"When the body is naked, so is the soul! Get to strippin' down!"
— Kiyotaka Ishimaru, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
This trope is when a character goes without clothing to demonstrate that they have nothing to hide from those around them and are not a threat.
There are a few reasons why someone might do this. The character in question could be trying to earn someone's trust by proving they don't have a Hidden Wire or Hidden Weapons. Perhaps the heroes are facing infiltration attempts from inhuman beings, or maybe just members of the opposite sex into a single-sex setting, and they respond by going about their business naked so the infiltrators will be unable to hide their true nature. Sometimes, characters deliberately meet in locations where they have to take off their clothes, such as massage parlors or saunas.
This trope may lead to a Full-Frontal Assault if the character is forced to defend himself or the character invoking it is being dishonest and just used this trope to make themselves look less threatening, and then using the opportunity to attack.
Sister Trope to Naked Vulnerability, which deals with more symbolic emotional vulnerability rather than "I'm not carrying any concealed device." Compare Shameless Fanservice Girl, whose rejection of nudity taboos could be motivated by this reasoning. See also, Out-of-Clothes Experience and A Spy at the Spa.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Digimon Adventure 02: Invoked in one episode where Deputymon strips off articles of his clothing to show the Digidestined that he's not wearing a Dark Ring and isn't a servant of the Digimon Emperor. Unfortunately, he gets carried away and takes off all his clothes. Upon realizing his mistake, he quickly puts his things back.
- Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu: Natsuki strips topless in front of Fuyuka to let her feel her heartbeat and to demonstrate that, Natsuki's Memetic Molester tendencies aside, Fuyuka has nothing to fear from her. It works, and the two of them enter a relationship by the next chapter.
- Kill la Kill: Nudist Beach wears just enough in the way of belts and pouches to cover the necessary parts, to avoid wearing clothes containing life fibers.
- One Piece:
- In the Drum arc's flashback, Dr. Hiriluk was able to gain the trust of an injured, hostile Chopper by stripping naked and declaring he would not harm Chopper.
- At the end of the Alabasta arc, the male Straw Hats share a bath with Alabasta's king and steward. While there, the king bows down to present his gratitude to the Straw Hats for saving the kingdom.
Nefeltari Cobra: A man's title comes off with his clothes. Here in the bath, we're all the same. A king is not a king when disrobed. I'd like to say... not as a king... but as a father and a citizen of this land... from the bottom of my heart... thank you.
- Planet With: When Generalissimo asks for Benika's motives for wanting to join the Sealing Faction, he teleports them to a Hot Spring so they can bath while she shares her story. She immediately understands he's invoking "hadaka no tsukiai" and strips down to comply.
Arts
- In classical art, it was common to represent the Anthropomorphic Personification of truth as a naked woman, along with some other attributes (like a hand mirror). Notably seen with La Vérité
◊ by Jules Joseph Lefebvre, or the lost painting La Vérité by Jean-Jacques Henner. In other works, such as this statue by Lucien Pallez◊ and this painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme◊, Truth is depicted standing beside (or climbing out of) a well. This illustrates an ancient proverb, "Truth is found at the bottom of a well."
- The Fallen Angel: Cabanel inverted this trope with his depiction of the newly-expulsed Satan. Lucifer is tensely lying naked in the foreground, while the loyal-to-God angels appear fully robed in the background. Here, nudity equals shameful behavior —in this case, rejecting and questioning the Christian God— as well as betrayal.
Comic Books
- Freaks' Squeele: When the students of F.E.A.H. are being attacked because everyone thinks they're supervillains, Chance suggests that everybody get naked to appear more trustworthy. When her friends aren't convinced, she points out that they should at least take off their supervillain costumes.
- A minor The Punisher villain uses this trope, making anyone who shows up in front of him strip naked, both for security and because he's an asshat.
- To fit the Neopaganistic philosophy of the comic (and blatant Fanservice), Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose has every female character — human or not — in various stages of undress. This is due to magical society's heavy emphasis on the belief of nature, body confidence and sexual libertarianism.
Films — Animation
- Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths: Lex Luthor's Good Counterpart of the Mirror Universe is arrested and strip-searched, but stays naked when the Justice League arrives to show he's not hiding any weapons.
