Goddamn Viagra. Don't act like you're not impressed.
"If men could control their dicks, do you think we would wake up every morning hard? Do you think I wanna deal with that in the morning? No, I just wanna get some coffee, read the newspaper."
— Franklyn Ajaye
An erection isn't always wanted, or even the result of sexual arousal. Such a "Raging Stiffie" may not be erotic, but it is a staple of comedic fiction.
Common causes of an unwanted or unexpected erection prevalent in fiction include:
- Overactive hormones: An unwanted erection with no or minimal stimulation is a fairly common (although hardly universal) side effect of being a male in real life. This is especially true for young, healthy males when they're working out, playing sports or engaged in other physical activities. In fiction, sufficient reliance on Refuge in Audacity or a sufficiently adult target audience enables this trope, allowing for comedic consequences and an exploration of "coming of age" issues.
- "Morning Wood": Also known by the Punny Name "Morning stick-ness". In real life, some males often wake up with an erection, particularly if warm. In fiction, any treatment of this inevitably degenerates into seriously off-color comedy. The correct medical term for this is nocturnal penile tumescence
. A surefire source of observational comedy is the scenario of waking up with an erection and having to urinate.note
- Viagra: This wonder drug does have the comedic effect of inducing erections that last a long time even if they are unwanted and the situation is inappropriate.
Most of the time this is Played for Laughs and doesn't last longer than a few minutes. However, the condition known as priapism (prolonged erection) is dangerous, and can lead to penile amputation. That's why Viagra commercials tell you to "seek immediate medical attention if an erection lasts for more than four hours." In case you're wondering: when a guy is in a state of sexual arousal for several hours, an erection naturally comes and goes a few times, as if it needs a break.
Just as a point of note, men have erections from the time they are infants. In fact, a male has his first erection inside the womb. Unfortunately, since Most Fanfic Writers Are Female, it's not an uncommon trope for a male character just on the cusp of puberty to be "shocked" that his penis has suddenly become rigid. This would not shock any male. What shocks males is that it's now happening so often and at the wrong time. Of course, actual penile ejaculation doesn't occur until within the first year of puberty, so young boys being "shocked" about nocturnal emission isn't so far outside the realm of probability.
Contrast The Loins Sleep Tonight. See also Something Else Also Rises and Bigger Is Better in Bed. Compare Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?, which has more erotic undertones than this trope. May be caused by a Potty Emergency, or vice versanote . May result in a "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization, which itself leads to Double Standard Rape: Female on Male or Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male, or simply jump to the latter without going through the former (which itself may or may not be implied). In some cases it's solved by masturbating; in others, Jizzed in My Pants may be the result.
Examples:
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Advertising
- A British ad for Impulse perfumes showed a man in art school posing naked for a drawing. Then a really cute woman comes in. We're never explicitly shown it but the imagery alone makes it clear that this happens.
- Ads for erectile dysfunction medication (i.e. Viagra, etc.) usually warn that users must seek medical help if their erection lasts more than four hours. While there are a number of Viagra-related humor examples below, in real life, too much of a good thing is definitely considered a bad thing in this case.
- A Japanese ad for the Inochi robot exhibit has Inochi develop a crush on a classmate, dream of marrying her, and wake up with an erection. This leaves him confused and shocked.
- One Jack in the Box ad has Jack talking to his mom, only for his dad to burst into the room looking down at his crotch and yelling "Patty, call the doctor! It's been more than four hours!" Jack's response is an awkward "I gotta go."
Anime & Manga
For sneaky instances in manga, look for the Unsound Effect "kin kin kin" combined with any degree of blushing or nervousness.
- In Amagi Brilliant Park, Triken constantly records, watches, and edits videos of sexy girls. He often comments that he'll need to hunch over for a while.
- Discussed in Asuka Hybrid: Asuka reluctantly shares a bath with Kasumi and rests assured becoming female will conceal his arousal. This causes him to notice his clitoris also gets erect—less obviously than a penis, but still easily visible when he's completely naked. Kasumi never brings it up because taking a bath was just a pretext to molest Asuka.
A girl's place... gets like this?
- Satou gets one twice in Ben-To — one in Episode 5 while Matsy takes care of him after he gets the shit beaten out of him by the Monarch and another one in Episode 7 after seeing the Brunette's top fall off. He manages to weaponize the latter by using it as a rudder. It Makes Sense in Context.
- Zapp has one for A Day in the Limelight in Blood Blockade Battlefront. Thankfully, the anime version of the scene greatly downplays his huge erection in the middle of battle (showing it as a thermal hotspot instead).
- Booty Royale: Never Go Down Without a Fight!: The assassin sent to kill Misora in chapter 25 suddenly gets an erection that he says afterwards was due to exhaustion. Akira then pops in to explain several theories on why men can become erect under stress. According to the tankoubon notes, the author just needed a way to break the standoff between Misora and the assassin and couldn't think of anything else.
- The morning version is practically a defining trait of Ryo from City Hunter (manga only). As he says, "It just means I'm healthy!"
- Happens to Bird's Nest of Copernicus Breathing when he unexpectedly runs into Leo, the juggler of his old circus troupe. It was implied earlier that Bird's Nest had a thing for Leo based on the small smiles he gave him, but this confirms it. Ends in masturbation. Helps lead into one of Bird's Nest's Break the Cutie moments when Leo messes up his juggling routine and drops 16 pins on his head, causing one of Bird's Nest's Freak Outs.
- Don't Meddle with My Daughter! has a rare female example, when Clara passes out after having close contact with a phallic shaped alien parasite and regains consciousness in the school's infirmary. She finds herself being tended to by her best friend Mei, who's also her secret crush. Their conversation gets cut short when the sight of Mei's hips and her plump hindquarters cause the parasite to react to Clara's pent-up sexual urges by giving her a raging lady boner. Before either girl can respond, the parasite takes over, pins Mei against the wall, and thoroughly ravishes her.
- In Genshiken, Sasahara is implied to have one during his date with Ogiue after she whispers in his ear.
- Goodnight Punpun: Punpun goes on a date with a classmate and has a boner the whole time just from being with a girl and anticipating getting laid. She doesn't notice it. Goes into squick territory when he tries to rape her.
- The titular character of Hajime no Ippo is a repeat victim as if being mocked by his gymmates for his Gag Penis wasn't enough. One of them happens in the water when he sees his Love Interest in a swimsuit for the first time.
- This happens a lot to Tomoki in Heaven's Lost Property. In the first episode, Sohara wakes him up because he's almost late for school, and when she sees that he has a massive erection, she freaks out and calls him a pervert. Following examples of this happening usually results in Tomoki getting the crap beaten out of him, including his erection being on the receiving end of Sohara's infamously life-threatening karate chops because of it, as if it's always his fault.
- Highschool of the Dead: Rei inadvertently causes Takashi to have one in chapter 6 when she makes out with him on the stairs. Mainly because she was only wearing a camisole and a pair of thong panties, so Takashi breaks the kiss and tells her they should stop. It confuses Rei 'til she looks down between his legs.
Rei: (giggles) "Oooh... you got a stiffie."
- Higurashi: When They Cry:
- In the manga, Mion comments on Keiichi being "perky" in the morning (with an arrow following her gaze to his crotch, if the innuendo was too subtle for you) during the first arc. She may just be teasing, though... However, Keiichi does make a comment on how it's her fault he'd be "perky".
- In the first arc of Kai, Rena survives becoming a zombie in Zombie Tag when she induces this in Keiichi.
- Ichi the Killer: Played horrifically by the titular Ichi, a Sadist, once got a Raging Stiffie so bad nothing would relieve it. Even a blowjob from the local love hotel only made him puke, his "friend" Jijii resorting to giving him meds just to keep it down. Eventually, he is able to get it down, by jerking off to the sight of his recently acquired prostitute friend being abused by her boyfriend. Yeah.
- The second volume of The Kindaichi Case Files manga had Hajime suffer from this. Worse yet, Miyuki thought it was something in his pocket and started going through them. The next scene Hajime has a slap-print on his face.
- In Ladies versus Butlers!, Sanae straddles main character Akiharu's lap in order to scrub his back (she apparently didn't think it through very well) and can't seem to work out what is poking her in the butt.
- Keitaro of Love Hina has been caught with one of these more than once throughout the series, due to the first two types. Much to his embarrassment.
- Made in Abyss: Reg gets this occasionally, mostly triggered by seeing Riko undressed or touching something especially fluffy, much to his embarassment. Mostly for comic purpose, but this might be another hint that he's more human than he seems.
- Defied in the first Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Sound Stage. When everyone goes to a public bath, Erio decides to go to the men's side even though he's young enough to go with everyone else to the woman's side. Since he's in a group with attractive women whose ages range between 10 and 32 (which includes his coworkers, his boss, and his mom), this was a very smart move.
