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"Johnny studied Sissy as he smoked an after-supper cigar. He wondered what criterion people used when they applied the tags 'good' and 'bad' to their fellowmen. Take Sissy. She was bad. But she was good. She was bad where the men were concerned. But she was good because wherever she was, there was life, good, tender, overwhelming, fun-loving and strong-scented life. He hoped that his newly born daughter would be a little like Sissy."

Good girls don't. But she does, and she's not afraid to admit it.

Always Female due to the Double Standard, the Good Bad Girl is less chaste than her fellow female characters. Ever since her figure developed, boys have been making passes at her — and she's been accepting some. In fact, shockingly, she probably even takes the initiative in going after men sometimes. Consequently, she's built up a notorious sexual history around them (which may, however, be exaggerated — many a Good Bad Girl eventually settles for monogamy after they have experienced all that men can offer).

She may get around, and she may not mind showing off her figure, but she is unambiguously good.

She (and her most trusting friends) can't understand why people believe that it's bad for a woman to like sex as much as she does, nor does she internalize the notion that All Women Are Prudes. She's not The Vamp, and she's not even a Gold Digger. Sex for her is not just part of her zeal for living but also of a certain benevolent nature which extends to her non-sexual friendships. She tends to feel sorry when a man isn't getting any — though not necessarily a willing partner for any man: she's unlikely to stray if married to a husband who's good in bed, but if she's unattached, she could fall for her Spear Counterpart, the Chivalrous Pervert, in a heartbeat.

Like her Spear Counterpart, the Chivalrous Pervert, the Good Bad Girl is very likely to also be a female Ethical Slut with a benevolent For Happiness morality. However, it could also be that some part of her still believes that Sex Is Evil, making her feel guilty about her "immoral" horniness and overcompensate for it a bit.

If the Good Bad Girl actually decides to do for pay what most Good Bad Girls do only for fun, she will become a Hooker with a Heart of Gold. If she actively uses her talents for good, she overlaps with Heroic Seductress. If boys actually want to be with her due to her experience, then it's My Girl Is a Slut. See also Shameless Fanservice Girl.

Has nothing to do with Good Bad Bugs.

noreallife


Examples

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Azumanga Daioh: Minamo "Nyamo" Kurosawa is the most down-to-earth member of the series' cast, as well as one of the most good-hearted, to the point where her reputation among the school is nothing but stellar. During the girls' second summer trip, she drinks all the alcohol Yukari bought to keep her from engaging in any drunken shenanigans, only to get drunk herself and prattle on about her sex life at Tomo's provocation. As it turns out, Nyamo is very storied in this regard, with the girls still awestruck when they greet her the next day.
  • Shizuru from My-Otome is a lesbian variant, as befits her title, "Bewitching Smile Amethyst." She is clearly Natsuki's partner, but she also flirts with multiple other female characters, and at one point when she's late coming home, everyone just assumes that she got sidetracked by a pretty girl. She's also a kind-hearted and sweet young woman who almost never hurts anyone with her affairs. Unless you count Tomoe.
  • Rin and Ayane from Shuukyuu Shoujo seem to fit into this. What with them practically jumping the main character as soon as they meet? And Rin's obsession with big boobs? And Ayane having no qualms about going around without panties and getting naked on the road for blackmail?
  • Kajou Ayame from Shimoneta talks like one. The extent to which she is able to be that way is limited by the setting, which she is not happy about. In fact, the inability to behave in such a manner is what inspires her to fight the system and drag the protagonist along for the ride.
  • Infinite Stratos: Tatenashi Sarashiki is more of a downplayed version but still counts. But serioulsy, in stark contrast to every other girl in this franchise, Tatenashi is completely frank and comfortable with her sexuality, knows and openly-acknowledges that she is cute-and-sexy while enjoying every second of it. While she enjoys getting a rise out of chaste Sour Prudes like Ichika and Houki, she is ultimately too good-natured and kind to go beyond anything more than harmless teasing.
  • Lady Celi in Kyo Kara Maoh! is a charming, compassionate woman, the mother of three major characters, and spends most of her time traveling the world in pursuit of 'free love'. She flirts with anyone in range when she shows up, including the teenage protagonist and later his elder brother. The only problem anyone really seems to have with her behavior stems from how her revolving-door relationships affected her sons when they were children, and how much they now, as adults, still really wish they could avoid knowing so much about their mother's love life.
  • The anime Brynhildr in the Darkness has Kazumi and Hatsuna. Both have an almost obsessive interest in sex, especially with Ryouta. However, you never see them.
  • Kurumu Kurono of Rosario + Vampire, albeit this is shown mostly in the manga rather than the anime. She is a compassionate and kind-hearted girl in spite of her seductive succubus nature. She flirts shamelessly with Tsukune, but staunchly refuses to take advantage of him, preferring to win him over fairly, and despite her rivalry with the other girls in the harem, she will always stand there for them when they need it.
  • Sekirei: Out of Minato's Sekirei, Matsu and Kazehana count as this. The former is a shameless pervert who would love to "experiment" on Minato, and the latter is a Hard-Drinking Party Girl who loves to flaunt her assets to him. Both are very compassionate and loyal friends who'd do anything for their Ashikabi or anybody close to them should they need it.
  • Vermeil in Gold. Vermeil is a seductive demon who loves to tease Alto, unafraid to be naked in front of him and kiss him for his mana, and even admits that she did a lot of bad things when he unseals her for the first time. Underneath her naughty behavior, she's a sweet and compassionate girl who doesn't have a shred of real malice (unless anyone threatens Alto).

    Comic Books 
  • Wonder Woman Vol 1: Marya is quite happy to take up most of the many men who flirt with her, but complains that when it comes down to casual intimacy American men are a tease. She's also a giant sweetheart and unambiguous hero who will go out of her way to protect strangers and cross continents to support her friends.

