Sex Slave

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"She's 'furniture'"

Simply put, this is a character who has been Made A Slave for the sexual desires of others. This happens especially often in Dystopia, The Empire, and the darker versions of Fetish Fuel Future, either to show how much the world sucks, or, well, just because. In the former kind, the Sex Slave is rarely a protagonist. At best, she's a Damsel In Distress for the hero to rescue. At worst she only exists as a narrative tool to show the audience that this is indeed a No Womans Land. In the Romanticized Abuse kind, however, she (or he) is usually the protagonist. In that case, expect Property Of Love and Freedom From Choice to come along with Happiness In Slavery.

The contrast between some of the more risque aspects of this trope and the Crapsack World environment it usually occurs in can often create Unfortunate Implications. In some works, the slavery can develop into a mutual relationship. Expect Bathe Her And Bring Her To Me, Go Go Enslavement, or a Slave Collar.

Unfortunately, this is Truth In Television, although generally quite different from the fetishised fantasy. Forced prostitution in general amounts to this. Human trafficking in particular is one of the biggest ways that people are enslaved like this.


Contents

Examples

Anime & Manga

  • Yuria 100 Shiki: If Dutch Wife Yuria has sex with someone, and she automatically becomes programmed to become said person's sex slave.
  • Blue Drop: Tenchi no Bokura had school girls as sex slaves. To the teachers. The school claimed to be teaching them the usual things, but the real purpose was to teach the all-female students to be sex slaves to their lesbian alien conquerors and be utterly alien to the concept of sex with men.
  • Hana Katsuragi from Seikon No Qwaser, though is should be pointed out the one she's a slave to gave her a potential out early, she walked into the deal knowing what would result, and now she couldn't be happier. In fact, she even gets to invert the trope and have her own slave in the second season.
  • In Berserk, this happened to both Guts and Casca in their childhoods. Guts was sold by his adoptive father Gambino to the mercenary Donovan for one night for three silver coins, leading to his traumatic rape. Casca was sold by her parents to a noble who wanted a new serving girl, only for it to turn out that this was what he wanted her for. She was saved by Griffith before the bastard could rape her, but Griffith made her finish him off herself. Unfortunately, the very same Griffith would later rape her himself after getting hooked on The Dark Side.
  • In Shitsurakuen, this is mostly Fridge Logic, since we don't see what the boys do to their girls in the off-hours (but they're Complete Monsters, so we have a fair guess). Ironically, the one unambiguous case is the heroine's encounter with Reiko, as part of a Batman Gambit to save her.
  • One of the many uses of the Dear S. Takeya isn't happy when Ren offers to fulfill her function for him.
  • Askeladd's mother in Vinland Saga.
  • Fushigi Yuugi:
    • In the manga version, the group enters a Lady Land, and the guys must dress like women to get through safely.
    • One of the omakes in the OVA takes it to a more comedic level. A drag-queen Mitsukake apparently looks disgusting enough to have his face censored and make the rest of the cast Blue With Shock, and is still singled out to become the Sex Slave. Then Tamahome and Tasuki drop their disguises and willingly and gleefuly volunteer to become slaves themselves, much to Miaka's chargin.
    • Also, Soi was sold to a brothel by her impoverished family when she was a little girl. At the age of 12, she is about to be punished by her pimp for refusing to have sex with a client, but is rescued by Nakago. (She is also "used" by him for her sexual healing powers, but does so willingly out of love, even knowing that the love is more or less one-sided.)
    • The emperor of Kutou kept Nakago as a sex slave in the past. This is Nakago's Start Of Darkness.
    • This is implied to be what the slave traders truly want to do to Miaka and Yui in the beginning. Miaka tries to fight back, but is overpowered, and then Tamahome steps in.
  • Black Butler II: Episode 8 reveals that old man Trancy captured many young boys to choose sex slaves from, raped most of them, and Alois ended up being his favorite sex slave right up until either he died of old age, or Alois killed him. Also, the flashbacks in the manga to when Ciel is kept as a self-described 'pet' to the cult members has several panels that suggest this probably happened to him.
