GOOD (INNOCENT) REASONS TO GET SOMEONE'S
CLOTHES OFF
Compiled by the members of a Blake's 7
mailing list (with later additions by other people)
- Bath/shower. Dull maybe, but plausible and then you only need
a good reason for someone to interrupt. One has to envy
Jeeves/ Wooster writers: in what other fandom is it canon that one
man bathes another?
- Getting soaked and hypothermic (necessitating cuddles as well).
- Having to swim.
- Back rubs (still sexy after all these years).
- Injury/illness. Variant: having to remove clothing
soiled by illness.
- Bruises/ friction burns due to riding bikes. Variant: skin
irritation due to too much leather too close to skin.
- Being sold as slave. Reasonable - you'd want to check out the
merchandise, wouldn't you?
- Strip-search. Variant: Having all clothing confiscated
because captors fear you're concealing James Bond style gadgets in
them.
- Having to space clothes to lessen weight of shuttle.
- Being disturbed while asleep in one's own (or someone else's)
cabin.
- Clothing catching fire.
- Spilling food, drink or other substances on clothing.
- Getting changed for purposes of disguise or attending formal
occasions. Variant: changing clothes for dinner.
- People have varying ideas of how much clothing to remove when
putting a drunk/unconscious companion to bed. Variant: Stripping a
drunk on the pretense that they're going to throw up over their only
set of clothes.
- Squirrel up the trouser leg (looking for nuts, presumably).
- Plagued by leeches! (ew!) Variant: discovering noxious
insects in underwear.
- Clothes eaten overnight due to hanging them up on carnivorous
plant.
- One's crewmate(s) hobby is drawing or taking pictures,
and one has been persuaded to pose.
- Having to reveal tattoo/ birthmark to prove identity.
- Sacrifice clothing for other use e.g.. bandaging wounds/
diapering orphaned infants/ distracting tracking animals/ turn
waterproof stuff into rain catchers/ cook & eat leather, etc. (they
are
in real trouble at this point).
- Getting leather clothing wet & having it shrink around
delicate parts to point of severe discomfort.
- Having to get at secret information/invaluable component which
was taped to skin to hide it (unlikely to get completely naked for
this- but chests are nice, too).
- Having to disrobe to fit in with rest of people in vicinity
(nudists, strippers, prostitutes, sun worshippers, etc.).
- Getting clothing ripped off by barbed wire/guard animals/
broken glass, etc.
- Giving clothing to someone Who Needs it More. (Canonical:
Blake giving his jacket to the Avalon android) Although unlikely to
result in complete strip.
- Taking clothing off because you're about to do something messy
(disposing of bloody corpse/ crawling into ductwork/ etc.)
& you'll need your clothes undamaged later. (Probably would leave
on underpants - unless you hadn't any on to start with).
- Having been held by enemy & starved to point clothes won't
stay on you. (Doesn't seem likely to lead to a sex scene as you won't
have the strength).
- Discovering that enemy has put tracking device/ mini-bomb etc.
in your clothes, but not knowing which garments.
- Discovering that lovely tight leather outfit will not
allow you to kneel when you must kneel. (Actual -IIRC: PD
having to be put in his place by DJ during a scene whilst wearing the
Infamous Lobster Trousers).
- Inspecting oneself thoroughly for evidence of alien
interference after waking up face down in the middle of a crop circle.
- Red Dwarf- Underwear replaced by shape shifting genetic
mutant.
- Nudist planet. Well, you never know!
- Amnesia: Need to check name sewn into underwear (Could
be confusing, as in Calvin Klein {Back to the Future}).
- Call of nature while wearing jumpsuit.
- Inspecting someone who may or may not have been exposed to a
nasty infectious alien disease which manifests in its earliest
stages with a rash in intimate places one can't see oneself
without the aid of strategically placed mirrors.
- The teleport malfunctions and will only transport living
organic material. (Yes, yes, à la the old Star Trek joke).
- Getting splashed with caustic chemical/ drug that can be
absorbed through skin/something that makes you ill (allergy/horrible
smell)/ something that attracts danger (syrup over ant-hill/ pheromones
/etc.)/ radioactive particles suspended in fluid/ flammable liquid/ etc.
- Wearing protective clothing while standing next to something
producing vast quantities of sparks, and discovering the hard way that
you forgot to do up one of the fly buttons.
- Strip poker/twister (well, this is a relatively
innocent reason).
- Wandering somewhere accidentally while resting/sleeping naked
in a strange building, e.g. a hotel, and having the door lock behind
one. Variant:The one that happens
all too frequently at University Halls of Accomodation. Namely
getting a shower and then returning to room only to discover you've
just locked yourself out.
