Lingerie Scene

Sophia Loren in the 1964 film Marriage Italian Style

A lingerie scene is one in which a female character removes her clothes to reveal undergarments. This exposes cleavage and usually quite a bit of skin, but still hides those indecent things known as nipples, so it is not as risqué as a topless scene. In most cases, the titillation factor is intended to be about as high as if a man had gone shirtless in the same situation.

A subtrope of Fan Service. See also: Vapor Wear.

Examples of Lingerie Scene include:

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Anime & Manga

  • The very first anime to feature a lingerie scene was Toei Doga's Mahou no Mako-chan, (1970). An updated version of Anderson's The Little Mermaid, the series' coming-of-age motif allowed the heroine to be depicted in her underwear (and even nude in several episodes).
  • Once the precedent had been set in Mako, the trope became a standard feature of early seventies anime. Teenaged girls were shown disrobing on the flimsiest pretexts, ostensibly for comedic value (although the Fan Service element was blunt-force obvious to the casual observer). The gratuitous stripteases were toned down considerably after 1975 (probably due to the controversies surrounding Cutie Honey), although Panty Shots still remained commonplace until the end of the decade. Typical examples include:
  • Lingerie scenes underwent a renaissance during the "anime explosion" of the 1980s, as sexual humor began to pervade every possible genre of the artform. One of the most notable examples was Studio Pierrot's Maicchingu Machiko Sensei, in which the title character found herself publicly disrobed on a weekly basis.
  • Despite stiff opposition from Japanese P.T. groups, Fan Service and Ecchi became extremely popular in 80s manga and anime, even in those aimed at younger female audiences. One suspects that the Parental Bonus outweighed the moral issues at hand. Commonplace examples include:
  • Fairly common in more recent anime as well: in Minami-ke, Kana has one of these when her younger sister unexpectedly brings home company, giving the entire group an eyeful of Kana in her bra. Also occurs twice for Haruka: When she unbuttons her shirt in front of cross-dressing Makoto, giving him a nice view of her turquoise bra and ample cleavage, and another where she falls asleep after unbuttoning her shirt, then wakes up while not remembering that she is exposed, thus inadvertently giving Touma's brother ample view of her feminine attributes.
  • Parodied in Urusei Yatsura. Lum normally wears a tiger-striped bikini, but in school she often wears a school uniform. There is one scene where Lum starts taking off her uniform in the middle of class to reveal the bikini, and the guys are all drooling over her until someone says, "Isn't that what she wears anyway?"
  • The first time Kyon from Suzumiya Haruhi enters the SOS clubroom, Mikuru is changing inside. And that is not the only one. Haruhi changing in the class room and the second changing-scene with Mikuru.
  • The more Fan Service-filled first season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has the underaged main character sleepily doing this in front of her suddenly flustered Mentor Mascot, Yuuno.
  • Any Lingerie Scene from Ranma in Ranma ½ is usually treated as a very shocking event for the cast, since "she" absolutely despises wearing women's underwear, and has only relented while under extreme duress. Oddly enough, there is a time she forgets she is wearing male underwear when trying to flash a particularly perverted Orochi.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima does this sometimes. Notably, there is a full chapter of conversation between Asuna and Setsuna, during which they are getting dressed for their upcoming battle. The conversation is apparently so engrossing that they don't realize how they are dressing until finished.
    • There is also the incident where a demon appears on campus and kidnaps Asuna. When Negi goes to rescue her, she's inexplicably wearing fancy lingerie. The demon explains that it helps complete the Damsel in Distress look.
      • It also seemed to have magically enhanced her bust, which the demon was gesturing towards as he made the comment.
  • Mirai Nikki: Yuno has two: when she's imprisoned Yukki and chained him to a chair, and another following having sex with Yukki where she chases him around with an axe while wearing her bra and panties.
  • The second episode of Bakemonogatari had a Lingerie Scene that lasted nine minutes.
  • Occurs in Gunsmith Cats on a regular basis.


Comics

  • Contrary to the general consensus, this particular trope has a long and distinguished history in news-strips and comic books, particularly those of the "spicy" variety.
    • Making her debut in Britain's Daily Mirror, Norman Pett's Jane (1932) usually fell out of her clothes in less time than it takes to read this sentence. The "strip" continued for another 27 years.
    • On the other side of the Atlantic, Sally the Sleuth (Adolphe Barreaux, 1934) would lose her dress somewhere on the first page, spending the remainder of the story in her underwear. Solving the crime was considered an unnecessary distraction by most readers.
    • By the 1940s, hotblooded American troops were being entertained by the likes of Bill Ward's Torchy and Milt Caniff's Miss Lace (presumably because flesh-and-blood women were unavailable on the frontline).
  • In the US, lingerie scenes were effectively banned by the Comics Code in 1955, but fortunately, these restrictions didn't extend to the news industry. Mainstream features like On Stage, Apartment 3-G and The Heart of Juliet Jones spiced up the melodrama with the occasional striptease.
  • Meanwhile, back in Merry Old England, lingerie scenes were the main drawcard of the Sunday supplement. By the time Jane ended in 1959, Bond girls were already appearing in The Daily Express, and Jim Holdaway's Romeo Brown was being duped by scantily-clad seductresses. Modesty Blaise started a few years later in 1963—a strip so rife with black underwear that the American press hesitated to publish it.
    • For more on the subject of black underwear, check the comics section of the relevant article.
  • More recent examples: Vicki Vale's first appearance in All-Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder is her strutting around her apartment in frilly pink knickers. This lasts for about three pages. The author's commentary admits, "Okay, I'm shameless. Let's go for the ass shot."


