Basic Trope: A character's mental problems are healed via sex.
- Straight: Bob cures Alice's depression through sex.
- Exaggerated: Alice has just gone through a Deus Angst Machina making her have every mental problem in existence, Bob fixes it all with sex.
- Downplayed: Alice's relationship with Bob, including sex, helps her start feeling better about herself, but it's not instant.
- Justified:
- The sex releases endorphins and other hormones which are helpful in the treatment of certain mental ailments. In addition, the affected person's partner might be using the "bed talk" period to help the other to cope with their issues via a hearty and insightful talk.
- The depression came from Alice believing that people find her unattractive, the fact that someone (Bob in this case) is willing to have sex with her disproved it. WARNING
- Inverted:
- Alice is a sex addict.
- Alice starts to go insane after having sex.
- Subverted:
- Alice quickly reverts back to normal.
- Alice's mental problems become worse.
- Double Subverted: But the bed talk that comes afterward does the job.
- Parodied: Alice goes to a therapist for her depression. He starts asking question about her depression which quickly turn into questions about her sex life.
- Zig Zagged: For some mental problems, sex is the be all end all cure for Alice. For others, it doesn't work in the slightest.
- Averted:
- Alice doesn't have mental problems.
- Alice's mental problems are not treated through sex.
- Enforced: The author thinks that sex with the insane is a fetish.
- Lampshaded: Tell me you have a better plan for getting me cured than filling me with your junk?
- Invoked: Charlie suggests to either Bob or Alice that they do this and they take the advice.
- Exploited: Bob wants to get laid himself and he pretends to offer this solution as a way to help her when in actuality all he cares about is her sexual appeal.
- Defied: Alice flat out rejects Bob when he attempts this as a solution, calling him manipulative and dishonest by trying to coax her unstable mind into sex.
- Discussed: "This isn't some romance novel, Bob, where you can just have sex and call it "Happily Ever After." My issues will still be here in the morning!"
- Conversed: "What did Alice expect was going to happen? Did she think she was going to be fixed by having a penis inserted into her?"
- Implied: Charlie observes that Alice is acting very chipper and enthusiastic and Bob mentions how some "intimate passion" seemed to worked.
- Deconstructed: Alice can't form healthy normal relationships. Who in their right mind would think that she could form healthy sexual ones?
- Reconstructed: Alice realizes that this will only cause more pain and suffering. However, Alice finds that a non-sexual relationship manages to give her somebody who is interested in more than just her body. And her confidence and psyche starts to go up.
Go back to Intimate Psychotherapy.