- Maken-ki!:
- The sight of Himegami's panties causes Takeru to get one at school, when he sees she's hanging upside-down from a tree branch. She becomes flustered, causing her to fall and land on top of him, which results in his boner being pressed directly against her camel toe.
- It happens again in chapter 4 when Takeru and Usui get a load of the student council in their bikinis. The girls notice their stares, as a set of of arrows trace their line of sight straight at the tents in Takeru and Usui's swim trunks. The next panel shows they've been kicked out of the communal bath section, each with a slap mark.
- Midori Days: Seiji has one after Ayase mistakes sleeping pills for vitamin tablets, causing her to panic and straddle his waist to check on him, which is the sight he wakes up to. Just as she starts to ask if he's okay, her face turns beet red as she feels Seiji's erection poke her underneath her skirt. Ayase immediately cups her hand between her thighs and belts him.
- Molester Man: Molester Man is grateful to Loli for giving him a blanket when he's at her place watching Gundam, since it hides his erection.
- In My Bride is a Mermaid, Lunar sits on Nagasumi's lap while he is helping her with her homework and eventually taunts him about how he is getting a little excited.
- My Dress-Up Darling: Despite trying to remain chaste, Wakana Gojo is a Hormone-Addled Teenager, so he has this often when in the proximity of the beautiful Ms. Fanservice Marin Kitagawa. Two notable instances are when he takes her measurements while she's only wearing a bikini, and later when they're in a love hotel and she's sitting on top of him.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion:
- The morning one happens to Shinji in the Alternate Universe. Unfortunately for him, Asuka is the first to notice it. Cue slapping.
- Also, his "thermal expansion" when overhearing Asuka and Misato at the hot springs.
- In episode 10 of Onegai My Melody, after Kikuchi helps save the day, he confesses his feelings for Kanade. Then he looks down at his crotch and embarrassed, turns away and pulls his shirt down.
- Osomatsu-san: In Episode 22, Jyushimatsu gets a boner from over-excitement when his younger brother Todomatsu mentions a mixer. It doesn't go down for a good part of the skit (though we don't actually see it since it's strategically covered), even after he puts ice on it and submerges himself in a tank filled with iced water.
- There is a notorious panel in Parasyte where Shinichi (who has a parasitic alien fused with his right hand) gets aroused... and Migi, reflecting this arousal, turns into a giant penis.
- Peter Grill and the Philosopher's Time: Vegan Eldoriel uses magic to cause Peter Grill to have a massive erection that will only go away if he has sex with her. He has no choice but to sleep with her as it is pointed out that like in real life, an erection that goes on for too long will result in the member dying from lack of blood flow.
- A rather literal example occurs in Porno Superstar. In chapter 2, Hikaru gets so mad at his partner Yamashita, he goes hard.
- Shimoneta's OP begins with Tanukichi waking up for school with a 'morning wood'. When Ayame rings the doorbell, he inadvertently flashes her by answering the door in his boxers, causing her to scream and clock him with her schoolbag.
- Saiga of Speed Grapher gets an erection whenever he takes exciting photographs with his camera.
- In Tenchi Muyo! GXP this trope shows up in an early episode. Since main character Seina won't wake up and get out of bed his friend Kiriko tears the covers off only to discover his morning wood, he is shown in the very next scene eating breakfast with a large red (undeserved) slap mark on his face.
- The second episode of Trapeze is about this, in the form of an erection that lasts for days. Eventually, it's revealed to have psychosomatic causes. (It is acknowledged that this kind of priapism is unrealistic.)
- The Umisho manga occasionally shows Takeda's reaction to the Fanservice surrounding him.
- Violence Jack: Shingo has this happen to him twice in the span of about 20 pages in the first arc, and it's used as an Establishing Character Moment where he finds his masculinity. Both of which revolve around a tiger who he later befriends. In the first, it's from him simply staring the tiger down. In the second, he imagines said tiger to be engaging in some Lecherous Licking with Aira Muto when both of them are cornered in a hot spring by the same animal.
- Heavily implied in a Wandering Son chapter. Nitori, who is a transgender girl, is getting a massage by her girlfriend but ends up getting an erection. Her older sister Maho walks in right when it happens, causing a stir.
Comedy
- Two young men raised in a very puritanical environment are on vacation in Amsterdam, and happen to go near the red-light district. Suddenly one of them gasps, turns around and runs like hell. The other finally catches up and asks what he's doing.
"My mother warned me that if I ever got involved with sinful women, I'd turn to stone... and I felt it start to happen!"
Comic Books
- The Boys features a Russian super named "Love Sausage''. He runs into a topless bar and is incapacitated because he can't run straight with a massive erection.
- In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics, befalls Giles, of all people, with Faith when she comforts him by hugging him. Give him a break though, he was resurrected as a twelve-year-old.
- Causes a problem for Thugboy when he is sharing a bed with Ninjette in Empowered.
- New 52: The Third Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes gets one when he meets Red Lantern Bleez. He gets embarrassed and unsuccessfully claims that the stiffie is just part of his armor.
- In Nightwing Annual #2, a flashback to Robin's and Batgirl's teenage years showed them trapped in a safe together, with Batgirl's Sensual Spandex causing some problems for Robin. When Batman gets them out, Robin hunches over and holds his cape in front of him, prompting Batman to ask if he's okay.
- In one of the Superman: Earth One books, Lex Luthor is reading an important document when his wife walks up to him naked. He hunches over and complains that his brain needs all the blood it can get.
- In the National Lampoon comic strip Timberland Tales by B.K. Taylor, Maurice the little Canadian-Indian boy inadvertently sees Kathleen in the shower and gets a sudden erection - he panics and cries out "'Alp! Some kind animal in Maurice's pants!"
Fan Works
- In chapter 9 of Advice and Trust, Rei gets into an up-close argument with Kaworu, who grows visibly flustered and sweaty as she scolds him. This just frustrates Rei even more, and she demands an explanation for why he is looking distracted. Kaworu merely meekly pleads with her not to look down. But she does.
Kaworu: I can't stop it! It's a rather intense feedback loop. The Lilim parts of my mind are... making suggestions for things they want to do with you! You are unfortunately very attractive!
- It happens again in chapter 10 after he looks inside a box that Rei gave him (which is heavily implied to contain a picture of her naked).
- In Amazing Fantasy, Izuku has an Imagine Spot of Jirou with his arms around him, her body pressing against his and him feeling every part of her through his skintight costume while he climbs up a building. He's implied to have gotten a hard-on and has to Think Unsexy Thoughts to get rid of it, being thankful that male superheroes like him wear cups while out in the field.
- The Bolt Chronicles: In The Cameo, Blaze mentions an instance where Bolt gets an erection onscreen, occurring when the latter is pretending to read an issue of Dog Fancy magazine while shadowing a villain.
- In Cadence in A Minor, part of Shining Armor's angst is that he gets these a lot whenever he thinks of or is around any female, but as soon as he's with his wife Princess Cadence, he can't get it up.
- Several times in Child of the Storm, usually by Harry, due to the fact that he starts the story aged 13; and as noted by the narrative, he is surrounded by very attractive ladies a lot of the time.
- In the first story, when being pestered by Ron for details of his Sleep Cute moment in regards to the mountain incident a chapter or two before, he remembers being close to Carol, who is noted to be especially attractive, and Harry is now very thankful for both the table and the cloth hiding his reaction to it.
- More frequent in the second story, with Harry having to stealthily exit the bed he was platonically sharing with Carol and going for a cold shower. Later, when talking to 'Nathan', an alternate version of himself, they see another version about to engage in some shower sex, which causes this and a great deal of associated mortification, much to Nathan's amusement.
- In the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Empath's Honeymoon", while Tapper is in a private discussion with his friend Duncan McSmurf as Empath and Smurfette are on their honeymoon together, Tapper tells Duncan in polite terms that he gets so stimulated being near Smurfette at times that he fears she's going to see this appearing in his "nether regions" whenever he's near her. Duncan humorously refers to this as having "a banana in his pants".
- Firefly :
- In A Place of Safety-Later On has Mal getting aroused and trying to hide it when Inara massages him after War Stories and his torture by Niska. She gives him a scalp massage after Simon finishes cleaning his wounds and soon after, a foot massage. Shed hoped it wouldnt be an issue with Mals physical condition, but was wrong. Theres no attempt at sex though due to Mals condition.
- Above and Beyond Wash and Zoe are under fire in a tight spot on a hillside and shes very much tightly wedged on his lap. His body cant help react to his wife moving around on certain areas.
Zoe:: "Wash, what the hell?"Wash: "It's natural!" he blurted, staring earnestly up at her. "It's biological! It's a natural, biological, scientific response! To danger and, and stimulus. Dangerous stimulus." - In A Place of Safety-Later On
- In Power Girl fanfic A Force of Four, Mala gets one when Power Girl dares Badra to catfight her.