    Fan Works 
  • The Bridge gives us Lieutenant Blade Dancer of the royal guard. Extremely flirty and promiscuous to the point its implied she's slept with all of her past boyfriends and girlfriends? Indeed she is. Except she's never cheated when on a relationship, is consistently shown as intelligent and heroic, and loved each of her former partners.
  • A Brighter Dark, while re-working the personalities of multiple characters throughout the original game, turned the main character Corrin into this, as well as being an overall combat obsessed loud-talker. By the start of the story, it's said that she's already slept with roughly half the guards in her fortress. Despite this, she is shown to be fiercly loyal to her friends and family and have very little tolerance for people who do wrong.
    • Audiences are split on whether this was a cringy attempt at being Darker and Edgier, or a much better take on an originally dull protagonist.
  • Darcy in Child of the Storm. She'll flirt with most things male (and, by implication, sleeps with them too), she has a near supernatural knack for finding dive bars (according to Jane - Darcy does not deny it), drinks like a fish and cheats at poker. She's pretty much shameless. She's also kind, surprisingly wise and very perceptive.
    • Betsy Braddock also qualifies; she Really Gets Around, picks out the like-minded Fandral immediately for her next semi-regular booty call (they both agree that they're too much alike to have a relationship), is a Home Nudist who has no shame about dropping her towel in front of a stranger (though that was to get his measure, since she couldn't see past his psychic barriers), uses her psychic abilities to adjust the experience to best suit both parties (and implies that there can be still more to it), and openly eyes up Warren. She is also kind, wise, and brave, being a big sister figure to the psychically-traumatised Ginny Weasley, drawing her out of her shell, and a Cool Teacher to Harry who gives him consistently good advice, instils strong ethics in him, and teases him about his crush on her up until he gets old enough that it could misinterpreted, where she firmly steps back. She's also entirely monogamous when in a relationship.
  • Communication: In the backstory of Kirche Zerbst, her status as one who Really Gets Around was so bad that the fiance of her Arranged Marriage broke off the engagement. Her family was so embarrassed by having a daughter "known for her promiscuity" in the capital of their nation, Germania, that they sent her away to Tristain’s Academy of Magic so people would forget about her reputation. Despite this, without giving up her ways, Kirche remains a loyal and understanding friend to have, including towards Louise even with their personal history and the history between their families.
  • New Tamaran:
    • Supergirl is a peeping tom, thinks mostly dirty thoughts, has had sex every day since losing her virginity, uses her super-senses to make the act perfect every time, her list of partners includes every other sidekick and most Honorary Titans, and she’s gladly unapologetic about all this. Yet she’s still a sweet, kind-hearted, inspiring superheroine who won’t hesitate to rush into danger or comfort the hurting. She also only sleeps with her single friends, and is seeking a genuine romantic partner to stay faithful to.
    • Wonder Girl follows Supergirl's example - and often accompanies her - until she and Speedy become a couple.
    • While undercover at HIVE Academy, Bumblebee got most of her intel via pillow talk with other students. As leader of Titans East, she has regular threesomes with Speedy and Aqualad, which stopped once they all got serious relationships.
    • In the sequel Justice Returns, Wonder Woman brags about banging the entire Justice League while off-planet to her husband Steve Trevor, who is completely unfazed.
  • Helena from Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls is The Tease, but is a genuinely nice person at heart.
  • Nymphomaniac pegasus mare Stormfront, in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic storytelling blog Stories from the Front, is an Ethical Slut.
    • Cloud Kicker in works written or inspired by Chengar Qordath certainly tries to be this. She's generally well-meaning, but the degree to which her various personality flaws prevent her from being a "good" bad girl is a matter of constant debate.
  • Mitsune "Kitsune" Konno in Promises of a Wandering Hero fully admits to her fondness for casual sex but still looks after her friends and chastises Naru for getting drunk and propositioning Shirou, specifically because unlike Kitsune, Naru wasn't in her right mind at the time.
  • Scooby-Doo XXX portrays Daphne as perpetually horny and eager to have her boyfriend, Fred's, baby. Velma, on the other hand, is sexually frustrated with Shaggy who seemingly hasn't noticed that she wants him to bang her. Both girls finally get what they want and lots of it while searching the mansion for Scooby's whereabouts.
  • The Secret Life of Punzie: Rapunzel, Anna and Elsa are all girlfriends and the former two practice stripping and encourage each other to see other girls in an open relationship, but it is done with full-transparency and are otherwise good people.
  • Shlick-Crazy Ninja portrays Yuffie Kisaragi as a fun loving, perpetually horny, call girl who puts out in exchange for rare Materia. It's later revealed that she's secretly stockpiling her earnings to arm Wutai in their fight against Shinra Corp. Thereby allowing her to satisfy her cravings and aid her home country while she's at it.
  • Closer to a rule than an exception when it comes to fanworks starring Kirisame Marisa from Touhou Project. As she's got one of the largest shipping harems in a franchise with tons of characters and a very shipping happy fandom, many fans acknowledge in their works that Marisa Really Gets Around, and she's seldom portrayed as concerned about either keeping her lifestyle a secret or shy about laying on the moves should an opportunity present itself. While the potential for jealousy remains, Marisa's lifestyle in itself is seldom, if ever, presented as a bad thing, and as one of the regular saviours of Gensoukyou she is unambiguously good (mythomania, kleptomania and Blood Knight tendencies notwithstanding).
  • Most Metroid fanfics that try to seriously deal with Samus's personal and/or romantic life widely accept this trope about her and will at the least offhandedly mention that she's had sexual encounters with many men in one night stands or very short relationships throughout her long bounty hunting career. This is commonly justified by authors having her traumatic past make it difficult for her to form deep emotional connections. She also frequently takes extremely high-risk missions across a lengthy amount of time in-universe and has come close to death on many occasions: many fanfic authors find it unrealistic that this would lend itself to her having a stable committed relationship. Some aversions do exist, though they are few and far between. At the same time, Really Gets Around is frequently averted, as another common assumption is that she doesn't advertise herself as being the famous bounty hunter Samus Aran when out of her suit, which is supported by canon sources such as the Dread Report Volume 3 & Volume 5 which say that in spite of her fame, few people actually know her true identity and the face behind the helmet is shrouded in mystery.