  • Legato Bluesummers from the Trigun manga was revealed to have been one in his past... until Knives happened upon the town Legato was in and massacred everyone. Legato managed to use his strings to stop Knives from killing him at the same time, and then said he was going to let him go, so he could kill him if he wanted, but please don't. Knives decided he was interesting, and asked his name, and the rest is history. This notably explains Legato's insane loyalty in the face of Knives' indifference and cruelty in really depressing terms: Knives isn't good to him, but he's better than anyone else ever was.
  • Underclassmen at Garderobe Academy in Template:Mai- Otome are given to the Onee-samas as "room attendants." One student states, when explaining the system, that the kohai could be made to do This And That for the Onee Sama, complete with Imagine Spot.
  • Being reduced to this drove Mai Kamio insane to the point of a Face Heel Turn in Video Girl Ai.
  • What Chaka wanted to do to Yukio in Black Lagoon, after stripping her of power within the Washimine clan. Ginji, Rock, and Revy stop him, though. And Ginji gives him a Cruel And Unusual Karmic Death.
  • Violence Jack OVA has something like in one episode.
  • In the Peacemaker Kurogane manga, the old merchant Yamatoya makes Suzu his sex slave after Suzu's master was killed and he was left all alone starving in the streets. Suzu wasn't the only one, however — two twin kitty boys were also picked up by him for this purpose.
  • In Sensitive Pornograph, Aki-chan is this to his Bastard Boyfriend. After being dumped, battered, and thrown out for having sex with the Unlucky Everydude who came in expecting a pet rabbit to look after, Aki-chan ends up in a new relationship with said Unlucky Everydude.
  • Almost happens to Kurumi Akino in Haou Airen. When she has a Heroic BSOD and tries to run away from Hakuron in the middle of Hong Kong, she's captured by some Triad members who intend to sell her as one; then, they strip and almost rape her. Hakuron finds them and shoots them to death, then takes Kurumi to safety.
  • Tsubaki from Mirai Nikki.
  • Much of the plot of Ai No Kusabi revolves around how Riki was forcibly Made A Sex Slave as a "Pet" and the effect it has on him, his master, and his ex-lover.
  • Master Of Martial Hearts: The fate of those who lose the tournament is to be Mind Raped into mindlessness and then sold into sexual slavery. This drives the Cycle Of Revenge in the series in general.
  • This is what actually happened to Shiro Masuda aka Amakusa in Amakusa 1637. More exactly, Shiro is captured and given as a slave to Naozumi, an already emotionally unstable Time Traveler, who made him his forced lover due to Shirou being identical to Natsuki, Naozumi's Unrequited Love. According to Naozumi's own testimony, Shirou first attempted to understand his "lord"'s broken psyche via speaking to him politely and gently, then tried to use this to try helping his fellow Christians... but when Naozumi realized that he was starting to fall for Shirou, he strangled the poor kid to death, and then threw his lifeless body into the sea.
  • In Legend Of The Blue Wolves Captain Continental has many sex slaves and tries to make Jonathan into one as well. Jonathan refuses so Captain Continental rapes him.
  • Ayase in the Boys Love Genre Okane Ga Nai.
  • Sex slaves are the primary source of income for the Ulfan organization in the Hentai Bondage Queen Kate.


Comics

  • "The Slavers", a Punisher arc, has Frank Castle taking on a slave-trafficking ring. The horrible things that the slavers do to the people they've enslaved hits every one of Castle's Berserk Buttons concerning mistreatment of women and children in general, resulting in one of his most brutal killing sprees.
  • The Incredible Hulk features a surprising amount of this. In one story, the Maestro, an insane, evil version of the Hulk, rules the world and keeps a harem of slave girls for this purpose.
    • In another story featuring the Defenders, Dormammu's sister Umar actually made the Hulk into her sex slave. She wears him out to such an extent that he turns back into Bruce Banner and can't Hulk out for a while. This was played for laughs.
  • Ninjette of Empowered was intended as one for her clan. Training her to be a Bad Ass ninja first was probably a bad idea. Emp herself is nearly subject to this in the "Cosmolactic Emperor's" harem.


