Sexual Extortion/Playing With
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.
- Justified: Alice works for a high-end brothel, and Bob's job is to make sure her performance is up to the house standard[1].
- 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.
- Subverted: Bob talks to Alice about her slump in performance lately. She freaks out, thinking her honour is at line. However, Bob was being purely professional.
- 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.
- Zig Zagged: ...Bob is willing, and Alice gets to keep her job despite her bad performance.
- Parodied: The office notice board carries a large sheet reminding employees of what sexual favours will redeem which deficiencies.
- Deconstructed: because of social standards, Alice cannot seek help out without being potentially labelled as a hussy careerist. Bob uses her without second thought.
- Reconstructed: Alice speaks out, and gets Bob nailed for sexual harrasment. Bob is kicked out of the job and loses his reputation, while Alice gets respect and admiration.
- 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".
- Defied: "I don't want Bob to seem like a rapist, so be careful when writing those scenes where he threatens to fire Alice."
- 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."
- 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.
- 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.
- ↑ note that "justified" in this example definitely does not mean "morally justified" -- it's still rape if she's a sex worker.