She had been gauging the pressure of his grip with great accuracy. Her talk to Badra had a specific effect on Mala, she could tell by a certain feeling against her back.
- Gantz Abridged :
"Sensei, Kurono's got a boner!"
"Kurono, did you bring enough erection for the rest of the class?"
"No Ma'am, just enough for the girls." - In Harry and the Shipgirls, Lieutenant Jay Gee James Hunter had the third example of this trope. While he was having a magically-enhanced threesome with Sirius and Estelle, the Abyssals launched an attack and they had to Hold the Line until reinforcements arrived. Because he was quite visibly erect under ill-fitting clothes when reinforcements finally arrived, Lieutenant Hunter became known as Lieutenant Full Mast to everyone else at St. Thomas Naval Base.
- Implied in Supergirl fanfic Hellsister Trilogy when Mordru's chamberlain sees Kara's evil duplicate Satan Girl naked.
The chamberlain, a black-haired, black-bearded man in an orange tunic and pants, looked upon her with trepidation and male response.
- In How Hogwarts Became a Nudist Colony, Snape gets one while he and Hermione are alone together and, of course, naked. He tries to hide it with a pillow, but she soon figures out what's happening and seems rather interested. At this point, the story cuts away from this scene and we never find out exactly what happened next, but it's implied that Snape and Hermione ended up having sex.
- If They Haven't Learned Your Name: While Drowning Their Sorrows in a seedy bar in Croatia, Steve Rogers mentions to Sam Wilson that back in the thirties and forties, Bucky used to sing popular music from the time while engaging in foreplay or having sex with little pre-Super Serum Steve. The two things would connect in Steve's mind, leading to poor Steve having to "fix [his] fuckin' pants in a hurry" if he happened to overhear some song Bucky sang during sex in public later. Dick move, Barnes.
- The Proposal (see below) is parodied in an episode of I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC, with Deadpool as Ryan Reynolds and Wonder Woman as Sandra Bullock. Bullock was linked to the Wonder Woman role for a while.
- Alice is outed as a trans woman in Metamorphosis when her body reacts while kissing Sei.
- In My Huntsman Academia, Izuku reminisces about how he leaned into his girlfriend Yang's arms while delirious from exhaustion, pain, and hypothermia the previous night while taking a shower. He remembers how warm and comfortable it was in that position. Then he changes the shower to cold water once he finishes that thought.
Izuku: Cold water. Cooooooooold water...
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanon, there's a related phenomenon called wingboner: when a pegasus gets aroused, his/her wings spread on their own. This succeeds in converting more than a few events in the series into Double Entendres.
- During a dual-synch test with Rei in Neon Metathesis Evangelion, Shinji has a certain problem.
Ayanami wiggled slightly. Oh gods. She was wiggling again. Maybe she was sitting uncomfortably, which would be... ehem... EHEM... understandable. Though the wiggling did the exact opposite of helping with that problem. Damn it, are those suits thin!
- Gray gets one in Pretty Ore when in a tickle fight with Claire.
- Sported by Hans in The Queen's Consort when Anna practically made-out with Elsa right in front of him after he came onto Elsa and questioned Anna's fidelity.
- A Redwall fanfic existed in which two guys fell asleep spooned together, and when they woke up one's erection had managed to work its way inside the other guy's rectum while they were still asleep. MSTing here.
- In the Death Note fic Seigikan Light has this problem the morning after having a beautiful dream of defeating and killing L.
- In the Harry Potter fanfic The Shoebox Project, Remus gets these after having Homoerotic Dreams about Sirius.
- X-Men: The Early Years: In "Boy Scouts, Sex, and Other Mysterious Things", Jean Grey notices Scott Summers' "little, growing trouble" when she tries to seduce him.
She bit him through his t-shirt. "You really do have the mind of a bad boy, underneath that cold, icy exterior," she purred. "But I know you aren't made of the stone you like to show everyone else." Then she looked up at him and smirked. "At least not most of you anyway."
Films — Live-Action
- Similar to the above, in 40 Days and 40 Nights Josh Harnett's character wakes up with an erection that causes him trouble when doing his breakfast... and later has a problem when he is visibly aroused during a work meeting.
- The title character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin twice wakes up with morning wood and has trouble, uh, aiming while going to the bathroom. Parodied in The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Then Felt Superbad About It, where it manages to reach his chest and then his forehead. It's then implied that he can use it (once it has shrunk back, presumably) to turn the pages of the newspaper he's reading.
- In an interview with Olivia de Havilland in The Adventures of Errol Flynn, she revealed that they had to film their kissing scene 8 or 9 times. The first of those were naturally to get multiple takes to choose from. The last ones were after Flynn had to take a break because he started getting fairly "uncomfortable in his pants".
- Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy:
Veronica: Mr. Burgundy, you have a massive erection.
Ron: Really?... Yes, I do... Um, I'm sorry, it's the... it's the pleats. It's actually an optical illusion. It's the pattern on the pants. It's not flattering in the crotchal region. I'm actually taking them back right now. Taking them back to the pants store... Oh, this is awkward... I'm gonna walk... I'm gonna walk this situation off... and I will see you later... Nothing to look at... Go back to work, everyone... Don't act like you're not impressed. - Happens in Bad Teacher to one of Cameron Diaz's underaged students when he watches her washing a car in skimpy, wet clothing during a car-wash fundraiser (for the class, but actually for her breast enlargement). She's doing it to seduce her rich colleague, but it works on several others as well.
- A conversation between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle in Batman Returns (after Bruce has just apologized for suddenly leaving during their previous date, and they are pressed closely together while dancing on a ballroom floor):
Bruce: So...no hard feelings?
Selina: Well...semi-hard, I'd say.
[Bruce looks down and becomes embarrassed] - In Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Edward Norton's character gets one onstage in front of 500 people.
- In The Blue Lagoon (1980), naked Richard is seen swimming with an erect penis. In the sequel Return to the Blue Lagoon, his son, also named Richard wakes up with morning wood.
- Part of the opening sequence Bubble Boy. He wakes up one morning and (due to being raised by a very conservative mother) believes that a rodent or similar has invaded his pants during his sleep. So, naturally, he grabs the nerf (with metal-core) baseball bat near his bed and gives said vermin a stout rap on the head... He then calls in his mother for help with the problem, which they solve by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Then look down and recite it again.
- Bullshot. Archy walks in on the hero Bullshot, who is excited by the fact that he's got a case to solve. As Bullshot is only dressed in his long johns, the exact nature of his excitement is...obvious.
- After being kissed by Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, she asks Steve if he's still uncomfortable. Bonus points in that she bought him clothes a size too small already. Uncomfortable, indeed.
Steve: That's not exactly the word I'd use to describe it.
- In his documentary A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures, Chris Waitt is suffering from erectile dysfunction and takes loads of Viagra. He gets an erection that will last for about eight hours and runs around the streets of London accosting women and asking them to have sex with him, a quest which ends with him spending the night in a police cell.
- Chev Chelios gets "a steel hardon" after taking too much epinephrine in Crank.
- The 1930 pre-Code film The Divorcee has a joke related to this. Jerry's boyfriend hugs her from behind and says something in French. She replies with "I don't understand French, but I know the symptoms of high blood pressure in any language."
- In The Dreamers, Theo forces Matthew to have sex with his sister. He tries to run away, but they catch him in the kitchen. Isabelle gets Matthew's pants down and we get an extreme close up on his erect penis.
- Discussed in The Full Monty:
Gerald: What if it happens in front of 400 women?
...
Horse: Just think of the most boring thing you can come up with. ... Gardening. The Queen's Speech.
Guy: Nature programs.
Gerald: I like nature programs.
Guy: But they dont give you a stiffie, do they? [beat] do they? - Get Smart:
- In an alternate take of the rooftop fight with Dalip, there's a bit more dialogue when Max lands facedown on Agent 99:
Agent 99: Max, I thought you lost your gun.Max: ...I have to go.- Later, when Max lands on top of Agent 23:
23: Is that your gun, Max?Max: No, it's my penis! - Happens to Tony while he and Holly are dancing in Greenfingers:
Holly: [They are slow dancing and he is holding her close] Tony, you've got a stiffie.
Tony: [He looks down] So?
Holly: It's against regulations. - In Guest House Paradiso, when beautiful Italian film star Gina Carbonara asks if she can have her salad "undressed" (meaning without any dressing), Richie and Eddie take her dinner up to her room - both naked, save for chefs hats covering their modesty.
Gina: That's a very big hat!Eddie: Well, you're a very attractive bird!
- Emperor Nero uses this to his advantage in History of the World Part I to find out which of his wife's attendants is an imposter. (The rest are eunuchs.)