Wally West: And they call me "The Flash".
- In KPop Demon Hunters, a running subplot is that Mira and Zoey want Rumi to go to the bathhouse with them, but she always refuses, because she has patterns on her skin revealing that she's half-demon. At the end of the movie, when the truth has finally been revealed, we see them relaxing in the tub together with Rumi's patterns fully visible.
- My Year of Dicks: Sam chooses to take his clothes off before telling his best friend Pamela that the boys she's been chasing (they're both teenagers) aren't good enough for her.
Films — Live-Action
- Chasing Liberty: Anna invokes this trope by stripping naked in order to try and convince her Secret Service bodyguard Ben that she can handle herself, to no avail.
- China Strike Force: In this Hong Kong movie, when Coolio gets suspicious about Femme Fatale Norika's intentions in helping him and his partner, she promptly strips in front of them to prove she's not wearing any wire, although by the time she's naked he's too Distracted by the Sexy to care.
- Die Hard: John McClane subverts this: he confronts Hans Gruber shirtless, with nowhere to conceal a weapon... except for the gun taped on his back.
- The Faculty: The Big Bad delivers their Motive Rant at the end while completely naked, as transforming into their true alien form and back destroyed their clothes in the process.
- Go (1999): Ronna is required to remove her shirt and turn around in her bra, in order to show that she is not wearing any Hidden Wire to Simon Baines.
- Hero (2002): Before the Nameless title character is admitted to his audience with the emperor, he is strip searched by the palace guards to make sure is not carrying anything dangerous.
- Hypocrites: A symbolic character called the "Naked Truth" exposes the moral hypocrisies of the two-faced members of a church congregation. The character is played by actress Margaret Edwards, who appeared fully nude in scenes that were quite shocking in 1915 (and would have remained shocking for decades afterward).
- Law Abiding Citizen: Gerard Butler's character to make his surrender to the SWAT team coming his way convincing, takes off all his clothing to emphasize that he'd be heading into their prison without a single outside item. This was of course another of his ways of proving what kinds of death and destruction he's capable of from behind bars.
- The Man with the Golden Gun: The villain Francisco Scaramanga forces the captive Mary Goodnight into a bikini for this reason
Francisco Scaramanga: I like a girl in a bikini. No concealed weapons.
- Not Another Teen Movie: Has a character named "Areola" who is a foreign exchange studentnote that also serves as some weird hybrid of Innocent Fanservice Girl and Ms. Fanservice in that she wears nothing at all (and her backpack is even see-thru), much to the chagrin and excitement of all the other characters, but the directors commentary proves she fits under this trope when it was stated that she was meant to be that way as some kind of metaphor for having, "nothing to hide about herself".
- Parker: Parker orders Leslie to Take Off Your Clothes so he can see if she's wearing a wire and she hesitantly complies, stripping down to her underwear.
- The Protector: The women working in a drug lab have to work naked to be sure they don't steal any of the product.
Literature
- Book of a Thousand Days: Ordinarily, seeing someone naked is cause for shame on the part of the one seeing them. However, when Dashti stands naked before the monstrous genocidal Lord Khasar to prove that she has no weapons, she feels like somehow it's more intimidating for her than him.
- The Dark Tower: In Wolves of the Calla, according to legend, Lady Oriza invited notorious outlaw Gray Dick to a banquet with them both naked to show they're not carrying concealed weapons. Gray Dick agrees as Oriza is quite a beauty, only to be introduced to the use of a dinner plate as Deadly Disc.
- The Dresden Files: Dresden invokes this in Cold Days to convince Fix, the Summer Knight, gesturing at his own nudity and sarcastically claiming that clearly he's a mastermind in control of the situation.
- In Joe Haldeman's Forever Peace, the heroes discover that mentally linking humans for as long as a month will cause them to become "humanized" and turn pacifistic, even if they were serial killers or psychopaths. Towards the end a large group of war vets and refugees undergo the process, and when the complex is attacked they all strip naked and exit as a crowd to show they mean no harm.
- Foundation and Earth: Rather than allow herself to be invasively searched, Bliss whips off her coat, leaving herself not quite naked, but wearing only thin blouse and slacks in the sub-zero Comporellon weather.
Bliss: You can see I'm not armed.