Fanfic


Movies

  • Blue Velvet: Dorothy Vallens is forced into this role after her child and husband are kidnapped by a local crime-boss Frank. Eventually, she develops a sort of Stockholm Syndrome and seems to take a twisted pleasure in Frank's rape at one point.
  • In Don Juan Demarco, the titular mental patient relates a yarn about spending a year in the 'service' of a lusty Sultana. Not that he seems to've minded much. It probably helped that she kept him hidden in the Sultan's harem (apparently she didn't mind sharing.)
  • Similar to the Orion girls from Star Trek are the Twi'lek girls from Star Wars. According to the Expanded Universe they actually encourage sexual slavery: since they have no spacecraft of their own, becoming sexslaves is their primary method of going offworld, with the plan of freeing themselves to get a real job at some point. However, they don't seem to be doing a very good job as it's been this way for thousands of years.
    • Averted in the prequel trilogy and The Clone Wars with Aayla Secura, a female Twi'lek Jedi.
  • The Street Fighter: Because the guy who hired him didn't have enough money to pay him for the job he did for him, Terry sent the guy out the window and then sold the guy's sister into sexual slavery. It's quite the dick move on Terry's part, cementing him as a very dark antihero, and when the sister gets out of this, she is very much pissed at Terry and goes after him for revenge.
  • In Manos The Hands Of Fate, this is the sickening fate of the hero's wife and his child.
  • Some of the replicants in Blade Runner.
  • The "Furniture Girls" in Soylent Green. The one owned by the murder victim even becomes the love interest of Ty Thorn.
  • In Taken, the Papa Wolf main character must pretty much race against the clock to make sure his kidnapped daughter won't be sold into sex slavery. He's too late to save the daughter's best friend, but does manage to save his child.
  • Three or four unfortunate young blondes are locked in an attic as forced prostitutes in The Sinful Dwarf.
  • Deadgirl: The titular zombie girl is used as a sex slave after a pair of teens discover her chained in the basement of an abandoned mental hospital. The discovery that she is undead only provokes her captors into even further depravity.
  • This is the whole premise of the film Human Trafficking - the trafficking happens only to get sex slaves.
  • The heroines of Sucker Punch, in two of the film's realities.


