Date Rape Averted

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    "Hey, you! Get your damn hands off... her..."
    —George McFly, Back to The Future
    The lady you have drugged is the daughter of one of my scientists. Allow me to introduce you to her security detail.
    —Gendo Ikari, NGE: Nobody Dies

    A teenage girl is on a date with a guy (or maybe even her boyfriend). They are sitting in his car, often at a Make-Out Point, and he's trying to put the moves on her or get into her pants, but she doesn't want it. ("No! No, stop that, I mean it!!!")

    Sometimes he stops in time, but sometimes she slaps him and/or leaves the car or wants to be brought home immediately. This can also be a situation in which her father or some other guy comes into play and rescues her (by pulling the boy out of the car and/or beating the living crap out of him). If it's not her father but "some other guy", then she will probably fall in love with him if there isn't already a hefty dose of UST between them.

    If it is her father, he sometimes is an Overprotective Dad and the girl is mad at him for being exactly that, telling him that she could have handled the situation.

    Sometimes it's not her father or some other guy who saves her, but a killer or other Monster of the Week. He kills the boy, then, if she doesn't see it and goes to thank him, kills her too.

    Rarely, the savior is none of the above and is instead the would-be victim's best friend, Alice, swooping in to save the day with the power of friendship.

    See also Near-Rape Experience, Attempted Rape.

    No real life examples, please; this is a rape trope, and All The Tropes does not care to squick its readers.

    Examples of Date Rape Averted include:

    Anime & Manga


    Comic Books

    • In Preacher (Comic Book), Tulip and her friend Amy attend a party at a frat house. Amy is drugged by several frat boys, who begin to assault her, but she's saved in the nick of time when Tulip drives a truck through the wall and fires several warning shots with her shotgun at the would-be rapists.


    Fanfic

    • NGE: Nobody Dies. When Asuka's blind date drugs her, Shinji, Hikari, and Gendo stop by their table as the date tries to run off with her–then it's revealed that every other patron at the restaurant is a Section 2 agent. Then they hand the date off to Rei.


    Film

    • Back to The Future has a Double Subversion. Marty tries to stage this so that his father from the past, George McFly, can "rescue" Lorraine, Marty's mother from the past, but the plan is subverted when Lorraine reciprocates Marty's advances is doing the advances. But when Biff takes over and tries to molest her for real, that's when George delivers the above quote, which was originally meant as part of the play, and then punches Biff out in a Crowning Moment of Awesome when he doesn't listen.
    • Happens in Live Free or Die Hard, with John McClane as the Overprotective Dad and Lucy McClane complaining about him observing her and barging into her business.
      • Though honestly, it didn't look even close to date rape considering he wasn't even being that pushy and it make McClane come off a bit stalker-ish.
        • Not to mention the fact that Lucy's actions later in the movie cast doubt on whether or not the boy would be able to date rape her without getting his ass handed to him by his would-be victim.
    • In the movie Eight Legged Freaks the girl in question zaps the guy with a stun gun that her mother gave to her in case this happened - doubling as a Groin Attack. Suprisingly, while the movie certainly depicts the guy as wrong and the girl as right, it views his actions as more being due to a moment of teenage hormone-driven boneheadedness rather than those of an evil rapist. The guy and the girl eventually reunite without any problems at the end.
    • American Graffiti had an interesting variation. A 14-year-old girl somehow became a tag-along passenger to an 18-year-old graduate. She annoyed the hell out of him, but he didn't want to kick her out on the street at midnight, and she refused to tell him where she lived so he could take her home. To finally get her to tell him her address, he told her that he had "fallen in love" with her and started to move closer to her. She was so freaked out she gave him directions.
    • In the remake of The Blob the girl in question doesn't have a choice, because the boy got her drunk first. But there's beautiful poetic justice because when the slimy boy goes to get his hands in her bra, he finds only the Blob, which had gotten into and consumed most of her insides already, leaving it gelatinously filling her empty flesh sack. Eww.
    • This one turned really ugly in Disturbing Behavior.
    • Happens in Face Off. Castor Troy (While disguised as Sean Archer) watches his rival's daughter getting molested by her date in his car. Castor then kicks the boy through the closed window and drags him out, punching him a couple more times before running him off. Afterwards, he presents a knife to Jamie, demonstrating how to open it, telling her to ram it into the thigh of the next guy who tries something like that, and to twist. You can guess who gets the knife in the thigh at the end: Castor himself.
    • Happens in City of the Living Dead. The teens are surprised by a psychokinetic zombie priest who gets the girl to bleed from the eyes and vomit her entrails and rips a large amount of the boy´s brain out from the back of his skull.
    • In Beethoven's 2nd, Ryce appears to be in for something she doesn't want at the hands of her boyfriend, who's been knocking back a few underage drinks, until the Great Big Dog turns up opportunely.
    • Uncle Buck. The Drill. Mistaken identity aside; the other girl didn't seem all that willing anyway.
    • In The Craft, Chris, who was under the influence of a love spell that Sarah had cast on him to make him want her, tries to date rape her. She manages to escape.


