Basic Trope: Someone uses their authority to make a subordinate yield to their sexual advances.
- Straight: Bob comes on to his subordinate Alice, heavily implying that he will fire her in case she doesn't co-operate.
- Exaggerated: Bob goes to every employee — no, really, every employee — in the company for sexual favors, bribing them with $10 bonuses.
- Downplayed:
- Bob pressures his subordinate Alice to give him a kiss.
- Bob is Alice's equal at work, but tries to pressure her into sex by threatening to be unhelpful with shared projects.
- Bob repeatedly harassed Alice for a date even when she refuses him, but doesn’t actually threaten her.
- Bob changes the company dress code so Alice will have to dress more revealingly.
- Justified: Bob believes he is entitled to anything from his employees, even their bodies.
- Inverted:
- Bob warns Alice that if she doesn't stop sexually harassing him, she will be fired, no matter how superior an employee she is.
- Alice tells Bob she’ll only follow his orders if he sleeps with her.
- Bob offers to have sex with Alice as an incentive for good work.
- Subverted:
- Bob talks to Alice about her slump in performance lately. She freaks out, thinking her honor is at line. However, Bob was being purely professional.
- Bob is not really Alice's boss, they are Happily Married and enjoy roleplay.
- Double Subverted: ...After learning Bob's true intentions, Alice thinks for a while and decides that attempting to seduce Bob in return for keeping her job is better than being unemployed.
- Parodied: The office notice board carries a large sheet reminding employees of what sexual favors will redeem which deficiencies.
- Zig Zagged: (continued from "Double Subverted") ...Bob is willing, and Alice gets to keep her job despite her bad performance.
- Averted: Bob is amoral and attracted to Alice, but doesn't use his position to exploit her.
- Enforced: Treating Alice in this way is used for Bob's Kick the Dog or Moral Event Horizon.
- Lampshaded: "Oh Claire, it's like I'm trapped in a horrible bodice ripper."
- Invoked:
- Alice knows Bob has set his eyes on her, and when she finds her performance falling behind her colleagues, she promptly quits the job, wanting to avoid a "situation".
- Bob is Alice's teacher and deliberately rates her essay a few points below the passing limit to give reason for "negotiations".
- Exploited: Alice is fed up with Bob quietly leering at her all the time, so she lets him talk to her alone after hours and tapes their conversation so she can report him to HR and have him fired.
- Defied: "You will do as I tell you, if you want to keep your job. Now..." *Chk-Chk!* "Erk! I respect you as a person and an employee. Keep up the good work." "Now you respect me. because I've got a gun on you. You're disgusting." "yes'm." "Get out."
- Discussed: "Oh Claire, it feels like I am trapped inside a category romance!"
- Conversed: "You'd think there are no trade unions in fiction-land."
- Implied:
- Alice is shown in a relationship with Bob, her boss, even though he doesn't have much to recommend him.
- When Bob asks for a favor from Alice, she offers many ways she can enrich him with her current position, some of the ways unethical or even illegal. Nonetheless Bob repeatedly declines said offers and gives no indication of what he wants other than some vague euphemisms.
- Deconstructed: Because of social standards, Alice cannot seek help out without being potentially labeled as a hussy careerist. Bob uses her without second thought.
- Reconstructed: Alice speaks out, and gets Bob nailed for sexual harassment. Bob is kicked out of the job and loses his reputation, while Alice gets respect and admiration.
- Played For Laughs:
- Alice is a fetching Dumb Blonde that Bob keeps on the job only because he gets to talk her into sex whenever she messes something up.
- Alice is a Reluctant Fanservice Girl who is forced to work naked. Her humiliation, and being caught naked by others or exposed in public, is played for laughs.
- Played For Drama: Alice's relationship with Clark, her very reputation, and effectively her whole future are completely destroyed even though she was an innocent victim of exploitation. When she is dumped from her job, the similar fate of her successor is foreshadowed.
Back to Sexual Extortion