- In I Think I Love My Wife, Chris Rock's character has one of these when he takes Viagra. Which results in his having to be drained in the back of an ambulance with a very large needle.
- In The Jane Austen Book Club, Prudie and Trey kiss in her car but quickly put the kibosh on it, both because she knows it's wrong and then because her husband actually shows up. She tells him to get out and he mutters that he needs a moment, using the open Austen novel on her dashboard to cover his crotch.
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle: Bethany, in Oberon's body, gets an erection after she hugs Alex. Spencer and Fridge have to point it out to her.
Bethany/Shelly: Oh my god, these things are crazy!
- In Kevin & Perry Go Large, Kevin is caught up in a bank heist and told to keep his hands where the robbers can see them. One of the tellers bends down slightly to fill a bag full of money, inadvertently giving Kevin a brief glimpse of cleavage. He hits the silent alarm under the desk, without moving his hands.
- In a Deleted Scene of Lolita (1997), Humbert gets sexually excited while tussling with Dolores on the sofa. She asks if he's ill because he's bending over while going up to his room. Humbert claims a toothache and quickly returns to the sofa.
- In Love & Other Drugs, Jake Gyllenhaal plays a pharmaceutical rep who becomes extremely successful when he starts selling Viagra. While on hiatus with his girlfriend, he goes to a pajama party thrown by a sexy coworker and has a threesome with her and another woman, right after the coworker pretty much force-feeds him a Viagra pill. In the morning, he finds out that this trope is in full effect and he runs to the hospital in his bathrobe to get it looked at.
- In The Man with Two Brains, Steve Martin is teased by his new bride, and when he steps over to the French doors (lots of little glass panes), we hear the sound of glass breaking. He looks down. And again when he stands up with his hat on his lap. Let's just say he doesn't need to hold it there with his hands.
- Me, Myself & Irene: "Irene, why am I pissing like I've had sex all night?"
- One scene in the third film of the Meet the Parents series features Jack using a Viagra substitute he found in Greg's bag to satisfy his wife, shortly before confronting him with it. Greg quickly notices the slight bulge in his father-in-law's dressing gown and has to give him a very painful injection directly into it to counteract the effects before he has a heart attack. A particularly bad time for Greg's little boy to walk in on them.
- The opening cartoon of Monkeybone shows this happening to a young Stu Miley. In fact, Monkeybone himself is the personification of Stu's libido, as his name would suggest.
- Occurs in Peep World with Nathan, during a medical exam based off his premature ejaculation.
- Pretty Cool:
- Protagonist Howard uses his mind control powers to give a bully this while he's stood at the front of the class.
- And in the sequel, the new protagonist Walter gives one to himself using his mind control phone. Hilarity Ensues when his parents come home, and he's separated from the phone.
- The Proposal: Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds' characters are posing as a couple, and try to act as if they were just spooning.
Margaret: Oh my god! What is that?!
Andrew: I'm sorry. It's morning! - Road Trip: Old man + Baywatch + Viagra.
- When Charlie Sheen's character came Back for the Dead in Scary Movie 4 this was part of his death. He accidentally swallows a whole container of Viagra in a failed attempt to overdose. His penis inflates to ridiculous proportions and he throws himself out of a window, landing face down, with his hips nowhere near the floor.
- In Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th one of the teens appears to die of a heart attack, but it's later revealed that he'd taken an entire bottle of Viagra in anticipation of a sexual encounter, and the raging erection kept his heart pumping.
- Discussed in Silent Night (2012), when Deputy Bradimore is called to investigate a Santa accused of disturbing the children:
Giles: Maybe he got a boner.
Bradimore: Ugh.
Giles: Kids are squirming in his lap all day. It's bound to happen sooner or later. - Played hilariously in Sorority Boys. One of the boys Disguised in Drag is taking a shower when the sorority's president playfully joins him. "Stop poking me in the butt!" It should be noted that the president (and also the love interest of the guy she's taking a shower with — both when he's disguised as a woman and when he's a full male) is very near-sighted.
- In Stand Up Guys, Al Pacino's character, Val, is released from prison after 28 years and is anxious to try Viagra. His friend Doc, played by Christopher Walken, helps him break into a pharmacy to steal some, but warns him of the possible 4-hour erection side effect. Hearing that, Val purposefully takes too much. The inevitable happens and he has to be taken to the E.R. for relief.
- In Swiss Army Man, Manny (who is a corpse, by the way) gets one when he sees a picture of a beautiful woman in a magazine, and his erection is used as a compass.
- In Under the Skin, when the alien seduces her victim into the black void, they all take off the clothes and get erect penises.
- In Without a Paddle, the boys get stranded in the woods in their underwear and are forced to share body heat to survive. Dan gets an erection while thinking about the hot girls they met earlier that day, which freaks the other two out.
Literature
- Riki in Ai no Kusabi is a Sex Slave who is often subjected to this as a form of torture by his master via a cock ring turned Restraining Bolt/Shock Collar.
- Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki: In Volume 9's fourth chapter after he gets home from an offline Atafami meetup. Tomozaki is already aroused since one of the female players, Rena, had been trying to seduce him the whole night, which he resisted because he has a girlfriend. When he gets home, he has a video call with said girlfriend and instantly gets turned on again: Thanks to his lust-filled state of mind, he starts viewing Fuuka in a sexual light for the first time as prior to this, all his thoughts about her had stayed on the pure side, but this time, he immediately notices her chest in her loose and unbuttoned pajamas and hears the heat in her soft, pleading voice, with the narrative even saying that the situation with his body was getting "a bit dicey, as a guy." At the end of the scene, he is actually happy he's able to think about Fuuka in a less-than-chaste manner.
- In Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget dances with a teenage boy she meets at a party during a smoke break.
"... the trouble was, he seemed to have, well, not to put too fine a point on it, the most enormous erection I've ever had the good fortune to come across, and us dancing so close it was not the sort of thing one could pass off as a pencil case."
- In A Brother's Price this happens quite often to Jerin. Not surprising, as he's young and rarely sees women to whom he isn't related. When an attractive woman intentionally makes him think about sex, he's helpless. It also happens to him when his bride-to-be inspects his naked body for birth defects, a common practice in this culture. She comments that, apparently, everything is in "good working order"
- Cassandra Palmer: Morning wood comes as an unnerving and mortifying shock to a woman who has switched bodies with a male friend in Curse The Dawn.
- A Certain Magical Index:
- In the light novel version of the Angel Fall arc, Kaori Kanzaki forces Touma Kamijou to strip and then starts poking and prodding him to check for injuries. Naturally, he gets an erection.
- During a meeting of the world leaders, Roberto Katze, the President of the United States, reads a dirty magazine and shamelessly hits on the females in the room. His secretary looks down and is disgusted by what she sees.
- This is the means by which Felix's sexual feelings for Mildmay, his own brother, are revealed in Doctrine of Labyrinths when the two of them are forced to cling together for safety. Mildmay isn't even gay, let alone willing to commit incest, therefore he's pretty spooked, even though he tries to be as nice about it as possible. Meanwhile Felix - who hadn't even been planning on telling Mildmay about his feelings, let alone acting on them - is understandably humiliated. Much awkwardness ensues.
- In The Dresden Files book Cold Days Harry ends up getting one during a life-or-death fight while riding behind Murphy on her motorbike. While it is played partly for dry comedy, it has some pretty serious undertones, as it contradicts Harry's assurances that he's got his Blood Knight Superpowered Evil Side, i.e. the mantle of the Winter Knight, under control. The truly spooky part is that Murphy is the one who tells him he had it at all—Harry didn't even notice it.
- After poor Harry wakes up from his intensely hot Erotic Dream starring him and Murphy in Skin Game, he's sporting one of these so intense that Murphy sees it from across the bedroom, in the dark, under the covers - or at the very least, it doesn't take much deduction to work it out once she realises that his suddenly waking up wasn't caused by a nightmare. Harry just sighs, accepts the embarrassment, and puts a pillow over his shame. To her credit, though, Murphy doesn't give him too much of a hard time about it, badum-pssh. Instead, she seems rather interested, simply remarking with a wicked smirk that after the immediate crisis is over... they should, ah, talk.
- In Everworld it happens a few times, with the male narrator euphemistically saying something like "my body responded" to whichever magically-attractive female character caused it this time.
- In a short story by Stephen King called Autopsy Room Four from Everything's Eventual, a paralyzed man about to be autopsied by doctors who think he is dead is saved at the last second when he gets an erection.
- Eye of a Fly: To Ernest's embarrassment, even casual interactions with attractive women leave him with uncontrollable sexual thoughts and a visible erection, but sexual encounters leave him cold, which is part of the reason why he's still a virgin.
- Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry offhandedly mentions this as a character gets out of bed and, with minor difficulty, into his breeches.