- You and two other extremely sexually attractive people
are stuck on a wonderful alien ship for four months following
a prison ship, and you haven't figured out how to get the
computer to work and wash your one set of clothes properly or
found the wardrobe room or how to use the
teleport to get
off and find a launderette and/or clothes shop.
- Shrinking or blowing up the crew to such a size that the
clothes would not fit. It would have to work only on living
organic matter otherwise Avon would stay clothed. Variant: one of the
scientists they meet/ kidnap/ get killed is Dr. David Bruce Banner.
- Getting one's clothing caught in machinery. Variant: trap
doors shutting too soon/ gear wheels in engine/ bits inside really big
computers.
- Being struck by lightning - shredding the clothes off your
back.
- Prove that you are not wearing a wire. In an SF context:
Prove that you are not a mutoid in disguise.
- Sleepwalking? Sleep-climbing-into-someone-else's
-bed-while-they're-in-it. (assuming you sleep nude, this works.)
Variant: climbing into someone's bed, or even tripping over it, through
being too drunk to walk straight in a hotel room.
- Pulling the covers off someone else's bed to reveal that they
habitually sleep naked.
- Kilts and high winds.
- Getting locked in hot room with the temperature steadily
rising Variant: being in a normally hot room, just getting comfortable.
- Being dosed with a poison that only the sun's rays can
counteract. Must maximize amount of skin contact with beneficial
solar radiation to avoid hideous death.
- Exposure to chemicals creates temporary extreme tactile
sensitivity, to the point where the sensation of clothes on skin
becomes unbearable. (Unfortunately, nookie would also be out of the
question).
- In order to acquire some mineral or other, the crew have to
make a deal with the local pseudo-primitives. The most important part
of the deal is a ceremony. And those participating in the ceremony must
be "skyclad".
- The Hitchhikers Guide invention that made all the molecules
in someone's clothes leap 3 feet to the right or thereabouts. (Think
this was the Ultimate Improbability Drive).
- A man has such wonderful tattoos that he gets declared
a national artistic treasure -if he has to exhibit his artwork to
the public.
- Ship's clothing has a standard life span and disintegrates
after that.
- Hiding from hostile aliens by destroying all clothes &
pretending to be an animal (saw this once in a story set on a zoo
ship). The hero was trying to delay matters until his reinforcements
arrived.
- In an ill-fated attempt to embarrass Servalan at her
inaugural "do", ex-members of the High Council club together and
buy an "Avonagram" stripper for the party. Avon finds out about
this, and substitutes himself for the lookalike, so that he can
get close to her and kill her (or something).
- Cloth-eating bacteria and/or fungus.
- Communal Living eroding nudity taboos. Variant: Undressing in
communal changing room. Variant: Communal shower. Variant: Being
forced to share cramped accommodation (the undressing may only be
temporary, but it will happen).
- Walking into a room/house to discover that its occupant
habitually wanders around naked (either going to/from the
bathroom,
or just because they like it :-)
- Hallucinations- thinking you're burning up, your clothes are
attacking you/ you're been strangled by them, etc. you rip them
off.
- You're wearing a knit-in-one-length outfit and someone
steps on a trailing thread and unravels you (Dr. Who -Tom Baker era-
scarf joke).
- From The Road to Hell fanfic- Blake, in prison, is
dressed in 'paper analog' coveralls which are shredded in the escape.
Avon found him some real ones, but ...
- In one of the Stainless Steel Rat books, Slippery Jim
has been captured and dressed in a completely transparent plastic
outfit. The idea is to keep him physically comfortable but under
psychological pressure, since he's to all intents and purposes nude and
having his attention drawn to this fact.
- Your clothes mark you as enemy, either it's a uniform, or a
plaid of the wrong clan, etc.
- Comparing tattooed treasure maps.
- Forced to strip before entering a stadium because clothes are
marked with a competing product's brand
to the company which owns the right to promote within the stadium.
(Actually
happened in June of 2006. Up to 1,000 Netherlands fans watched a World
Cup
Soccer match in
their underpants
.)
- Person who is sensitive about weight,
and fears he's gained some, insists on stripping completely to weigh
himself
(not wanting any excess ounces).
- Getting a chemical spilt on which dissolves clothing.
- Being abandoned on a planet for so long clothing is now in
tatters.
- Getting something noxious on clothing and hence getting
rid otherwise the enemy won't need to see you they can smell you coming.
As example: invading enemy base by going through the waste ducts.
- Being incarcerated a long time without being allowed to shower
or change. Add interrogation to that and perfect excuse for a bit of
TLC.
( I just made the page come down this far so people could see the
Blake photo better.)