    Literature

    • In The Time Traveler's Wife, the teenage Clare tells adult Henry about her "date" with a football player. This does not end well for said football player.
    • Happens a lot in Sweet Valley High.
    • Happens (like every other possible bad thing that could happen to a college girl) to the title character in I Am Charlotte Simmons.


    Live-Action TV

    • Happened on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (didn't everything?). Of course, her "resistance" broke the guy's nose...
      • In another episode she gets drugged at a party by a group of cultists. One of the cultists seems to be planning this, but another stops him, since she and the other girls have another purpose.
      • There was also a version of this with Dawn, where her date revealed that he was a vampire, and that she was in the midst of a bunch of vamps. Cue the Big Damn Heroes moment for the Scoobies.
      • Leaving aside the soulless vampire bit, The Woobie factor gets ratcheted up when you realize Dawn was forced to kill the guy who gave her her first kiss with a pencil. Though she plays it off at the time, it certain puts her neurosis later in the season into perspective.
      • And Angel hits a home run - with Faith's head as she was in the process of trying to rape and murder Xander.
    • Partly subverted, or maybe played with, in The Facts of Life, when Tootie is about to have her first "encounter" with her boyfriend in a car. She thinks this is what she wants; it's definitely what he wants; but at the last second she begs off, locks him out of the car, and fulfills the trope.
      • Played straight with Jo and Harrison Andrews, a rich friend of Blair's. He invites scholarship student Jo to a country club cotillion over rich socialite Blair. Jo comes home from the dance with her hair and dress disheveled and one shoe (having used the other to beat Harrison off). She describes how Harrison took her through the club and out the back door. Harrison later tells Blair he passed her over for Jo because Jo was the type of girl he could "score" with.
    • Heroes - it wasn't in a car, but the date rape boy put the moves on Claire, who was interested until he started trying to force her. It was also subverted as he apparently killed Claire by knocking her down so a branch impaled her head, but she woke up on an autopsy table when the medical examiner pulled it out. He was boggled to see her after the fact given how violent things had gotten. And Claire then proceeded to disabuse him of the notion of trying it again. Of course, then her father gets to him...
    • This one was done twice in Supernatural; both in cars, both as disturbing as each other, both girls being saved by the Big Damn Heroes and both attempted rapists suffering well-deserved deaths.
    • A Different World uses the rescued variation when Dwayne saves Freddie from a Jerk Jock serial rapist.
    • Happened in the very first episode of Mork and Mindy. The titular characters meet for the first time because Mindy has driven out into the woods with her date who then drove off, taking her car when she refused to, ahem, play. Mork's spaceship lands nearby and he agrees to walk her home. The incident in the car gives us this line:

    Mindy: Don't EVER touch me like that again! Not even if my blouse is on fire!