- Flashman: Sir Harry Flashman finds that his rather ragged trousers are quite incapable of disguising his—er— respect for the shapely but quite mad Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar.
- Forbidden: This happens to Lochan when he helps his sister Maya practice dancing. Its what first alerts him that he has actual romantic feelings for her. He even mentions that he briefly forgot she was his sister.
- In Full Metal Panic!, the novel version of End of Day By Day, when Gauron was reminiscing about how he first saw Sousuke, as well as talking about how Sousuke was a beautiful Assassin Saint that he wanted to kill and rape, Gauron starts taunting Sousuke... and through the darkness, Sousuke notices something from the middle of the bed that seemed to be rising and "beckoning" him. Since Gauron had no arms... or legs... and there's really nothing else other than that thing between his legs that could possibly be coming from the middle of the bed... yeah. It's sufficient to say that Sousuke was thoroughly freaked out.
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy has Simon Moon remembering his school, where a Doris Day lookalike teacher has this effect on him and his classmates.
She opens her mouth and closes it and opens and closes it and finally takes such a deep breath that every boy in the room (we're all on the cusp of puberty) gets a hard-on from watching her breasts heave up and slide down again. I mean, they're all praying (except me, I'm an atheist, of course) that they won't get called on to stand up; if it wouldn't attract attention, theyd be clubbing their dicks down with their geography books.
- I'm in Marsport Without Hilda. The protagonist is a government agent who has to identify which of three men is faking symptoms of a drug they've taken. He begins to describe in lurid terms the sex he's missing out on by having to attend this interrogation, then says, "Rise, gentlemen!" and arrests the man whose erection is exposed when he stands up.
- The Last Day of Creation by Wolfgang Jeschke. The leader of the Ape Men aiding the protagonists has a massive erection after fighting a battle.
- In Lord Marksman and Vanadis, this is of the second variety and played for humor. Tigre offhandedly mentions in Volume One that this is a bad thing to have when Teita wakes him up in the morning and his body is uncovered, and he later has another when sharing a bed with Olga, the wandering Vanadis, which she calmly points out and doesn't hold against him.
- In Maskerade, Salzella and Bucket are described as walking very awkwardly as they retreat - in some haste - from the room after dining upon Nanny Ogg's Chocolate Delight with Special Secret Sauce.
- In Mass Effect: Retribution, this happens to Nick not thirty pages into the book when he's talking to Kahlee Sanders.
- My Uncle Oswald is about the titular uncle selling Viagra.
- In The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner relates that, as a teenager, he often had unwanted erections at completely random times. One particularly embarrassing one happened while he was about to help up an elderly woman he used to take care of.
- Nimue Alban in David Weber's Safehold books learns just how "fully functional" her robotic body is when, as the male Merlin Athrawes, he learns that the Safeholdian version of rugby is played in the nude, and Nimue, for all her body was male, was still a woman where what was attractive to her was concerned. When Cayleb learns Merlin's true identity and is reminded of this incident, he finds it absolutely hilarious.
Cayleb: Oh, my God! That was why you stayed in the water! Why you were so damned careful about that towel!
- In Shadow of the Conqueror, becoming a teenager again means that Daylen has to put up with the raging hormones as well, which is especially frustrating for a former Dirty Old Man to whom Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere.
- Sidekicks kicks off with the teenage character rescuing a woman during a mission. A woman who's suddenly clutching him really tightly, and while he's wearing a costume that he's been complaining is too small for him. Naturally, there are reporters at the scene, so the next day he's the laughingstock of the whole city. This prompts his goal throughout the rest of the book to shed his Kid Sidekick image and be taken more seriously.
- The Testament of Sister New Devil: Chisato causes her nephew to get an erection during a scene at her apartment. She was wearing one of his school uniform shirts, while stark naked underneath and tells him to hold her tightly against himself. When he tries to be Above the Influence, she proves he isn't by rubbing her backside against his crotch and faintly smirks upon feeling him get an erection.
- Judy Blume's book Then Again, Maybe I Won't is about a boy going through puberty. He often gets erections at embarrassing times, such as in school.
- This happens to Fiyero in Wicked when he thinks of Elphaba:
And Elphie wasn't just a different (not to say novel) provincial type—she seemed an advance on the gender, an advance on the species sometimes. He caught himself with a mammoth erection just remembering that last time, and he had to hide behind some ladies' scarves in a shop until it subsided.
Live-Action TV
- Jacob, one of the eponymous guest characters in the second-season 2 Broke Girls episode "And the Three Boys With Wood."
- 1000 Ways to Die: In the segment "Erecto-Phobia", a cuckolding boyfriend suddenly finds himself with a little soldier who just keeps standing at attention. He takes advantage of the situation by sleeping with three girls throughout the night before suddenly dropping dead. As it turns out, he had been bit by a Brazilian wandering spider, and his priapism was a symptom of its venom.
- The Affair: While they're staying at Yvonne and Robert's mansion, Alison helps out with Robert's physical therapy after he fires his housekeeper. After massaging his legs and telling him about her passionate affair with Noah, she realizes that he's rock hard.
- Cash slips Cameron pills that do this in Breaking In as part of their prank war.
- Buffyverse:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- In "Amends", Willow goes all out to try and seduce Oz. She gets a bit worried when he stands up and she thinks he's going to leave, so says she's ready to sleep with him. Oz quickly decides he needs to sit back down.
- In "Wild at Heart", Oz has sex with Veruca while they're in their werewolf forms. The next day he regrets this as he's involved with Willow, but Veruca is eager to continue the relationship and brings up the wild wolf sex they had, whereupon her gaze flicks downward as she purrs, "I know some part of you remembers that."
- In "Dirty Girls", Xander wakes up from a dream involving scantily-clad teenagers having a pillow fight, to the reality of frumpy girls in pajamas complaining about a blocked toilet. He asks them to give him a moment before getting out of bed, as he 'has a cramp'.
- Angel:
- In "Untouched", Darla has been trying to corrupt Angel by using magic to send him dreams of his vampire kills. He claims to find them nightmarish, but...
Bethany: It looked like a pretty happy dream — or maybe the covers were just rumpled.- In "Waiting in the Wings", a spell is making Angel and Cordelia start Kissing Under the Influence, so they try to get out of the room where it's affecting them.
Cordelia: Open the door!
Angel: (struggling with door) Kinda hard.
Cordelia: Kinda noticed.- And then when they finally get out...
Cordelia: Good thing it wears off right away, huh?
Angel: Yeah. [takes off jacket and folds it in front of his pants]
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- Antoine in the first Challenge: Battle of the Sexes season ended up having one during a mission when flirting with a judge. As he was in a pool of water and wearing a speedo, she calls him out on it to hilarious effect.
- In the Cheers episode How to Recede in Business, when Rebecca finds out at a restaurant that Sam's plan was to get into bed with her as a reward for getting their boss to rehire Rebecca (without telling her it was under extremely crappy conditions), she simply whispers to his ears all the randy, salacious things they could do. Then she just ditches him at the restaurant because she knows Sam won't be able to stand up for a while in public.
- Community: In "Digital Exploration of Interior Design", the Subway executive listens to the tape of Britta and "corpo-humanoid" Subway's apparently "way out of the mainstream" sexual explorations in disgust and horror. When it comes time to leave, however, the executive seems curiously reluctant to leave his seat:
Subway executive: If someone could hand me my jacket?
Pierce: (helpfully) It's right over there on the coat rack next to the door.
Subway executive: ...If somebody could just hand it to me, that would be great.
(awkward pause)
Dean Pelton: I guess I'm confused; why don't you just grab it on your way out the door—
Subway executive: You know what? Now I'm not leaving! Now I'm just going to sit for a while and focus on how unacceptable today was. - In the CSI episode "The Accused is Entitled", one suspect cannot stand up after having popped some Viagra on the plane. When Catherine finds out that the erection has lasted for several hours, she tells him to seek medical attention.
- Degrassi: The Next Generation:
- Happened to Spinner in an episode. The large size of it caused a bit of Memetic Mutation in the fandom.
- In season 10, Wesley falls asleep in class dreams that he ate dinner with his crush Anya, but the dinner goes badly and he wakes up with an erection.
- Dollhouse:
- Victor gets an erection in his "Tabula Rasa" state because of latent attraction to Sierra (who is showering right next to him). This is regarded as Serious Business by the Dollhouse staff. However, since it's Joss Whedon, it also leads to a funny moment:
Victor: I'm having a man reaction.
- Whiskey slips into Topher's bunk in a twisted attempt at seduction.
Topher: What-What the hell? Are you drunk?!
Whiskey: I'm just trying to be my best.
Topher: I-I don't want your best!
Whiskey: [looking down] Oh I think you do.
