Rescue Sex

Jack: I have to warn you, I've heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.
Annie: OK. We'll have to base it on sex, then.
Jack: Whatever you say, ma'am.

—Speed

The Damsel in Distress has just been rescued from the Big Bad by the hero. How can she show her gratitude? Have sex with him, that's how. If she's ended up in a Go-Go Enslavement outfit, so much the better for all parties.

Kinda creepy if the rescue is from rape, especially if there's Unfortunate Implications that she's expected to. May, on the other hand, be a form of "Glad to Be Alive" Sex

Could be considered an "express" form of Rescue Romance, and a step up from Smooch of Victory.

No real life examples, please; this is All The Tropes, not Tropes After Dark.

Examples of Rescue Sex include:

Anime and Manga

• In Kaze no Stigma, Kazama actually suggests this to a girl once. Admittedly, at that point, he's shrugged off several assassination-attempts from her, convinced her family not to have her killed due to the dishonor she's brought on them, forgiven her for killing several hundred innocent people in an attempt to kill him, and finally managed to find a way to knock her out of her One-Winged Angel state without having to kill her in the process. She joins a convent with remarkable speed at that point.
  • He suggests it to her all through that story arc, actually, though it's debatable how serious he is since he thinks highly of the girl for protecting him from being bullied by their family members when they were younger. It's also possible he was doing it to annoy Ayano.

Film

• James Bond. The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me and Tomorrow Never Dies are just some of the plainest examples.
  • Natalya's reaction when Bond saves her from the exploding train in Goldeneye probably qualifies, though Bond does have to kiss her after her "it's what keeps you alone" speech.
• In Van Helsing, Friar Carl rescues a townswoman from getting seriously injured by making a diving catch as she falls. She is grateful, but seems disappointed that her damn lucky rescuer is a man of the cloth. He is happy to assure her that he's not a real friar. She smiles. NEXT SCENE!
• In Desert Heat, Eddie Lomax receives this form of gratitude from the two sexy blondes he saves. Concurrently.
• Subverted in the opening scene of Machete. The title character rescues a female kidnap victim who turns out to be jaw-dropping attractive, totally naked, and eager to reward her rescuer only to stab him with his own machete as it's all a trap by the Big Bad.
• Barbarella does this three times over the course of a single movie.

Literature

• Subverted in Freedom's Landing by Anne McCaffrey: when Kris rescues Zainal, he attempts to show his gratitude by having sex with her and is surprised when she refuses. The do end up together, though.
  • It should be noted, the entire Freedom series grew out of a short story McCaffrey written as a ... profit-seeking experiment with fantasy softcore. In that story's version of their Meet Cute, they did.
• Brave New World recounts that the "feely" thriller Three Weeks in a Helicopter "ended happily and decorously, with the Beta blonde becoming the mistress of all her three rescuers." (This is to show the audience that she's properly promiscuous.)
• A Gift From Earth is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven. Matthew Keller rescues Polly. She grabs him and they have sex. However, it is pointed out that she was just desperate for feelings after being tortured by sensory deprivation.
• In The Mists of Avalon, Gwenhwyfar has sex with Lancelet after he rescues her. It isn't the first time, but it's the first time without her husband's explicit approval.
• Name checked in "Chaotic" in Dates From Hell. Hope and Karl know the bad guys are watching them, but they're pretending everything's normal. Karl suggests they go up to the bedroom, to Hope's confusion. He asks Hope what she thinks would naturally happen if he had defeated the bad guys, rescued the fair maiden, brought her home safe and sound...Hope says, "Oh! Rescue sex! But for proper rescue sex we wouldn't even make it up to the bedroom. We'd just stop right here in the hall..." They do go on to lure the bad guys into a trap, and no rescue sex is had.
• Parodied (of course) in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which describes how the hero will nobly refuse the offer of no-holds-barred, consequence-free sex with the slave girl, release her from her captors, and then - having proven himself to be The Good Guy - will have no-holds-barred, consequence-free sex with her before leaving her to make her own way home.
• In Robert E. Howard's "The Devil in Iron," Conan the Barbarian is taken aback when Octavia doesn't take this for granted—and resorts to a kiss to seduce her.
  • In "Black Colossus", on the other hand, Yasmela throws herself at him and insists, immediately in the wake of the rescue.
• Happens in The Demon Princes series in The Face. Kirth Gersen rescues Jerdian Chanseth, the girl he has a crush on from Attempted Rape, and they spend the night together. Their relationship, however, does not go much farther than that.