    • Mildly subverted in Sex and the City when Charlotte is rescued (though not from attempted rape) by the 'hero' punching the attacker. Turned out he just liked punching people. When he started a fight over somebody bumping into Charlotte's chair (even after they apologised) she left.
    • Excruciatingly averted in a recent episode of Mad Men; plenty of people who could have been in a position to come to Joan's rescue, and not one of them does. In this case it counts as Values Dissonance, since in the early 1960s there was no popular consciousness of date rape. And the fact that Joan is engaged to the man in question would probably have led to it not even having been considered an incident. No one would have done a god damned thing except said "Whoops!" and closed the door.
    • In at least four episodes of Step by Step, twice with Al (the one-time tomboy that was quickly becoming the hottest teen in Port Washington, thanks to Christine Lakin entering puberty):
      • In a 1995 episode, 15-year-old Al convinces Dana and Karen to take her to a college party, where she meets an attractive boy. After lying to him that she was of age, the boy takes Al back to his room to talk and make out. He tries to take things further and presses on despite her repeated pleas to stop. Dana and Karen show up in time to run off the boy, after which they reveal that Al was 15. (The boy then runs off.) Although they don't press charges, the sisters do get a measure of revenge by throwing his stuff out the window and announcing she was 15.
      • Poor Al becomes date rape fodder again two years later, when another cute guy tries to get it on with her in his '57 Chevrolet. (He had a trick seat in his car, which allowed it to recline; he then laid on top of her in an attempt to initiate sex, but the petite Al is able to fight him off.) Things become complicated later when Karen—who had also had her eye on Al's now-former boyfriend—refuses to believe Al, refusing to defend her even as rumors run rampant in school that Al was "easy" ... until Al breaks down in tears.
      • In 1993, Dana was once a near-victim of date rape when her boyfriend came over (unannounced) to talk to her and hopefully make out. Her stepfather Frank (with whom she had a major argument about for his buffoonish attempt to check out the boy after Cody warns that the boy is trouble) arrives in time to run the boy off.
      • At another college party (this one hosted by a fraternity Cody was hoping to join), Karen had to deal with unwanted advances by a guy she began talking with. Cody, along with Dana and Al's friends, run the guy off.
    • NCIS. "Hung Out To Dry" begins with a teenager forcing his attentions on his date in what appears to be the Crime of the Week, when events are brought to a sudden halt by a parachutist crashing through the roof of their car.
    • It happens on an episode of Dead Like Me where Mason saves a college student and the trope is lampshaded.
    • Kelly Taylor in Beverly Hills, 90210 'dressed too provocatively' one Halloween. A creepy cowboy attempts to rape her, but Donna and Brenda come to the rescue.
    • Mr. Belvedere: A 1990 episode saw the teen-aged girl of the Owens' family (Heather) date a cute guy, who was hoping to get a sports intern job at the local TV station where Mr. Owens (Bob Uecker) worked. While at a Make-Out Point, the boy takes things a little too far—the scene fades to black as he pushes her down and she screams, "NO!". Not until she confesses to Mr. Belvedere does the audience learn she was able to fight him off, though she's still shaken by the incident. Eventually, she tells her father, who promptly warns the boy to stay the hell away from his family.
    • Quantum Leap: Played straight, as Sam (the series' hero) leaps into the body of a woman who was raped by the local high school football hero on their date. (In a rare twist, the female victim is brought into the Imaging Chamber to testify.) The boy is acquitted ... but Sam (still playing the role of the boy's victim gets a very satisfying revenge; the boy comes over to try to rape the girl again, only this time, Sam bashes apart the kid's groin.
    • City Guys: In the episode "Raise the Roofies," Cassidy's date makes two attempts to slip her some rohypnol (the notorious "date rape drug"). When both attempts fail (Dawn inadvertently drank the first one and Cassidy simply declined the second), he tries to rape her by sheer physical force. She is rescued by Chris.


    Music

    • "Womanhood," a country music song written by Bobby Braddock and made popular in 1978 by Tammy Wynette. The song is about a young woman named Patricia's sexual initiation, and it is strongly implied that her boyfriend—who insists to her that he "only tried to kiss 'ya"—had attempted to have sex with her against her will. A shaken Patricia tries to pray to God to help her through her ordeal.
    • In Nickleback's video for "I'd Come For You", this situation is played straight to the hilt. When the girl can't handle the boy by herself, she texts her father, and he comes to save her in an awesome Papa Wolf moment.

    Theater


    Video Games

    • Ashley of Mass Effect will describe how this happened to her sister if you pursue all the dialogue options. Sara, the sister, had been dating a boy for a while and requested that they "go slow." Unfortunately, after she continually rebuffed his more adventurous advances he became forceful and decided that it had finally been long enough. What he did not know, however, was that Sara and Ashley's father was himself a Marine and had taught all his daughters to defend themselves. So the guy got his ass kicked. He tried again a while later (with Ashley, the combat-trained Marine, there no less), only to end up face-down and bleeding again and began to sob his apologies as he was being loaded into an ambulance.
      • Played with in Mass Effect 2, Samara, an Asari vigilante known as a Justicar, asks Shepard to act as bait to draw out her daughter. The daughter, Morinth, uses mind control to force victims to have sex with her, whereupon they die. Characters without strong Paragon or Renegade scores will fall under her spell and be saved by Samara.


    Webcomics


    Western Animation

    • A completely played straight example in The Simpsons, which shows how Marge and Homer met and why Marge dislikes Artie Ziff for his "busy hands."


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