Topher: [grabs a shirt and covers his crotch] That is the minority vote. And you tricked it! Guy's asleep... could have been Fozzie Bear and... not that I think about Fozzie Bear...
- Victor gets an erection in his "Tabula Rasa" state because of latent attraction to Sierra (who is showering right next to him). This is regarded as Serious Business by the Dollhouse staff. However, since it's Joss Whedon, it also leads to a funny moment:
- Game of Thrones: The morning version happens to Jon Snow after being forced to sleep huddled up close to Ygritte to stave off the cold.
Ygritte: Did you pull a knife on me in the night?
[Jon suddenly stands up, hunched over and clearly embarrassed] - Joe from Glee gets one of these when he's helping Quinn out with her physical therapy.
- Meredith on Grey's Anatomy has a one-night stand with a guy who turns up at the hospital the next day. "It hasn't gone away since we... you know..." Meredith was humiliated, Bailley was annoyed, Derek was hurt, and Cristina found it freakin' hilarious. "What? It's not my fault you broke the guy's dick!"
- The Hard Times of RJ Berger has an episode at a school play where Hilarity Ensues due to an "pitching the tent" incident, and since the main character RJ has a large penis, there you go.
- Kevin and Perry from Harry Enfield and Chums got these in pretty much every episode and multiple times in their own movie.
- In the Haven episode "Lay Me Down", Audrey wakes Nathan up while he was having an Erotic Dream about her. He looks down and awkwardly covers his lap with a pillow.
- The Sheriff in The Heart, She Holler gets one after his Jail Bait Wait for Hershey was reduced from ten years to a week. Yes, he really plans to wait ten years for her to be legal again.
- The Inbetweeners:
- Happens in the first episode, where Simon gets hard off a girl he likes when she flirts with him. His mate spots it and shouts out to the whole room that he has a boner, and from then onwards Simon is known as "Boner".
- A subversion in the fashion show episode; Simon is wearing ludicrously small, tight pants for aforementioned show and his friends repeatedly warn him of the perils of an unwanted erection. Instead one of his testicles falls out.
- A Jackass skit has Johnny Knoxville walking around with a fake penis in his pants acting completely unaware of it.
- In an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the perp gets one during his trial. Everyone can't help but stare at it when he, without thinking, stands up. Worse, it was being established that he liked torturing women.
- Mad About You had one in the episode Paul tries Viagra.
- My Left Nut:
- During their first date, Rachael mistakes the huge bulge in Mick's pants as a Gag Penis erection, but it's actually his swollen left testicle.
- During the medical exam where he gets his swollen testicles checked, Mick gets extremely paranoid about having an erection in the middle of it, especially when one of the interns is a Hospital Hottie. He has to resort to Think Unsexy Thoughts to keep himself under control, but does it a little too well and ends up with shrinkage instead.
- In The New Statesman, Alan ends up having to hijack a plane, and he takes the Sexy Stewardess hostage. He holds her back against him to use as a human shield with one hand and holds a grenade in the other. She begs the fliers to "Do what he says, he's got a gun pressing into my back!"
- Phoenix Nights during the club's 'Family Fun Day' with a bouncy castle from Amsterdam...
- Queer as Folk (US) did the Viagra version of this with Ted, giving him what appeared to be a 24-hour erection. Of course, since Ted tends to be a chew toy, the problem resolved itself as soon as a hot man tried to pick him up.
- Reboot (2022): Reed gets an erection while filming a scene in bed with his ex-girlfriend and costar Bree. It turns into a whole (comedic) HR incident where their parent company Disney has to step in.
- Red Dwarf:
- Something like it happened to Kryten in "DNA" when he became human; though it didn't cause embarrassment so much as curiosity. And two polaroids. Word of God says that Craig Charles' funny reaction to being handed the pictures was real because the 'prop' pictures of a penis were replaced with real ones at the last minute without telling him.
- In "Pete Part I", in order to win a basketball match, Lister and Rimmer spike the opposing team's drinks with a 'virility enhancement drug'. As The Cat put it, "try moving fast with a fishing pole in your pants!" Captain Hollister takes a swig too and later complains of having to do a handstand every time he wanted to use the urinal.
- In the Rizzoli & Isles episode "This Is How a Heart Breaks", Maura realises a 'corpse' just delivered to the morgue is not dead when he gets an erection and she feels a pulse in his penis.
- Roseanne: DJ is embarrassed when he first starts getting erections at school. Dan gives him advice which "fathers have been handing down to sons since the invention of the written word": put a book in front of it. Roseanne isn't satisfied with this and tells DJ a story about her own first period. This does not go well.
- Saturday Night Live:
- A fake commercial for an anti-virility drug, designed to prevent unwanted boners, like when driving your daughter's cheerleading friends home from practice.
- And an earlier episode had an ad for "Dr. Porkenheimer's Boner Juice", which proclaimed, "If you experience an erection lasting more than twenty-four hours, call a friend and brag about it!"
- In yet another sketch, a student leading an upcoming walkout demonstration is given a supportive hand on the shoulder by a female classmate... just before the walkout is scheduled.
4th Student: You don't want to stand up against gun violence?First Student: Not at this specific moment when I'm wearing mesh shorts...
- Elliot in Scrubs treated a patient that suffered this due to a Viagra overdose. A Hurricane of Puns ensue.
- Chris from Skins has this problem in one episode, due to taking a whole lot of viagra. It gets really awkward later when he dances with Angie(whom he likes) and she notices it and leaves.
- In the Spin City episode "Bone Free" it serves as both a plot point and Book Ends, with Randall unable to stand up at a press conference because "while he was seated, the Mayor was fully erect", Mike spent the bulk of the episode finding a plausible medical reason for the Mayor to be unable to stand for a standing ovation, and Mike experiencing the same problem at the end on account of a fantasy about the attractive doctor who explained away the mayor's apparent snub as "sleep deprivation". Never mind that both Carter and Stewart experience the same condition when they're raiding Nikki's apartment to dig up dirt on Nikki's deadbeat boyfriend.
- Supernatural. Sam is having an Erotic Dream when Dean wakes him up because he wants help with some research. Sam awkwardly looks down at his crotch, then pretends to be stretching so he doesn't have to stand up right away.
- That '70s Show combined this trope with a clothed variant of Birthday Suit Surprise Party. Eric has an Erotic Dream about what sort of "gift" Donna might give him for his birthday, only to wake up to family yelling "Surprise!" and serving him breakfast in bed. His parents don't seem to notice how embarrassed he is, but his sister Laurie snarks "Nice tent" before following them out of the room.
- In A Touch of Cloth, Decetive Jack Cloth allows his partner Anne Oldman to interrogate their female suspect, Clare. Anne accuses Clare of killing her husband, due to him having an affair, and then launches into a long and very erotic description of said affair that leaves very few details to the imagination. Jack, meanwhile stands outside and listens to the interrogation, and grows increasingly agitated while listening to it. One of the assisant detectives then hands Jack some photo evidence, and Jack then enters the interrogation room:
Jack: (with a very noticable bulge in his pants) Something's up, and everyone in this room can see what it is!
- A Speculative Fiction-Viagra version happens to Jason in True Blood after he does way, way too much V.
- This apparently happens to Jake during his birthday party on Two and a Half Men after he mistakes Viagra for vitamin pills.
Berta: The kid's gonna need another party hat.
- In one episode of Warehouse 13, Myka complains about Pete not closing his bathrobe in the morning. Pete's response? "That's involuntary, Myka; all guys wake up like that."
- Westworld. A body tech called Destin likes having sex with the deactivated Hosts. Unfortunately, while he's doing this, another Host wakes up and starts killing the techs. When Destin whirls to face his attacker, there's a noticeable bulge in his apron.
- The first time Holly spoons with Ben on What I Like About You, her alarmed Inner Monologue makes the audience aware that the duckies on his boxers are moving.
- Ryan Lochte, on a recent episode of his E! reality TV series What Would Ryan Lochte Do?, was shown laying in his bed, admiring his prodigious, erm... rudder.
- The entire premise of this The Whitest Kids U' Know sketch.
- In the episode of The X-Files about a genie, Mulder brings Scully evidence of a possible past owner of a genie. Aside from becoming an overnight millionaire, he was hospitalized for "Chronic Morbid Tumescence". This was apparently a side effect of a wish because when he was wheeled in they also had to raise the doorframe.
- The infamous "Erection Steve" from the British Talent Show Xtra Factor. To be fair, he is in the vicinity of Cheryl Cole (whose reaction is priceless).
- The Young Ones: One episode has Neil locked out of his room while taking a bath, and forced to walk around covering his privates with a pot. At one point he moves his hands and the pot stays on...
Music
- The Replacements' song "Gary's Got A Boner".
