, a disgusting version of Marty ends up having sex with his own mother. Doc is horrified by this, and sends Marty back in time to stop this from happening—only to end up with Marty having a threesome with his mother and himself!
• Cracked:
  • The website ran a video in which Swaim speculates about having sex with his own clone. He decides that the morning after would be akward.
    Clone #1: What do you want to do?
    Clone #2: I... want to die.
  • And then Agents of Cracked had an episode featuring a Similar Squad, with Dan O'Brien's doppelganger invoking the article written by his counterpart.
    Brian O'Donovan: You know, I remember reading somewhere that there are only two truly meaningful things you can do with your doppelganger when you're locked in a room. You can fight them... Or f#@k them.
    [Dan takes a fighting stance]
    Brian: Wrong answer.
  • A later episode has Swaim reference this incident, and then provide many potential alternate names for this trope.
    Swaim: You slept with your exact duplicate. The clone bone. Sixty-sixing. Dopplegangbang. Mirrorbation. The big auto-erotic enchilada. Twins with benefits.
• In The Nostalgia Critic/Atop the Fourth Wall Linkara/Mystery Science Theater 4000 riff of Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins, when "Oolong" turns into "Bulma" (after turning into himself in bad drag), the guys immediately start shouting things like "Touch each other!"
• The Nostalgia Chick reviews The Worst Witch movie, which includes a Tim Curry song with a variety of weird visuals. One is Curry's face doubled, with the reflections face-to-face with each other.
  Tim Curry: Anything can happen on Halloween—
  Curry Chick: I could make out with myself/That would be pretty keen!
• In their crossover review of Myra Breckinridge, when presented with the scene of Myra performing oral sex on her pre-op self Myron (long story):
  The Cinema Snob: And they're the same person?!
  Diamanda Hagan: Yep.
  The Cinema Snob: Is this masturbation?
  Diamanda Hagan: Oh fuck I hope so.
• Episode 2 of the Jandrew Edits, "beard on beard", sees this done to Star Trek: The Next Generation, as the episode is about Riker starting a love affair with another Riker. Afterwards, the two Rikers' affair continues being a sporadically appearing Running Gag throughout the series.
• AFK: Q ends up having sex with a male alt character of herself.
• Drew Gooden: The joke behind one Vine is the concept of spending tons of money to get two different clones...and said clones only being interested in having sex with each other, with the Vine's protagonist utterly horrified at the discovery.
• Real-Time Fandub:
  • Memphis Tennessee mentions this as a perk of Me's a Crowd in the dub of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006):
    Memphis Tennessee: Have you ever fucked a clone? It's great. They know all the right places, and I have ten million of them to go around!
  • Later in Real-Time Fandub Goes to Hell, Shadow asks Eggman to borrow one of the Shadow clones for... personal reasons, though he changes his mind after learning all the clones can say is "Ooh, a clone of myself!".

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