    Films — Animated 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Mae West had a quote that went "When I'm good, I'm good. But when I'm bad, I'm better!" - her usual persona was a sex-crazed fiend, but she usually played it for comedy and was admired for rebelling against the strict censorship of the day.
  • Jae-yeong in Samaritan Girl by Kim Ki-duk. Although she engages in teenage prostitution, she does so in a surprisingly innocent way, and genuinely cares about her customers (regardless of the fact that they are creeps).
  • Almost every Marlene Dietrich character, even after the actress had been dubbed "the world's most glamorous grandmother".
  • The Breakfast Club: Allison Reynolds probably isn't this, but likes to tell people she is.
  • Rizzo in Grease. She's a brutally honest and very sexually assertive school-aged Femme Fatale with some traces of Broken Bird, actually
  • Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
    Jessica: I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way.
  • The trope namer is 1931's The Good Bad Girl, with Mae Clarke as the title character.
  • Maria "Masha" Fydornova from The Last Station living in a Tolstoy-inspired commune where sex is supposed to be forbidden believes in free love and deflowers the would-be Celibate Hero, while adhering more to Tolstoy's ideas of non-violence, and is heavily disillusioned when she sees him swat at bugs.
  • Catwoman becomes one via a Reformed, but Not Tamed arc in The Dark Knight Rises. Following her Heel–Face Turn, she leaves behind her Vampish, Classy Cat-Burglar ways to help Batman. However, her attitude and sexiness are still very much intact.
  • Emily Blunt found herself playing lots of these in her early career, though she has broken out of it in The New '10s. Examples include:
    • Tamsin of My Summer of Love is manipulative and possessive, and downright disturbed. But she provides some comfort and solace for the lonely Mona (Natalie Press). This one gets subverted as it's revealed just how manipulative Tamsin is.
    • Norah of Sunshine Cleaning smokes, drinks and slacks off at work. But she's also deeply lonely and desperate for her life to have meaning.
    • Sara from Looper was once a Hard-Drinking Party Girl who abandoned her son to continue her rebellious lifestyle. But now she's trying to atone, and raise her son to be a better person.
  • Lily from Black Swan is apparently no stranger to one-night stands and is quite flirtatious and wild, but she's also quite ethical; she openly calls Thomas' borderline abusive relationship with Beth "gross," and acts a Cool Big Sis to Nina. She's also extremely flattered when she finds out Nina had an Erotic Dream about her, eagerly asking, "Was I good?"
  • Jay from It Follows is heavily implied to have had an active sex life, even before the curse necessitates it. She's also a sweet, modest Girl Next Door who is very uncomfortable with the idea of having sex with someone just to pass the curse on.
  • Sabretooth: Lola is a provocatively dressed girl who admits that she used to hang out with a bad crowd and propositions Trent by stripping down to her bra and daring him to play hide-and-seek. However, she's pretty nice for the most part, and, after picking up on the tension between Trent and Casey, she makes sure they aren't still together before hitting on Trent.