- '80s Hair Metal band Dangerous Toys had a song titled "Sportin' a Woody"
- "Erection" by The Faint.
- In any genre where you have men in tight pants this trope is almost guaranteed to happen at least once on stage. Usually far, far more often than that, although it's almost always desired to show off.
- Has become Memetic Mutation for Yoshiki of X Japan and Violet UK, alongside jokes that he either has a camera fetish or takes a certain blue pill before photoshoots and shows, due to the somewhat large and growing collection of pictures from photoshoots and performances. It's also arguable that if it is on purpose, it is as much as a subversive protest against Japanese censorship ideals (and possibly Western racist stereotypes regarding Asian men) as much as it is for fanservice.
- "Morning Wood" by Rodney Carrington.
- Also "Dear Penis"
- Also "Dear Penis
- Paul and Storm reference this in their "Rejected Commercial Jingles" segment Twister.
- "Too Close (You're Making It Hard For Me)" by Next is about the singer getting a boner while dancing with a girl. Indeed, the first line of the song (album version) goes as follows:
I wonder if she can tell I'm hard right now? Hmm...
- Played for Laughs with Ninja Sex Party's songs "No Reason Boner" and "Everybody Shut Up (I Have an Erection)".
- Barenaked Ladies - "A"
"A's for arousal, you are giving me an erection/C'mon I'm trying to show affection/For longer than a half an hour"
- ZZ Top's "Woke Up With Wood". It doesn't get more obvious than that, folks.
- Runnner's boner: K.T. Oslin mentions seeing a runner with one - much to her delight in "Younger Men":
Whoah, look over here
We got a cute little ol' runner to right
Blue shorts, no shirt
Whoo! You're lookin' good darling
That's right, stay in shape - Mentioned multiple times in J. Cole's "Wet Dreamz": "That's when my heart starts racing and my body start sweatin'/Baby, you done woke my lil' man up" and "I'm in her crib, now a nigga palms' sweatin'/With a pocket full of rubbers and an erection".
- An entire song by the band Luce on the subject ("In the Middle There"):
There was a mutual attraction in a woman and a man
But it was me who had the growing situation on his hands
So I just stood there in the middle there - The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Sir Psycho Sexy" gives us this lyric:
Deep inside the Garden of Eden
I'm standin' there with my hard-on bleedin'
There's a devil in my dick and some demons in my semen
Good God no, that would be treason - This is the basis for the punchline of "The Hermit" by The Irish Rovers. The eponymous hermit, using a hat to hide his nakedness from three pretty girls, finds that he can simply hang it upon his crotch.
- "Walk With An Erection", a Bangles parody by the German band J.B.O., is about a guy who spots a hot woman at an open air bath and prompty pops a boner. He spends the second verse trying to conceal it. In the third verse, he decides to flaunt it on a springboard. But then it gets caught in the ladder, and his swim trunks rip open...
- Played for Laughs with a Hurricane of Puns in the Four Bitchin Babes song "Viagra in the Waters", where a truckload of viagra gets in the town's water supply.
Down at the courthouse coffee shop
Some stared in disbelief
As a pack of thirsty lawyers
Started filling out their briefs
Professional Wrestling
- John Cena thinks that Trish Stratus is utterly gorgeous. So when Santa gives her to him as an early Christmas present (she was his partner in a mixed tag team match in December) he can't help but show how... well, how excited he is.
- Midway through the first full Women Of Honor show, Casanova Wannabe Matt Taven decided to take a seat at the commentary table. This was a mistake.
"I should have worn sweat pants."
Theater
- One pubescent male character in the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee gets an "unfortunate erection" in the middle of the titular bee. This being a musical, of course, he has a song about it.
- Angels in America: The Angel's approach makes men... turgid.
The Angel: The stiffening of your penis is of no consequence!Prior: Yeah, try telling it that.
- In the London production of Be More Chill the main character Jeremy gets this a couple times. First when his crush Christine puts his hand over her heart (and in the process something else) and then again when he gets sandwiched between hot girls Chloe and Brooke.
- "Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love" from A Chorus Line, being a montage of adolescent experiences, touches on this subject.
- In Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the male characters wear hilariously large codpieces to show their, er, mounting frustration at their women refusing to sleep with them.
Visual Novels
- In Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Monokid has a tendency of shouting about having a rock-hard rager specifically for blood, guts, brains, and Monophanie puking.
- In Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia, Kazushi's friends want to help him resolve his sexual tension with Sakura. So what do they do? Well, obviously they trick him into taking a strange pill which gives him a raging boner, and then lock them in a storeroom for several hours. Hilarity Ensues.
- Played twice for humor with Shirou hiding his in Type-Moon's other Visual Novel Fate/stay night, once by Saber, and once by Illya.
- A Running Gag in True Love Junai Monogatari is how the Chivalrous Pervert of a Player Character gets those in the worst moments possible (in an example, when giving CPR to a pretty girl he's just saved from drowning), and he's greatly embarrassed.
- Happens to Shiki waking up one morning in the Visual Novel Tsukihime. His personal meido who comes to wake him up is either oblivious to why he's staying under his blanket or is deliberately trying to embarrass him. Hilarious, right? Then on Ciel's route, it becomes extremely unfunny when he can't get it down for a much more serious reason: his body is no longer solely his own, and now Shiki has urges to kill people and gets off on it. This requires... you guessed it... a Deus Sex Machina to resolve.
- In Chapter 1 of World End Economica, after Hal and Hagana wake up together in bed in the morning (nothing sexual happened; they were working together late, he went to bed first and she just climbed into his bed once she was done rather than returning to her room), Hagana gets up and stretches while Hal observes he's trapped where he is by "the phenomenon called 'morning glory'".
Web Animation
- Frequently shows up in YouTube Poop, especially involving Militron's most infamous quote:
You must be HARDENED WITH FIRE!
- The memorable "Chicken Rush" scene from Bill Plympton's "Hair High" (2004), available to watch in Plymptoons Online (NSFW)
- Dick Tucker, the easily aroused secret agent from the Cyanide and Happiness shorts pretty much speaks for himself.
Webcomics
- Bronze Skin Inc.: Dante keeps telling himself "Don't get a boner" while working.
- Visibly tented pants come up occasionally in Concession, but generally no attention is drawn to them. That said, there is an erection-based joke here.
- Cyanide and Happiness:
- Inverted in this comic.
- Dick Tucker: The Easily-Aroused-Super-Secret-Agent.
- Inverted in this comic
- In one strip of Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, Smokey wakes up and notices that he's harder than he's been for twenty years. Then he notices that the erection is on the side of the bed he isn't.
- After the first on-screen battle in Grrl Power, Hiro has to cover up, due to Clothing Damage; he uses a slab of concrete. Anvil arranges things so that he's pressed against Maxima, who has her own lesser clothing damage. She can still tell, through the concrete. (The Author Note does state that, while Maxima doesn't exactly try to get that reaction, she does find it a little flattering that she's still attractive enough for it to happen, even if occasionally.)
- In an update of Homestuck, BrainClone Dirk threatens to give one to Jake. He does.
Jake: NO PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT GIVE ME A BONER DIRK!!!
- When Rayne for Least I Could Do encounters a particularly hot woman, he occasionally gets an erection big enough to cause him to fall forward.
- In an early strip of Questionable Content, Faye hugs Marten and decides to pretend he has a roll of quarters in his pocket.
- In Rain (2010), this is Played for Drama when it happens to Rain, who, as a transfeminine teen, finds this not only embarrassing but also dysphoria inducing, which makes her depressed.
- Sandra and Woo: Cloud seeing Sandra in a swimsuit.
Cloud: No! Not now!
Cloud's groin: You can no longer tell me what to do!- Then it gets worse as Sandra notices, and all girls present (including his own mother) proceed to tease him about it.
- In Skins, Rabbit meets Tyr in the elevator after having had an intense Homoerotic Dream about him the night before. In the last panel, he looks away blushing, hands cupped over his groin.
- Punchline in Super Stupor once made a joke about this.
- Tony Comics has Mike get one while he and Rhonda are asleep in bed together. It's implied that it was rubbing against her and she mistook it for the remote.
- Tripping Over You:
- Happens to Liam when he's kissed by his so-far best friend Milo. Well, he is a teenager, but he doesn't take it too well when Milo makes an insensitive joke about this, since they happen to be in a public washroom at the time.
- Liam is heavily implied to turn the tables on Milo when he asks if they want to have Their First Time: Milo crosses his legs in Stunned Silence, and Liam looks at Milo's lap, deliberately lies across it, and rubs himself against it.
- In TwoKinds, Natani wakes up in bed after having spent the night with Keith (not sexually). Then she feels he has morning wood, and quickly gets up.
- Venus Envy has the main character Zoë, transfeminine teen trying to hide the huge erection she's having due to seeing both a hot new guy, and her school's football team running around shirtless.