Literature

  • In Anne Bishop's Black Jewels trilogy, two of the three main male good guys were pleasure slaves in Courts in Tereille. Aside from Daemon and Lucivar, there's also Jared (pre-Invisible Ring) and a small army of others.
    • Jaenelle and the Briarwood girls also count, being kept in a secure facility, drugged, and used for sex on a regular basis.
  • The Imperium in Dune allows the possession of sex slaves. The Emperor is allowed to have slave-concubines, Baron Harkonnen uses a slave boy as one, and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen spends a lot of his time with the women in the Baron's slave quarters.
  • The Handmaid's Tale has a main character who is the sex slave (more specifically, a breeding slave) of a military commander.
  • Is a main plot point of the John Ringo Paladin Of Shadows series, an extremely guilty pleasure for both the reader and the writer.
  • Romanticized in John Norman's Gor series.
  • A lot of Werewolf fiction like Mercy Thompson and Kitty Norville has a type of sexual slavery. The alpha can have sex with any female he wants, or decide the lowest female in the pack can be given to other males as reward and the female has to take it.
  • Played with in the Warchild Series. The pirates take prisoners and sometimes recruit children as geishas, which are only loosely based on the old customs. Mostly, they are sex slaves and sometimes assassins. In the first book, the main character was a prisoner whom the Big Bad intended to turn into one of these. He escapes without much of the training (but a lot of the abuse). It's not until the third book that one of these slaves becomes a main character. This is not played for Fetish Fuel, but rather deconstructed to show the psychological ramifications related to such an existence. Very dark portrayal, really.
  • Robert E Howard's Conan has rescued his share of slave girls in his day, such as Olivia from Shah Amurath in "Iron Shadows in the Moon."
    • And in "The People of the Black Citadel" Yasmina is forced to remember past lives of this:
      She reeled naked and bleeding over burning sands, dragged at the slaver's stirrup, and she knew the grip of hot, fierce hands on her writhing flesh, the shame and agony of brutal lust.
    • In "The Slithering Shadows", Thalis tells Conan to kill Natala because unlike her, she is too soft to survive the sexual demands of the men in the city.
    • In "A Witch Shall Be Born", one of the luxuries Salome is after is "handsome men and soft women for my paramours and my slaves."
  • Davy in The Female Man
  • A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows: A major character is sold into prostitution by her political enemies.
  • The White Court's human thralls in The Dresden Files. It should be noted that most of them are essentially brainwashed.
  • Several female characters, most notably Susan Stern and Dayna Jurgens, share this origin story in The Stand.
  • In The Fifth Sacred Thing, by Starhawk, post-eco-apocalypse Southern California is ruled by a high-tech religious dictatorship with gene-engineered slave castes, one of which is bred exclusively for sexual entertainment. In one scene, the protagonist Madrone, a witch-healer from the neopagan utopia around San Francisco, is forced by circumstances to share a cot with a five-year-old girl of that caste. The child tries to touch Madrone sexually and, when gently rebuffed, has a temper tantrum -- because she has been frustrated in the only only way she knows of to get approval from adults. Madrone, when she is told about the girl's background, and that these sex-slaves' owners can do anything at all to them, remarks, "I was raised not to believe in evil. But I can't think of any other name for this."
  • The Draka revel in this trope, with "bedwenches" and "prettybucks" (male serfs "for men so inclined"). At the same time, sex between female Draka and male serfs is forbidden, as are homosexual relations between male Draka. Instead female Draka get it on with other female Draka or female serfs.
    • Depends on the era. After the Draka developed perfect contraception and switched to using serf women to carry Draka fetuses female Draka were allowed to have male sex slaves. And the genetically engineered 'new race' is altered to be universally bisexual, apparently.
  • Piers Anthony invokes this in Bioofa Space Tyrant, where the hero's older sister Faith gives herself up to pirates as a sex slave in order to save her fellow refugees from being destroyed. Even more dispiriting than it sounds, since the family had fled the planet to protect Faith from being raped in the first place.
  • Manpower Incorporated's c-line genetic slaves in the Honor Harrington books, which was the origin of a handful of secondary characters including Virginia Usher and Elaine Kormandorski (otherwise known as Lady Georgia Young, Countess North Hollow) .
  • Horus Heresy shows us that this wasn't unheard of even in the "Golden Age Of Humanity", with a woman noble has a male guardian and sex slave with his tongue cut out, to be an Asshole Villain all the way. Horus himself has his eye on him after gaining his respect for his Badass Normal fighting skill and courage, and assassinates the slave's mistress that is, Horus does it with his own hands as a sort of reward but also because She Knew Too Much. Later Warhammer 40000 novels strongly imply that in the 41st century, sexual slavery is condoned and living flesh trafficking is a legal thing (though mostly for slave labour).
  • In Nora Keller's Comfort Woman, Akiko was forced to serve as a military "comfort woman," a sex slave provided to troops during the Japanese occupation of Korea in World War II. Her daughter Beccah does not know of this history, and as she learns of it, she comes to understand her mother's apparently strange ways.
  • In The Count Of Monte Cristo, this is the Count's cover story for Haydee's presence. It also helps him to justify why a man of his standing isn't courting women.
  • This turns out to be common in The Hunger Games as the fate of physically attractive winners of the Hunger Games. The money made from renting them out goes straight to President Snow, but they typically cooperate anyways so as to avoid "accidents" happening to their families. Finnick manages to use this to collect information from the powerful people who purchase him, and after joining the rebels he reveals all the Capitol's dirty laundry in a television broadcast.
  • A.N. Roquelaure's Beauty series features more of a sexual indentured servitude. Before they're permitted to take rulership, young nobility and royalty are sent into training as sexual slaves. It's also a means a social mobility, as commoners and lesser nobles may also submit themselves for the same treatment. Slaves may also beg to remain so for life.
  • Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl features Emiko, a Japanese Windup abandoned by her master in a Dystopian Bangkok. Windups, or "New People," are genetically altered to have an irrepressible instinct to please and have been trained from birth that they are in a position of servitude. While revered in Japan as works of art and strong workers, they are hated in Bangkok and, in order to avoid being picked up by police and incinerated, Emiko is forced to work in a sex club, where she is routinely humiliated and abused.
    • Of note is that Emiko's body has been genetically engineered to feel orgasm automatically under sexual stimulation. When she is raped, she actually comes - hating every moment of it and despising herself for it.
  • In J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series, we learn that Zsadist, kidnapped by his nanny as an infant, was sold into slavery and eventually used as a blood slave by a sadistic mistress. Zsadist is eventually rescued by his twin brother, Phury, and kills his mistress but suffers intense psychological damage. He is considered souless by his fellow Brothers, and dangerous. His book in the series involves him falling in love with a woman and having to overcome (well, not completely) his past.
  • In A Song Of Ice And Fire, the city Yunkai in the Slaver's Bay region is famed for its pleasure slaves trained in the ways of the "seven sighs" and the "sixteen seats of pleasure."
  • Vlad Tepes' younger brother Radu is this to the Ottoman army in Count And Countess.
  • The Red Temple in Fred Saberhagen's Books Of Swords series is known to use sex slaves among its prostitutes, and the Silver Queen sells her own daughter into slavery to the Red Temple for this purpose. Arian is rescued by Baron Doon and his party before she actually gets to the Red Temple or is raped, but....