    Literature 
  • A girl named Elunud in the Brother Cadfael mystery (and TV episode) The Raven in the Foregate. She is also a good example of how such a girl can be exploited.
  • Captain Roland, from the Temeraire series, is a borderline case, a sort of blurring the lines of this, Lady of War, and Eternal Sexual Freedom, despite being a woman in the early 19th century. It's good to be the captain (later admiral) of one of the most critical dragons to the war effort (who don't accept male captains, hence the extra liberties allowed).
    • Not to mention that larger dragons can live for hundreds of years, and the best chance of getting a dragon to accept a new captain after the old one dies is for the new captain to be the old one's child.
  • Zinka in Diana Wynne Jones's Deep Secret is a nice young woman with quite a few sexual conquests under her belt (and a hobby of selling porn at fan conventions), and is fairly up-front about it all. She also turns out to be married to the protagonist's brother, so score one more for eventual monogamy.
  • Caddy from The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner is described by the author as the "true hero" of the story despite the fact that she is sexually promiscuous and brings dishonor on her family for having a child out of wedlock. She even agrees to have sex with Quentin at one point; although, to be very clear, they do not actually go through with it.
  • Critics have actually called the heroine of Henry James' novella Daisy Miller "a good, bad girl." She was literally chaste, but this was 19th-century Europe, where her habit of flirting and strolling with two men (whom she wasn't married or related to) was absolutely scandalous!
  • A remarkable number of Robert A. Heinlein's female protagonists are examples of this trope. In fact, in many of his later works he seems to treat this as the natural and proper state of both males and females: loving as many people as possible in as many ways as possible. Notable specific examples include the titular protagonist of Friday, Patricia of Stranger in a Strange Land, Star of Glory Road, Maureen Johnson Smith Long of Time Enough for Love, and in fact almost all of Lazarus Long's coterie from that novel onwards. Patricia is an interesting case, as it turns out that her religion actually requires its innermost grade of members to be polyamorous.
  • Everyone in Brave New World (albeit from the perspective of our own culture). Involvement in not only sex but public sex, in the Orgy Porgy is compulsory, as is sterilization or contraception (babies are produced entirely via ectogenesis).
  • The Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales, although she (says she) only has sex in marriage, and only marries when she's been widowed; she's had five husbands so far and has an eye out for number six on the road to Canterbury. Her prologue is a ringing defence of women's sexuality against the ideal of chastity, saying that genitals are there to be used and that not everyone is meant to be pure white flour, there's a place for "hot barley bread."
  • The Fragility of Bodies: Verónica shamelessly enjoys her borderline hedonistic lifestyle of drinking, smoking, and casual sex but she's also a Nice Girl with a strong moral character, who works as an Intrepid Reporter due to her strong sense of justice.
  • Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress #1): Francesca has the most pronounced Ms. Fanservice wardrobe and figure in the book, if not the series, displays very flirty demeanor around Bones, and knowingly glances at his girlfriend Cat in a challenging manner as she kisses Bones. However, she used to be a novitiate until she was kidnapped from a twentieth century nunnery and wishes that she'd been allowed to live a modest mortal life of chastity. She also hates Hennessy and his human trafficking crimes and is determined to bring him down regardless of the risk to her life, while also showing contempt for how human society allows sex trafficking, disease, and starvation without helping the needy.
  • I Am Not a Serial Killer has Marci, a deceptively carefree Lovable Alpha Bitch. She's a more PG version of the trope; exactly how far she lets guys get isn't clear, just that even her four-year-old sister is aware that she has "a lot of boyfriends". And as shown by her Official Couple status with John, she'll stick around for a guy who impresses her enough.
  • Julia from Nineteen Eighty-Four. She had her first affair at the age of sixteen with a sixty-year-old man, and went on to have multiple others. It's not just Miniluv who like to do it to Julia. Of course she can't be open about this, partly because she's ostensibly a member of the Junior Anti-Sex League, partly because living unconventionally in a totalitarian Police State is inherently unsafe.
  • Blithe Spirit Caitlín Mulryan, of Poul Anderson's The Avatar, states rather flippantly that she's only had about twenty lovers since losing her virginity at sixteen (she's thirty-four at the time). While this averages out to a little over one a year, keep in mind that The Avatar was published at a time when Double Standards were even more prevalent. Caitlín is nonetheless presented in an entirely positive light. In fact, as it turns out, her consciousness was engineered by Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the hope that she would eventually Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence. (She chooses not to.)
  • Snow White from The Princess Series will risk her life for her friends and flirts with anything male, human or not. Implied to do more then flirt but it's never shown.
  • Dagny Taggart from Atlas Shrugged doesn't have a world-beating sex drive, but she shamelessly enjoys the sex she does have and does it because she likes doing it.
  • In Discworld Nanny Ogg was one of these in her youth, and has grown up to be a proper Dirty Old Woman. When another witch calls her a "strumpet", Tiffany Aching looks the word up...and concludes that a "woman of easy virtue" must be one who is effortlessly virtuous, and someone who is "no better than she should be" must always be just good enough.
  • Naoko Kamikishiro of the light novel Boogiepop and Others claims she is in love with a first year student, whom she asks out at least twice; despite this, she has no qualms about sleeping around with other men, having something of a "share the love" mentality. She also hides and protects Echoes, whom she is ALSO in love with, consequently saving the entire planet from destruction at the hands of God/aliens/whatever.
  • While Jenny really is this (and proudly) in The Truth of Rock And Roll, her reputation for promiscuity dates from before she ever had sex with anyone. Her family already had a bad reputation because "her father was a drunk who couldn't keep a job and her mother was a drunk who couldn't keep a house", and they didn't notice she needed new clothes when she started developing early. When she refused to hide her figure, she was deemed The School Slut and would have been so if she'd stayed a virgin.
  • Simona Ahrnstedt has two examples of this trope. And to make it even more interesting, they're both French!
    • Vivienne de Beaumarchais in "Överenskommelser" maybe isn't promiscuous, but still, she lives a very unconventional life. She doesn't care about her hiding her affair with Jacques, despite how she refuses to get married to him before she gets pregnant. She will never let a man control her life again after her first marriage became a disaster. She travels over Europe on her own, and more conventional people are really appalled by her lifestyle.
    • Marie Dicke in "De skandalösa" is unfaithful to her husband and neglectful to her children. But still, she's portrayed with some sympathy. Just like Vivienne from above, she really has a big appetite for life. And it seems like she's not really a bad person, but simply bored with trying to live a conventional life.
  • Rose Hathaway from Vampire Academy. She has some seriously shady sexual reputation in the academy and the Moroi/Dhampir community as a whole, due to getting semi-nude with several guys. She has some distinct Ethical Slut tendencies, especially in the first two novels. She likes to go after men and get involved in sexual situations, without actually going all the way. Despite this she has her set of morals.
  • Mary Boleyn, as portrayed in Wolf Hall. She was mistress to Francis I of France before she and her sister returned to England, where she became Henry's mistress and allegedly her son is Henry's rather than her late husband's (a story Thomas Cromwell believes, since the child has reddish hair). Her family pimped her out and now calls her a whore, and she's rather flirtatious towards Cromwell since marrying him would solve those problems. She eventually gets herself banished by marrying a man she wants, preferring the difficulties of life with a poor but loving husband.
  • Octavia in Connie Willis's "All My Darling Daughters" is unruly even by the standards of her Free-Love Future, but as her roommate points out, she's "a good person". She's not even particularly concerned about bestiality, but she's shocked when she realizes that the boys like their new bioengineered pets because they scream like children. And she does her best to save her roommate's sister from having to go back to her sexually abusive father.
  • In The Mortal Instruments is Isabelle Lightwood. She is a strong demon hunter, but she also has a lot of affairs with boys. To the point that Simon is warned against getting involved. But she actually falls in love with Simon.
  • Rose Marshall of Ghost Roads thoroughly enjoys fast food, alcohol and is even perfectly fine with sex as a way to repay people for rides or meals that she receives. She's also a genuinely good person who does mean well and strives to do the right thing usually.
  • Seeds of Yesterday. Cindy is promiscuous, but she's neither related to, nor cheating on/with any of the guys she sleeps with, unlike nearly every other character in the book, who have the nerve to condemn her for her behavior.
  • In J. Jefferson Farjeon' Thirteen Guests, Nadine is a widow with a Past, whom various characters suspect of having cheated on her late husband and/or sleeping around after his death. Exactly how much of this is true, we don't know, but during the events of the book she's a perfectly friendly and likeable person.
  • One of Us is Lying: In the sequel, One of Us is Next, Phoebe Lawton is kind, friendly, loving and protective of her little brother, and most definitely not a virgin. Somewhat subverted as she slept with her sister Emma's ex.
  • In The Diamond Girls, Sue enjoys drinking and clubbing, and all five of her children have been fathered by different men (one of whom was already married). However, she's fundamentally a good person who loves her children and tries to do what's best for them all.
  • In Eileen, Eileen's sister Joanie Really Gets Around and got married at a young age to a man who's open about his lust for her. Despite this, she's favored by her father and seemingly everyone else who knows her, and her warm, open demeanor contrasts with the more prudish and repressed but judgemental and amoral Eileen.
  • InCryptid: Elsie Harrington shamelessly sleeps around with many different women, and is unashamed to talk about sex.
    "I am the patron saint of inappropriate innuendo and giving people hickeys right before their mothers show up. I’m considering becoming a religious icon. You think I could get a following?”note 