Films -- Live-Action


Literature

  • An unusual one occurs in 1634: The Bavarian Crisis when the Habsburg Archduchess Maria Anna is delivered to her husband-to-be, Duke Maximillian of Bavaria. At the border, she is undressed to her shift and redressed in clothes provided by Maximillian's family, in front of the entire procession. Naturally, some of the teenage nobles present have to be kept from showing too much interest.


Live-Action TV

  • The Benny Hill Show. Benny Hill is practically synonymous with the term gratuitous lingerie scene. Every single episode, like clockwork, on the flimsiest pretext imaginable.
  • One notable example is Sex and the City, where Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) never removes her bra during sex scenes, while her castmates do. The weird part is that in previous scenes she's usually not wearing a bra underneath her top.
  • In the Doctor Who episode "Terminus", Nyssa strips down to her underwear. According to the companion novel she was feeling ill, but this is never explained in the script. This was Nyssa's last episode and the actress wanted to please the male fans.
    • Later in the story, she tackles a male character to the ground and sits on him to pin him down. Still in her underwear. He doesn't look too unhappy about the whole thing.
  • On Neighbours, Dichen Lachman as Katya gives us a bonzer.
  • On Alias, Jennifer Garner opened an episode in lingerie while seducing an enemy agent. And this episode aired right after the Super Bowl.
  • In the "Liquid Visions" episode of Baywatch Hawaii, Jessie Owens, Kekoa Tanake and Allie Reese [dead link] strip down to their bras and panties to rescue a capsized sailboat.


Music Video

  • In the alternate version of "My Prerogative", Britney Spears wears only her bra and panties throughout the entire song.

Toys

  • A lot of the earlier clothing sets for Barbie included lingerie. They stopped selling lingerie for Barbie around 2000. Since Barbie was intended for little girls, some of the lingerie actually resemble gowns. Which Barbie will wear either underneath a fancy dress or when she is sleeping.
    • Two Barbie-themed magnetic board books features such illustrations on one of their pages: one book had Barbie and her friend Teresa stripped down to their undergarments at a store so they can put on some dresses (one pink and one blue, both are magnets); Barbie wore a light blue undershirt with dark blue straps and a decorative ribbon on her bustline that exposed her midriff and white panties with pink and blue polka dots on them, while Teresa wore a pink undershirt with faint hearts vertical stripes on them and white straps and decorative ribbon (also on her bustline) that went down to her waist and horizontal rainbow-striped panties; while in the other book Barbie is a bridesmaid at a wedding, and at one point both Barbie and the young bride-to-be are revealed to be wearing gowns under their pink bridesmaid dress and wedding dress (also magnets), respectively; Barbie wore a plain lavender ankle-length gown with a black lace outline, straps, and decorative ribbon; while the bride wore a white floor-length gown with a peach flower pattern, straps, and decorative ribbon (they probably slept in them when not under their dresses).


Video Games

  • This supplemental art of Tiffany Lords, from Rival Schools.
  • Dragon Age has a strange example involving both women and men; there's a scene where your party must remove all of their equipment (armor/clothing included) and walk through fire in their undies as part of a test of worthiness. Results in Fan Service, Fan Disservice, or both, depending on who you have in your party at the time.
  • Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 and 3 are all set up so that the most undressed any character gets is down to their underwear. The first Mass Effect did include videos involving naked people and Censor Steam, Mass Effect 3 does a reasonably good job of placing the camera to obscure the fact that characters are still wearing underwear for any relevant scenes.


Web Comics

  • Agatha from Girl Genius, especially during the earlier middle part of the story. She sleeps in her underwear, so when somnambulance strikes, that's what she'll be wearing when she's found sleeping in a lab the next morning. Repeatedly. Slightly played with in that her underwear is actually pretty tame by modern standards, essentially consisting of a corset and long johns that have most of her body covered, but by Victorian standards it's remarkably indecent.


Western Animation


Real Life

  • 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. You all remember the moment.
    • Mocked in a later commercial. Two guys are playing Foosball with Brandi Chastain, and she wins. The guys and everyone stop to see what's coming... "What?" she asks, and goes about her business.
    • Parodied about fifteen years before it happened on Alas Smith and Jones, when they wonder why they've gone to a women's football match. Then the game ends, and the players all swap shirts...
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