Music Video

  • The video for Bad Romance depicts Lady Gaga as one of these. At the end of the video, she burns to death the man who buys her.
  • The video for "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by Swanky Tunes & Hard Rock Sofa portrays kidnapped Russian girls being sold at an "Elite Men's Club."


Real Life

Template:For tales

  • During slavery in America, "Fancy Girls" were attractive slave woman (who were usually light-skinned black or mixed race) who were sold as sex slaves and house servants.


TV

  • The plot of Season 2 of The Wire kicks off when a shipping container full of dead Eastern European sex slaves are found on the Baltimore docks.
  • Orion slave girls from Star Trek.
    • These are an interesting example because they were Ret Conned in Star Trek Enterprise into secretly being the rulers of their race. They used the pretense of being sex-slaves to infiltrate enemy organizations, and then used powerful pheromones to control any males they wished, as they did with the males of their own species. The whole set-up came across as a bit of an awkward plot device, though, and some argue that this situation carries more Unfortunate Implications than just playing the trope straight.
    • Another interesting Trek example: In one episode of the Original Series, Kirk is the well-treated prisoner of the ruler of an Ancient Rome Planet. A female slave is sent to his quarters by his captor. The slave makes it clear (quite suggestively) that she was ordered to please Kirk. It's left unclear whether Kirk actually has sex with her, but it is clearly at least a possibility.
    • Star Trek Voyager. The holodeck program The Adventures of Captain Proton! (a Flash Gordon expy) has slave girls that the players can rescue. Presumably they are quite grateful to their saviours.
    • In Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Bajoran women were kept as "comfort women" during the Cardassian occupation.
  • Warren's ex-girlfriend Katrina in Buffy The Vampire Slayer almost became this when the Trio (a trio of villainous college-aged nerds turned madscientists) tested their mind control ray on her. She fought off the mind control before anything could happen, and Warren killed her in the ensuing struggle.
  • Zev (or Xev) of Template:Lexx was going to be made one of these, but she broke free before the mental reconditioning was implemented. This conditioning was inflicted instead on 790, the robot drone overseeing the operation. Since the conditioning resulted in the victim falling hopelessly in love with the first person he saw next, 790 became obsessed with Zev, devoting himself to her completely.
  • In Dante's Cove, Ambrosius holds Toby hostage to force Kevin to become his sex slave. Later, Griff uses his influence with the Tresum Council to try to get Grace to submit to him similarly, but she outwits him.
  • Every Active in Dollhouse is used for this frequently.
  • In Battlestar Galactica Reimagined, one of the many signs that the Pegasus crew have crossed the Moral Event Horizon is their use of a captured Number Six Cylon as a sex slave.
  • The final series of the Murphy's Law revolves around the search for a missing police officer who has been caught up in a sex slave ring. Does a very good job at describing just how brutal and terrifying the real thing can actually be.
  • The Commish also has an episode where a 15 year old girl (who used to be the babysitter of the Commisioner's son) is forced into doing porno films. And pleasing the boss.
  • Lost Girl plays with this: the closest anyone comes to using the word "slave" to describe Lauren is when she refers to herself as the Ash's property, even though she clearly is a slave, even to the point of wearing a Slave Collar. She nevertheless enjoys a great deal of prestige within the fae community, and is primarily valuable as a slave for her medical expertise. All the same, when it suits his purpose, the Ash orders her to seduce and sleep with Bo, even though it ends up wrecking her relationship with Bo when she finds out that that was why Lauren slept with her.
  • Though we don't see it directly in Firefly, it is implied that the sexual slave trade is around. When Mal discovers River in Simon's cryo box, the first thing he assumes is that Simon is smuggling her to be sold to a Border-world baron.