    Live-Action TV 
  • American Dreams had Roxanne who was a family hour version of this trope while she only slept with two boys over the course of the show and Word of God has her marrying the second she "made out" with just about anyone pretty freely. Roxanne also acted as more experienced mentor to the other girls on the show when it came to boys clothes and hair.
  • Kara "Starbuck" Thrace from Battlestar Galactica is the Distaff Counterpart to her original, womanizing namesake.
  • Penny from the The Big Bang Theory, especially when compared to her romantically inept friends. Amy and Sheldon once did the math to figure out approximately how many men she slept with and came up with 30.96 sexual partners (they rounded up to 31). This actually becomes a major plot point in the fourth season cliffhanger when she wakes up in bed with Raj. She is utterly devastated and disappointed in herself, while Amy contrasts her with Catherine The Great. "She engaged in interspecies hanky-pankynote , and they still called her Great. I'm certain your reputation can survive shagging a little Indian boy."
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • Faith is a counter example, not for her promiscuity but for the nonchalance with which she evicted her lovers; the female equivalent of a rake or cad. Relevant since Xander, Faith's defining one-hour stand and prompt discharge, serves as The Heart in the series team.
    • Buffy herself also qualifies, actively seeking to hook up early in season one, then falling in love with a 240-year-old vampire. She also frequently advises Willow to "seize the moment" by flirting with guys.
  • Manny and Emma from Degrassi: The Next Generation become this, Manny earlier than Emma. Though Manny starts to become sexual (even with other people's boyfriends) she still seems to have a perfect wisdom and maturity about her when dealing with Emma and later Darcy's problems. She also turns Jay into a good guy through The Power of Love.
  • Kaylee from Firefly. She's pretty unambiguously meant to be the most good-natured person in the cast, and she frequently serves as the moral center of the crew of Serenity. She's also not shy about casual sex, and was actually in the middle of screwing the ship's previous engineer the first time she met Mal (she impressed him enough to be hired by fixing a problem with the ship that had Bester stumped the second she straightened her clothes out).
  • Forever: Homicide detective Jo Martinez is introduced the first morning of the pilot episode returning to her car after a one night stand. When the guy suggests they could become a regular thing, Jo tells him that's very sweet but if she wants him, she'll find him. She's also a career cop who puts her life on the line to save others and repeatedly offers to be there for Henry if he needs a friend to talk to.
  • Phoebe from Friends leads a very active sex life and did have a rough upbringing (it's revealed she used to mug people as a teen) but does care deeply for her friends - despite her dark sense of humour.
  • Blanche from The Golden Girls. While she really got around during her time on the show, it was well established that when she was married, she was completely faithful to her late husband. It's also well established that despite her promiscuity, she will NOT sleep with married men, and she's genuinely angry and upset when it inadvertently happens:
    Man: My wife doesn't understand me.
    Blanche: Well, I do. You're a cheat. Get out.
  • Serena van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl is an excellent example. Before the show starts, she was a straight-up Hard-Drinking Party Girl and Rich Bitch. But after having sex with her best friend's boyfriend, she suffered a Heel Realization and tried to change her ways. She can still slip into Alpha Bitch mode, but she usually has good intentions.
  • Robin from How I Met Your Mother is second only to Barney when it comes to the number of sexual partners. It helps that she is the only single female character in the main cast.
  • The Live-Action TV BBC production I, Claudius showed that Julia the Elder, daughter of Augustus was wit and lovable and she was involved in countless affairs, accentuated by BRIAN BLESSED's (portraying Augustus) bombastic lament of:
  • Isolde from Merlin is clearly sleeping with Tristan despite there being no hint of a marriage between them. That, and she's a smuggler.
  • The title character of the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. An extremely active sexual past and an ever changing string of lovers in the series does not stop her being the Action Girl heroine.
  • Ruby in Once Upon a Time is initially characterised as this, although this is mostly an Informed Flaw about her cursed Storybrooke self.
  • One Tree Hill: Brooke, in high school, to the point where Haley jokingly challenges the new girlfriend of one of Brooke's exes to find a boy in Tree Hill who didn't lose his virginity to Brooke Davis. By the time she's an adult, Brooke has grown out of this, and in fact is bothered by the amount of people who either A) act like she's still that person or B) make jokes about High School Brooke being a "slut."
  • Audrey Horne from Twin Peaks pretends to be this in order to get what she wants. However, for what we get to know about Laura Palmer, she may have fit this trope before she was killed.
  • Wolf Hall's Mary Boleyn is the sarcastic and flirtatious ex-mistress of King Francis and Henry VIII. Having brought her family into Henry's esteem, they now call her a fool and a whore. As she tells Thomas Cromwell, she wants a husband who'll make them upset and won't die—requirements she thinks Cromwell would fit (he is less enthusiastic) and they have an Almost Kiss before interrupted by the man she thought had stood her up, William Stafford. While the scenes were cut for time, she eloped with Stafford and wasn't too upset to be banished from court.
  • The Walking Dead:
    • Andrea is this combined with All Girls Want Bad Boys, enjoying a fling with Shane as a form of Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex once they escape a neighborhood overrun by walkers. She later has an active relationship with The Governor, and early on mentioned missing her vibrator when the women of the group were discussing what they missed from before the apocalypse.
    • Lori has some decidedly outdated views on what women should be doing for men, but she still fooled around with Shane enough that the entire camp was aware of it and she ended up pregnant.
    • Maggie Greene is one of the most noble characters on the show and a core member of Rick’s group, and is a devout Christian and is more or less Hershel’s perfect daughter. She quickly gets into an intense sexual relationship with Glenn since as she puts it, their options are limited in the zombie apocalypse and she’s lonely. It eventually becomes a full-fledged relationship once they truly fall in love, but she still enjoys a fulfilling marriage with Glenn (most viewers likely remember the “sex garage” scene in Season 3).
    • Rosita is another virtuous, badass Action Girl who’s easily the nicest of Abraham’s original trio, and sees nothing wrong with having a healthy sex life well into the apocalypse. She frequently makes love with her first boyfriend Abraham, voiced jealousy when she accuses Sasha of having sex with him once he dumped her for her note , and later had a fling with Siddiq. She also mentions that before meeting Abraham, she would sleep with men ostensibly for protection, when in reality she didn’t need protection and was using them to learn their survival skills.
    • Carol is revealed to be this come Season 9, when she expresses disappointment that her boyfriend Ezekiel usually prefers to sleep like a baby through the night. That said, a scene in Season 10 makes clear that she still enjoyed a fulfilling marriage to Ezekiel.