Live Action TV

• Referenced in CSI: Miami (the episode mentioned in Rescue Romance), where it is stated "rescue sex is the best sex."
• In the first episode of Angel, the eponymous protagonist saves a woman who then tells him the following: "I guess this is the part where you comfort me? Not like you didn't earn it." Needless to say, he doesn't go through with it.
  • Another episode features Connor—who grew up in Hell and can thus perhaps be excused for his poor social skills—getting upset when he rescues an apparent prostitute who won't offer him free sex afterwards. But then later, when a conveniently immature Cordelia needs rescuing, she sort of implies...
    • In Conner's defense, the prostitute is the first one to imply that she will have sex with him. The problem was that she still wanted to charge him money for it, which was not a concept he was familiar with.
  • This trope is hinted at in a season 5 episode, when somebody recounts a story of a certain ensouled vampire saving damsels in alleys, and then asking if they'd like to "have a few drinks and listen to some Sex Pistols?"
  • Lampshaded and spoofed by Spike in the third episode. Spike is standing on a rooftop, watching Angel rescue Rachel and supplying his own dialogue.

Spike as Rachel: How can I thank you, you mysterious black-clad hunk of a night thing?
Spike as Angel: No need, little lady, your tears of gratitude are enough for me. You see, I was once a badass vampire, but love and a pesky curse defanged me. Now I'm just a big, fluffy puppy with bad teeth.
(Rachel tries to hug Angel, but he backs away)
Spike as Angel: No, don't touch the hair! Never the hair!
Spike as Rachel: But there must be some way I can show my appreciation?
Spike as Angel: No, helping those in need is my job, and working up a load of sexual tension and prancing away like a magnificent poof is truly thanks enough.
Spike as Rachel: I understand. I have a nephew who is gay, so...

• Also spoofed in the Buffy episode "Once More With Feeling" during Buffy's "Going Through The Motions" song.

Buffy: Will I stay this way forever. Sleep walk through my life's endeavour... (Frees a hot guy who was tied up by demons)
Sexy Open Shirt Bystander: How can I repay--
Buffy: (walks away uninterested) Whatever...

• Red Dwarf:

Ace Rimmer: (after rescuing a woman from the Nazis): Princess Bonjella? Ace Rimmer, there will be time for explanations later... and hopefully, some sex.
Bonjella: What a guy!

• Played straight in Firefly, after the heroes escaped a ship full of deadly, mutated, cannibalistic space pirates:

Zoe: Sir? I'd like you to take the helm, please. I need this man to tear all my clothes off.
Wash: Work, work, work.

Theatre

• Played Straight in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music. The lead romantic pair, Desiree and Fredrik, have a passionate love connection after twenty years apart, and Desiree posits that Fredrik "might be in need of rescue", only for Fredrik to bitterly reply that he cannot "flirt with rescue when one has no intention of being saved" during Desiree's equally bitter number, "Send in the Clowns".
• Strongly hinted at in the song "Fie on Goodness" from Camelot, when a knight recounts the time he "beheaded a man who was beating his naked wife".

Video Games

• Strongly implied in Metal Wolf Chaos after rescuing Jody. ("Oh, Mr. President. How can I ever repay you?")
• Knights of the Old Republic 1: If you play as a female, a man will offer "earthly pleasures" as a reward for rescuing him, you can't accept though.
• In the classic video game Defender of the Crown, successfully rescuing a kidnapped maiden would result in a cutscene of her disrobing, then kissing the player's character before the camera fades to black.
• Subverted in Resident Evil 4, where Ashley Graham's offer for Leon to do some "overtime" is met with stoic rejection.

Visual Novels

• In G Senjou no Maou after Kyousuke has his Big Damn Heroes moment saving Haru from Maou (who had her mere seconds away from complete suffocation) they head back to his apartment, reconcile from their fight at the start of the chapter, clean up, and get busy.

Western Animation

• Robot Chicken had a Zelda subverted parody of this. Link killed Ganondorf and starts talking to a rescued Zelda about all the dangers he faced, hinting that he wanted sex. Zelda tells him that she's been rescued a few times in the past, and the first guy, she fucked his brains out. She actually gets further turned off when Link reveals that it took him 50 hours to get to the end of the game, and gives him 8 rupees for his trouble.
  • After Zelda hops out the window, Link offers to save another princess.

Web Original

• Mocked in Ménage à 3.
• A YouTube video lampshaded the implications of this trope when Mario asked Peach for a bit more than a kiss.

Real Life

• Numerous studies have shown that when a person has just gone through a frightening or life-threatening situation they often have an overwhelming desire to engage in sexual intercourse. Interestingly, scary movies can accomplish something similar on a smaller scale.