Tabletop RPG

  • Earthdawn. The Theran Empire designated some of its slaves as "Pleasure Slaves".
  • Warhammer 40000:
    • Dark Eldar and followers of Slaanesh practice sexual slavery.
    • This is also common among Imperial nobility, though whether they're called courtesans, consorts, slave or whatever else varies depending on the specific planet. As long as the nobles don't go to far (which is pretty far), the Inquisition doesn't care.
  • Exalted: In addition to the "regular" form, some populations have been raised, trained, and even bred (or worse yet, genetically engineered!) for this. A particularly disturbing case of the "regular" variety is found in the Djala, who are slender, delicately built pygmies. True pygmies; as adults, they do not exceed 4'10". Don't think about it too much.
  • The Batraeans of Talislanta has this as their Hat: the males, who are grossly ugly, systematically sells their female relatives, who are all incredibly beautiful and sensual, as slaves and concubines to their more civilised neighbours, and treat them very much as chattle before they do. Batraean females has pheromones that makes men lustful, but for some reason their own males are immune, which they often use to be relatively well-treated slaves. Other forms of sex slavery exist as well - Thaecians and Sawilans are preyed upon by slavers for that reason, for instance.


Video Games

  • Fallout 3: Alejandra, one of the Temple Of The Union residents, is a former sex slave Crimson and Clover are current sex slaves (the Lone Wanderer can even buy the latter, but nothing sexual comes out of it), and Red becomes a sex slave if you send her to Paradise Falls.
    • In Fallout New Vegas although all the player ever sees of Legion slaves is them carrying heavy loads, it is heavily implied that the women are subjected to rape on a regular basis, and a bit more subtly that the men aren't just used as pack mules either.
    • There's also an entire quest ("Bye Bye Love") set in the casino of Gomorrah to break a prostitute out of sexual slavery done in a similar fashion to Real Life: Joana is an expensive hooker who's controlled by her bosses using her drug addiction and threats of violence.
  • After you are invited to Davik's estate in Template:Knights Of The Old Republic you are encouraged to enjoy a relaxing bath at the hands of his slaves. This being Bio Ware, there are male and female slaves...
  • Keristrasza becomes Malygos's unwilling consort in Wrath of the Lich King, which is essentially this, but said in a more Safe For Work kind of way.
  • The implication of what Ser Alrik intends to do with Ella by threatening to make her Tranquil in the Dragon Age II quest "Dissent".


Webcomics


Web Original

  • In Chakona Space:
    • Many species of Morph were created for this express purpose, by 2090 The Federation had banned Morph slavery but in the 24th century when most of the stories take place there are still quite a few sex slave traits in the gene pool (ranging from simple big breasts to hermaphrodism.
    • Leanna Fennec was designed on a Non-Aligned World where slavery is still legal and most slaves have an overt or hidden sexual purpose, shi was meant to be a combination exotic sex slave and industrial spy (which probably contributed to her master's "accidental" death).
  • Orions Arm has Erotogini, which range from humanoids to living carpets. Though the Sapient Rights accords means that in most civilized regions they are illegal unless designed to be nonsapient (like an animal). Of course, descendants of Erotogini are fairly common.
  • The Erotic Mind Control Story Archive sometimes turns girls into these.
  • This is the worst-case scenario for the titular creatures in Template:Pokegirls. Since they're neither fully human nor fully inhuman, Not Even Humanapplies and But You Screw One Goat doesn't -- but since many of them used to be human, characters outside the Amethyst League still tend to be appropriately horrified.


Notes

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Template:No Real Life Examples, Please!

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