    Music 
  • Subverted in "Kinda Out Of Luck" by Lana Del Rey. The first 1.20 seconds are spent building a "Good Bad Girl with bad self esteem getting rescued by Prince Charming" kind of narrative... and then... oops.
  • A very common Stock Character in Country Music. As in, an essay could be written analyzing her presence, subversions, and deconstructions. Usually, she will have a song written about her by a man who is fascinated with the dichotomy that is her life; the lines to watch for will be about wild Saturday nights followed by pious Sunday mornings. If sexuality is openly discussed, it will usually be in terms of the Ethical Slut mentality, but she almost always does what she does with a pure-hearted For Happiness mindset, thus hits both humanizing notes of the trope in the description above.
  • Discussed by 5 Seconds of Summer in their song Good Girls. See the quote page for lyrics.
  • This Trope was a big part of Britney Spears' image growth, from the year 2000, which was not overtly in-your-face sexual until 2001's "I'm A Slave 4 U".
  • In many of K.T. Oslin's songs, the female character voices sensuality, her sexual desire and pursuit of pleasure. Because so many of her songs drip with both sexual innuendo and bravado, a newspaper reporter called her the "Tina Turner of Country Music". This is how K.T. describes her repertoire:
    "It's sexual, but it's not quite so in-your-face. It's a different deal. For me to try to stand up there and say, "I'm going to wear hair extensions and long fingernails and show a lot of skin. and then I'll sing about crying... that wouldn't have worked."

    Mythology & Religion 
  • Freyja, the Love Goddess of Norse Mythology. Unsurprisingly for a literal goddess of sex, Freyja has a history of sleeping around (one notable incident involves sleeping with twelve guys in one night for a necklace). But as one of the Vanir and later Aesir, she is a benevolent deity in the Norse pantheon. She even rules over Fólkvangr, a Warrior Heaven where half of those who die in battle go (the other half being Odin's Valhalla).

    Professional Wrestling 
  • This really got started during the Attitude Era, when - taking its cue from the antiestablishment values of Extreme Championship Wrestling, among other places - World Wrestling Entertainment began to portray its sluttiest "Divas" not only as cool, but heroic. Sable got the ball rolling, and from that point there was just no stopping for an entire decade. Not only was there an ongoing parade of face Divas who proudly posed for Playboy, but their counterparts who advocated traditional social mores (Ivory, Molly Holly) were portrayed as evil for that very reason - though WWE had plenty of evil seductresses, who would often feud with the Good Bad Girls. Noteworthy among the "good" girls were Torrie Wilson, who had an "America's sweetheart" persona but was still unabashedly naughty; and Maria Kanellis, a Woman Child who liked ponies and dolls yet wound up naked on an episode of ECW on Sci-Fi. It got to the point where Melina and Beth Phoenix came off (in-story) as massive bitches for not wanting to appear in Playboy. It's really saying something that Stacy Keibler, who was portrayed first and foremost as a sex object throughout her three-year face run, was one of the more wholesome faces of this period.
  • A subtle case with the Lovely Lacey, who was a terrible person throughout the entirety of her Ring of Honor run. However, her desire for love and sex were not counted among her vices and the more men she had sex with the better a person she became, which still meant Lacey was still insufferable but was eventually enough for a Heel–Face Turn against Jimmy Jacobs, who by contrast got worse when he fell in love and had sex with Lacey.
  • ODB after she started showing cleavage and prior to her happy marriage to Eric Young. Once when asked by a reporter what it took to get her in the mood she asked if she could have his cigarette and took him to the floor in a dry hump tackle when he said "yes". She's even demanded pervy patdowns from referees and become envious when they happen to other wrestlers. ODB has been a heel in some promotions but in TNA attempting to push her as anything other than a baby face resulted in failure. The best they could manage is to get Gail Kim and Jacqueline cheered but even then ODB wasn't actually booed.
  • The raison d'etre of Irish promotion Over The Top Wrestling's Martina. Nicknamed 'Session Moth'note , she's out to get laid and so drunk that she's wearing her pyjamas all day. Her talk show is even titled 'In Bed With Martina'. But she's an unambiguous babyface who wants to have fun with the crowd.
  • Carmella initially debuted as the Token Evil Teammate to Enzo and Cass - a trashy spoilt princess who mocked and belittled them. But after she saw how Blake and Murphy treated them, she saw the error of her ways and supported them. So while the trashy outfits and attitude remained, she was now far more heroic.
  • Nikki Bella is a massive pervert - owning five vibrators and with a mirror above the bed so she can look at herself while she's doing it. In the ring she proudly shows lots of cleavage and ass, but her face character is still heroic (albeit Good Is Not Nice).

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • In the Mystara setting, the Immortal Valerias, the Immortal of love, passion, and star-crossed lovers. She genuinely loves her mate Ixion, the Immortal of the sun and fire, but she still has periodic affairs. At the same time, Valerias is one of the good Immortals. To be fair, when you are so old that no one, including yourself and your fellow Immortals, remembers a time when you did not exist in your current form, and when you are at the same time eternally youthful and unchanging, fidelity is inevitably going to be more of a challenge than for ordinary mortals. Still, Valerias Really Gets Around.
    • Nearly all the Love Gods in Forgotten Realms are portrayed positively: Sune (romantic love) and Sharess (sexuality) are both aligned Chaotic Good, with Sune even being permitted to have paladin followers in 3rd Edition (normally restricted to LG, LN, and NG deities).
  • Pathfinder: Shelyn, the Neutral Good goddess of romantic love, beauty, and fine art, is known in the Golarion setting's mythology for practicing polyamory: she's had affairs with almost as many beings as the setting's actual sex goddess Calistria and is known for being in an open relationship with Sarenrae (goddess of the sun) and Desna (goddess of travel). She considers among her friends Erastil, the Lawful Good Fertility God of rural communities, who appreciates her support for marriage and families (by contrast, he's mildly critical of Lawful Good paladin-goddess Iomedae's disinterest in having a family, and considers Chaotic Good Desna and Cayden Cailean something like prodigal children).

