Dr. Horrible and the sex lives of love interests (spoiler alert!)

Well, I'll lose my cred if I don't say something about the sexy, sexy Dr. Horrible. Who already HAS his Ph.D., thank you very much.

I loved it. The characters are quirky and loveable, the music is infectious (I can't get "All the birds are singing THAT YOU'RE GONNA DIE" out of my head). I loved, loved, loved the groupies (which is why I picked the only banner where they appear). I'll admit I was skeptical for the first 60 seconds, but in the end I watched it twice.

If you haven't seen it, do. But stop reading now.

Ok, now the feminist meta commentary. And spoilers. You are warned!

There is something about the (always female) love interests of superheroes and supervillians. They can date the wrong people. They can get engaged to the wrong people. They can even get to the alter in a white dress before realizing this is the wrong person. But they MAY NOT HAVE SEX with the wrong person.

I never thought about this until it became clear that Penny had slept with Captain Hammer. And then my gut said, "She and Dr. Horrible will never be an item now. I wonder how they are going to resolve that." I actually thought that perhaps she would wind up rejecting them both and walking away from the whole superhero/supervillian scene. But it was clear to me that Dr. Horrible's crush would be forever unrequited. (The actual resolution was very interesting and well done; my point is only that there are certain unspoken rules for the genre as a whole.)

Of course, this is a trope in comic books but not in real life, where people (male and female) sleep with the wrong people all the time, and those who really love them often forgive them for it. But there is something about the women of super-guys that invokes the mores of a patriarchy. Their sexuality is restricted; pre-martial sex can only lead to marriage... or death.

Discuss.