Web Original
- Cody gets one in "Bowser Junior's Summer School Part 3" when watching Toad's "Educational" Music Video (read: a rap accompanying a girl shaking her ass).
Cody: Nooooo... my elephant feels funny...
- Played for comedic effect a few times in reviews from The Cinema Snob. Evidently, his penis is around 10 inches long, and at one point he even taps it to show that he's gotten literally rock hard from the scene in question.
- Cracked once did a Photoshop contest on "Worst Possible Time to Get an Erection".
- Dolan, here and in many other cartoons.
- Echo Chamber: "Why doesn't she like me? It's like she couldn't even see my boner!
- Flander's Company: In the Japan Expo episode, Dr. Parker suffers from this while interviewing Andromalia (a succubus). Hippolyte gets away with just a Nose Bleed, but only by thinking about lots of dead puppies.
- In the second episode of Team Four Star's version of Hellsing Ultimate Abridged, Jan Valentine's comment at watching Cute Monster Girl Seras Victoria rip through his ghouls like paper with an almost sexual Slasher Smile on her face? "Well, at least I'm going to die with a raging boner."
- Also, Alucard prefers to argue with Integra over the phone because the argument gives him a boner, so doing it in person is "Super Awkward."
- Speaking of Alucard, some individuals of questionable appearances and gender identities cause him to harden quickly.
(on seeing Schrodinger for the first time): Ah, the return of the "why" boner... with a vengeance!
(on noting that Integra has aged significantly): Y'know, you do look like a genderbent Walter... and it may be the thirty-year dry spell, but that is doing it for me!
(the blooper version of the above line): Y'know, you do look like a genderbent Walter... "Why Boner 3: THE RECKONIIIIIIIING!!"
- How to Hide an Unwanted Erection
- Soundman Steven, the man behind the soundboards during Kakos Industries corporate shareholder announcements, has had an erection that has lasted for years. It first went up when Corin Deeth III set up their first studio for the announcements and never went down. It is so prodigious that Corin is uncomfortable with the idea of allowing Creepy Child Darkmother Belladonnica in the same room with him, though he acknowledges that one has nothing to do with the other. The episode "Momento Mori" is all about a memorial service for Soundman Steven's erection following its being accidentally shot by Corin at the end of the previous episode.
- The Key of Awesome's take on this.
- Catherine Zeta-Jones causes this in The Nostalgia Critic.
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Theater Superhero Tryouts features Awkward Boner Hug Man. Uncomfortably.
- Whateley Universe:
- Phase mostly looks like a very pretty 14-year-old girl, but still has male genitals and thoughts. And he showers with the girls in the morning. Several of whom are superhumanly attractive. He spends a lot of time brushing his teeth every morning, in front of the most strategically placed mirror in the room.
- Later in the series, when his new (and not at all welcome) roommate, Vamp shows up, the two start out the first morning by elbowing each other for room at the mirrors. Eventually Vamp (who is both intersexed and pansexual) gives up, but gives not before throwing a Take That! at Ayla: she stood and saluted him, then explained that she was waiting to see if he would 'run a flag up that pole'.
- http://www.awkwardboners.com
- Similarly, an oft-posted one-panel comic (source unknown) is a man looking down at his tented pants.
Man: Stop it, boner.
Man's Groin: No.
- Similarly, an oft-posted one-panel comic (source unknown) is a man looking down at his tented pants.
- Kaiba gets these in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series whenever the topic of the Egyptian God cards comes up.
Western Animation
- American Dad!:
- Steve's friend Snot pops wood at the drop of a hat and has many different names for it.
- Steve himself is almost as susceptible, at one point getting one after being slapped by Toshi's sister, Akiko.
- And again when he and Akiko have their first kiss.
- Also when he saw Akiko in the Chun-Li costume on Halloween.
- In one episode, Roger, Francine, Hayley, and Steve are having an extremely slow race to see who will hit the living room wall last. After Roger trips Hayley, causing her to knock over Francine, he then defeats Steve by simply mentioning the word 'boner', causing Steve's penis to hit the wall with an audible thump.
- Stan also gets one after Francine describes an explicit shower scene with her and several bullies at school.
- He also got one while masturbating, but he heard Francine coming into the room but unable to calm himself in time, he just turns his back on her while remaining pantsless.
- Snot again when he tries unsuccessfully to "dick knob" Francine.
- Batman and Harley Quinn. While not shown to the viewer, Nightwing gets one while Chained to a Bed and seeing Harley in her underwear. She most definitely notices it (his legs are spread and he's wearing superhero tights) and decides to take advantage.
- Beavis and Butt-Head:
- There was an entire episode which centered on the morning wood. It turned out the reason for it was a "Morning Wood Fairy".
- In another episode, they go to get their hair cut from a buxom hairstylist. Just being near her breasts while she shampoos their hair gives them erections that last all day. She waits so long for them to go down that Todd shows up and decides to cut their hair himself so that he can take her out on a date.
- In another one, they go to an erectile dysfunction clinic, somehow concluding they can score there. Given a test to see how long an erection they sustain looking at provocative pictures, they look at the first picture and pretty much stay up the rest of the session. And when Beavis' starts to go down, Butthead reminds him that they get to have sex with the girls after, it's right back up.
- Drawn Together. In episode 1, Spanky Ham puts a lampshade on his p3n1s and it stays up. Also, it is physically shown later in the episode.
- Family Guy: Peter Griffin once had this happen while riding on a motorcycle:
Cleveland: Hey, Peter, what the—
Peter: It's the vibration.- Another episode took place at a Rennaisance Faire. As a busty woman in a low-cut dress walked by a row of men in armor, each one emitted a clanking sound...except for Mort Goldman, who simply said "Ding!"
- In the episode "The Last Mabelcorn" of Gravity Falls this is implied when Dipper puts on a machine that shows his thoughts and there are several about seeing Wendy in a bathing suit.
"MAYBE IF I CROSS MY LEGS, NO ONE WILL NOTICE."
- Peanut from Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. His shield went off when he hit "superty".
- Referenced in Littlest Pet Shop (2012) of all shows. In "Game of Groans", there is a Renaissance Fair, and Blythe's love interest Josh Sharp dresses as a tights-wearing lute player. While the two are talking, Josh looks down, gets embarrassed, and puts his lute over his crotch, while Blythe looks pleased with what she sees and speaks in a flirty tone. This occurs at around 15:35.
- Moral Orel. In the episode "Sundays" at the 7:55 mark, Florence says the word "erotic" which is enough to give Reverend Putty an erection, which he soon covers up before walking into the church slowly.
- In the episode "Brain Eraser" of Regular Show, this trope is somewhat subtly implied when Mordecai catches a glimpse of Pops naked as Pops is getting out of the shower. Pops shrieks in a panic and covers his crotch with his top hat... which somehow stays in place after he removes his hands.
- Robot Chicken:
- A fake advertisement for a toy called "Morning Wood". It was Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a piece of wood that you play with in the morning.
Bruce Campbell: Hello, I'm Bruce Campbell, and I can't start my day without waxing my morning wood.
- Another skit involves Sailor Moon where a monster was aroused by her sexual poses. They decided not to fight since his erection ruined the moment. The next part has the monster aroused by Queen Beryl's anger. Lastly, she's apparently aroused by Sailor Moon after looking at her picture.
Queen Beryl: Anime sure is weird.
- In the He-Man skit "Eternia Fitplex", Triclops serves as Skeletor's spotter while he's lifting weights, but then he spies the Sorceress exercising and gets a boner, disgusting Skeletor and causing him to drop the weight on himself.
- A fake advertisement for a toy called "Morning Wood". It was Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a piece of wood that you play with in the morning.
- The Simpsons:
- One of Springfield's surprising number of prisons is called Morningwood Penitentiary.
- Although nothing is shown, Skinner suffers from an unwanted erection after Bart spikes his coffee with Viagra.
- South Park: Jimmy had a problem with awkwardly-timed erections in "Erection Day", and not even sleeping with a hooker helped.
- The Venture Bros.:
- A nearly-drowned Hank is given mouth-to-mouth from Molotov. He acts suave and worldly until he sees the erection in his shorts, and runs screaming "My pants are haunted!!!", after dealing with the ghosts of an Indian burial ground earlier in the day.
- Molotov Cocktease gave one to Brock as well while beating each other up.
Brock Sampson: I gotta take care of something.
- Another episode had 21 sneaking in at night to capture Hank and Dean while they were sleeping, only to discover that Dean had one of these when he pulled off his blanket.
- In another episode, Shore Leave snuck up to an enemy mook and grabbed him from behind.
Mook: Okay, just take your gun out of my back!Shore Leave: Oh, that's not my gun. *holds out a pistol* This is my gun. That is how excited I am to be doing this to you!