    Theatre 
  • Linda Low of Flower Drum Song - more so in the musical than in the original book. While very sexual and something of a Gold Digger, she's still portrayed as a likable character who gets her happy ending. Her actress in the film adaptation Nancy Kwan pointed out that Linda broke stereotype for Asian females at the time - being neither a submissive 'China Doll' nor an evil Dragon Lady.
  • Musetta in La Bohème. She drives her lover Marcello crazy by flirting with other men and occasionally leaves him for a wealthy Sugar Daddy, but is a true friend, as shown by the loving care she gives to Mimi in the last act.
  • Being an Expy of Musetta, Maureen from RENT fills this role. "Ever since puberty, everybody's stared at me: boys, girls, I can't help it baby." Her current lover Joanne can't stand her flirtatious (if you ask Maureen) or slutty (if you ask Joanne) ways ("You were flirting with a woman in rubber!"), leading to a combined "I Am" Song and a pretty epic breakup.
  • Ado Annie from Oklahoma!. "I Cain't Say No" is her "I Am" Song.
  • Petra from A Little Night Music. There's a scene where The Ingenue Anne (virginal despite marriage) asks Petra if she's a virgin ("God forbid"), how old she was when it happened (16), and how disgusting it must have been ("Disgusting? It was more fun than the rolly-coaster at the fair").
  • A Shot In The Dark has Josefa Lantenay, a good parlor maid who's bad at keeping her footing around men while not wearing panties. When the murder occurred in her bedchamber, she had been having affairs both with the victim and with the man of the house (but no others: "Josefa isn't really a whore - just bed-minded!"). When she's ultimately released from suspicion, she plans to go into a new line of work: striptease.
  • Buffy in Starlight Express. She dresses like an old-fashioned pin-up girl and, in the 1980s London and Broadway productions, quickly establishes her promiscuity, but she has a sweet personality and no one criticizes her for her behavior.

    Video Games 
  • Kelly Chambers of Mass Effect 2 will show sexual interest in anyone, regardless of gender or species, but is pretty much a cheerful Pollyanna otherwise.
  • Leliana from Dragon Age: Origins is a "repentant bad girl", meaning that she is a former Femme Fatale who got religion and is now struggling between her wild nature and her newfound beliefs. If you choose to "harden" her, she will embrace her past once more but still stay the kind, caring individual she is. The Player Character, if female, might be portrayed as this, especially the female Human Noble. If propositioned in the Human Noble origin, Dairren states that he has heard of her proclivities (and is happy to oblige himself), and Alistair asks in earlier romance stages if you've "ever licked a lamppost in winter" and you can reply "many lampposts and then some". You can then go on to have a threesome with Alistair (if he's shed his naive idealism) or Leliana and a third participant, Isabela (or even a foursome with Leliana and Zevran).
  • Pia, and potentially the player, in the Neverwinter Nights module A Dance with Rogues manages to come across this way, despite the fact that we only ever hear about one past affair. Her willingness to jump into bed with the player helps.
  • Shaundi in Saints Row 2, although being a gang member she's therefore not particularly good by any objective standards.
  • Tales of Phantasia has Arche implied to be this, most noticeably when she refuses to see the Unicorn in case it might mean it won't appear. The Fan Translation of the game exaggerated her lines and made her come more obviously across as pretty sexually experienced.
  • Persona 3: The female Player Character can be played as this, if the player chooses to max out most/all social links.
  • In The Elder Scrolls series mythology, Dibella, the Aedric Divine Goddess of Beauty and Love, is associated with elements of innocence (such as always being depicted holding a delicate white flower), but is also associated with the more carnal and sexual aspects of love. The Dibellan Arts, a loosely defined form of lovemaking, is in fact the primary means of worshiping her.
  • Primrose Azelhart in Octopath Traveler, an heroic Femme Fatale who uses her sex appeal to seduce men and women into helping her get revenge on her father's murderers. Despite this hard edge to her character, she is a kind and compassionate woman who acts as a playfully flirtatious Cool Big Sis to the other members of the party. She also offers advice based on her considerable experience to the other girls.
  • Moxxi from the Borderlands is a downplayed example, as she is more of an Anti-Hero than a straight up good guy.
  • Dragon Quest V: Nera is demure, compassionate, kind-hearted model maiden, but some dialogue implies she also has a dirty mind: when an NPC notices some scratches on the Hero's back, Nera sheepishly admits that she's responsible for them.
  • Alexstrasza in World of Warcraft, in keeping with her role as The Lifebinder. She has many children, wants to have more, and lets everyone know it. Indeed, pretty much any time there isn't a fight going on she sounds like she would rather be having sex, and prefers Stripperific garb when in human form. Of course, no one would dare trifle with her, given that she's a firebreathing dragon.

    Visual Novels 

    Webcomics 
  • Erica Richards of SwordCat Princess is very sexually open and active. In the course of the first arc, she has sexual encounters with Nicky Dawson (the first one ending early with him holding underwear she forgot about). She also has sex with Kathryn "SwordCat" Kennedy after this kiss. She further admits to having previously slept with her adopted brother, Officer Jack Dawson.
  • Maytag of Flipside is this, shamelessly. She is described as a nymphomaniac, and part of the dramatic tension between her and Bernadette is her unwillingness to settle down. It's revealed that Bernadette already knew that Maytag was cheating on her but was willing to tolerate it as a "phase" of her life.
  • Sam of The Space Between is a hard-partying girl who apparently sleeps around quite a bit, but her best friend Jack doesn't seem to mind particularly, and his new roommate Frank thinks it's hot.
  • Despite (because of?) her past as a stereotypically womanizing Frenchman, Petite of Jet Dream became extremely interested in men after her sex change.
  • Magick Chicks: Faith is regarded as the hottest girl at Artemis Academy and has built an in-universe reputation for her sex appeal. Most of the student body are chomping at the bit for the chance to sleep with her, and Faith's just as eager to please. However, she's willing to give all of them up for Tiffany.
  • Zeetha, of Girl Genius, is described as "an expert" on sexual matters, though we don't actually get to see any of her sex life onscreen. It helps when one of your main deities is a fertility goddess. ("Our holy days are fun! (cha cha cha)")
  • Scary Go Round:
    • Shelley is fairly promiscuous (or was) in her younger days:
      "When I did bad things, it just made boys happy."
    • Amy is a straighter example and and proud of it:
      Amy: "I've been around the block so many times, they named it after me."
      Erin: "Is...Is that a good thing?"
      Amy: If you've been given a tank, you don't park it outside a nunnery. You go to war.
  • Marina Flippo-Baret of the Ciem Webcomic Series becomes this briefly. The tragedies that befall her sisters lead them to border on this as well. In Miriam's case, it's a combination of this with post-traumatic embitterment disorder. Made worse by the fact that Miriam becomes a Manipulative Bitch in High School just to survive. In Candi's case, she acts a little like this around her preferred men due to Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny.
  • The Drow of Drowtales are generally pretty open about sexuality, but Ash'waren of the Sullisin'rune takes the cake as far as this trope goes. She's an Ethical Slut bar none, is implied to have hundreds of children (to the point she has to be reminded which of her daughters is which and initially fails to recognize one of them until reminded of the year of her birth) and just as many lovers of both sexes. Like everyone else in the series she has her flaws but is overall presented in a positive light.
  • Seram from MSF High, full stop. Also, recently, Michelle's hidden tendencies for this have been getting into the open.
  • Porrim from Homestuck is one of the series' most promiscuous characters, willing to share details, and is also the Team Mom to her screwed-up group of friends. She's also the first troll whose outfit shows cleavage.
  • Daisy from Heroes of Inkopolis is a good battler for Team Green, but very lustful.
  • Saying that Larisa from Sandra and Woo a wild girl is a bit of an understatement; she has smooched half the boy's populace in school, flirts with men older than her, and her own mother has given up trying to control her and is only concerned about her daughter's virginity being intact. But whenever needed, her heart is always in the right place, she is currently in a healthy and stable relationship with Landon, and has reconciled with her enemy.

    Web Original 
  • Sara from Whateley Universe, alias Carmilla. In fact, she's got her own harem, practically.
  • If the first "Spooning With Spoony" was any indication, That Chick With The Goggles from Channel Awesome.
  • Rachel from Simple Complications is an adventurous party-girl who is not shy about her love of sex. She is also a great friend, and is always willing to help out someone in need.
  • Yang Xiao Long from RWBY can be considered a Downplayed example. In her first appearance, she offers to kiss a mob boss despite being underage (it's a ploy to get him to lean in so she can sucker-punch him), she isn't shy about admiring the male eye candy around Beacon academy when they have co-ed bunking, claims to intentionally dress the way she does to take advantage of her sex appeal, and seemed delighted at the idea of dressing formally at the Beacon dance if only so she can turn heads. She's as close as you could possibly get to this trope in a PG show where romance is present but not depicted.

    Western Animation 
  • In Drawn Together, Foxy Love is the most moral character aside from Xander.
  • Wendy Corduroy of Gravity Falls is this in a G-rated context. She's a mischievous, rebellious teenage girl with an outgoing, Ladette-ish personality. She's open and unashamed about having dated more guys than she can count on one hand, and is also very kind, protective, humble, and by far one of the nicest characters on the show.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): Bunnie Rabbot is quite unambiguously a G-rated version of this trope.note  Her outfit is a somewhat skimpier version of a Playboy Bunny, and she is very flirty - at one point she casually, yet seriously jokes about eyeing Sonic's elderly uncle. Page 12 of Sonic SatAM's Universe Bible (which can be read in full at this link) reveals that she isn't at all picky about love - she has her eye on nearly every male in the cast except Tails. However, she's also easily the sweetest character in the cast, and has a good rapport with nearly everyone: a Femme Fatale she is not.
    Bunnie: "Speaking of be-hinds,... I dearly love boys. I can sit for hours and watch em' walk by one by one. Um-um."
    Bunnie: "What in the hoo-hah just happened?"
  • While it's unknown whether this trope was intentionally meant to be invoked, Rose Quartz from Steven Universe is an All-Loving Hero and Friend to All Living Things, but allegedly had various human lovers over the course of her years on earth, and acts very flirtatious towards the people she loves.
    • For example, this quote to Greg:
      Rose: You're really cute, and I'd love to play with you.
    • Another example is her fusion dance with Pearl.
    • However, the implications of the trope are explored. While she does care a lot about her loved ones, her relationship with Greg stood out from the rest because Greg realized they both rushed into the relationship. Both had the spark, but didn't know each other that well and Rose didn't really see Greg as his own individual person until he brought it up and revealed her own insecurities and lack of knowledge in it. However, this talk helped move forward their relationship (symbolized how she called him by first name for the first time) and both made the steps to have a relationship as equals. It's this Character Development prompted by Greg that explains why he became the one for her, which contrasts him to Pearl. Pearl did not mind much Rose's escapades because she would outlive them. However, her putting Rose on a pedestal because of her own problems and her own lack of understanding of intimacy is why she couldn't become Rose's one as opposed to Greg.
  • Liane Cartman from South Park easily qualifies: she can't remember who Cartman's dad actually was (because she banged multiple men at the Drunken Barn Dance), and porn videos starring her are sometimes mentioned during the series, especially in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut: when Kyle and Stan were doing a little research, they found a scat porn video starring Liane herself. She's also a kind and gentle person who's devoted to her nightmare of a child; indeed it's implied she does the sex work in order to support him.

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