- Gor: One of the many excuses used to strip slave girls naked. There's an occasional narrative explanation to the effect that nudity both makes it more difficult for a slave to conceal physical objects and also makes it more difficult for a slave to lie. In a variant, it's also frequently pointed out that slave girls are customarily sold naked in order to enforce the honesty of the dealer.
- Gulliver's Travels: The Houyhnhnms consider the idea of wearing clothing part of the dishonesty of humankind, or as they call lying, "the thing which is not".
- The Heir Chronicles: It is suggested that the wizards meet naked, to make it impossible for anyone to hide magical weapons on their person.
- The Number of the Beast: One of the alternate dimensions the protagonists spend a lot of time in is home to a variant of Christianity that equates nudity (as in the Garden of Eden) to innocence. So every Sunday you'll see families heading to church in their best clothes, only to strip before entering the sanctuary.
- In sci-fi novel The Puppet Masters, Puppeteer Parasite aliens invade Earth. They attach themselves to the bodies of humans, extend tendrils into the brain, and make humans their slaves. They are demonstrated to enslave humans by attaching anywhere to the human body, although the back is their preferred attachment point. In response, humans who are not ridden by parasites tend to go around semi-nude near the middle of the book or fully nude near the end of the book in order to show that they are not enslaved.
- Science-Fiction 101: Enforced in Philip K. Dick's short story Colony. The astronauts of the story encounter deadly organisms that can disguise themselves as inorganic objects, leading to crewmembers seemingly strangled by towels, choked by gloves, or bludgeoned by medicine cabinets. When the officers realize what's going on, they order the entire crew to evacuate the ship naked to be sure nobody brings a parasite with them.
- Shadow of the Giant: Virlomi, the leader of India, travels to the capital of the Muslim League (a future Middle Eastern alliance) to meet Alai, their Caliph. When his guards demand she be checked by security, Virlomi drops her sari in front of all of them. It's actually a complex example, because she's ostensibly proving that she's unarmed, but simultaneously taunting their religion (Islam finds female skin exposure offensive), and trying to seduce Alai into accepting her as both ally and wife. Finally, she offers a threat, should Alai not agree to her demands, Virlomi threatens to leave their headquarters naked and let the rest of the world assume sexual assault.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: A dark version of this is Lord Roose Bolton's observation:
Reek: Lord Bolton, he used to say a naked man has few secrets, but a flayed man's got none.
- The Star Money: The heroine is a model of kindness, integrity, and piety, literally sacrificing everything (including her clothes) to give to those even worse off than herself. God sees her good works and rewards her.
- Strata: Protagonist Kin Arad initiates formal first contact with the longship full of vikings she and her companions just rescued from falling off the edge of their Flat World and dragged to safety by walking down the beach to greet them stark naked. While her companions are covering her in case anything untoward happens, she's confident that after saving their lives (making her appear as a goddess of mercy to them thanks to her flying belt) in her first appearance to them they wouldn't even consider attempting to rape her.
- The Wheel of Time: The all-female Aes Sedai perform some meetings topless to ensure no men are present. It's noted in-universe that this is toned down from full nudity in the past.
Live-Action TV
- Billions: In "The Deal", Wendy meets with Axelrod in an underground bathhouse-style heated pool, so they can talk where "no one can listen to them."
- Burn Notice: In "Hard Bargain", Michael poses as a hostage negotiator trying to rescue a kidnapped girl. The leader of the kidnapping ring, Reyes, meets him in a massage parlor, which Michael tells him is smart, because it means Reyes knows Michael isn't wearing a wire (or anything besides a towel, for that matter).
- Doctor Who: Visitors to the Papal Mainframe are strongly encouraged to not wear clothing so that they will be unable to hide anything. For their own modesty they can "wear" holographic clothes, but these won't fool anyone who works for the Mainframe.
- Game of Thrones: The Boltons invoke this trope by their infamous secondary motto: "A naked man has few secrets; a flayed man, none."
- Good Girls: In Season 4, Rio makes Beth strip naked to prove that she's not wearing a wire after he finds a tracker in his car. She's cooperating with the feds but luckily doesn't have a wire on right then.
- Hawaii Five-0: In the "Pilot" Hawaiian gangster Sang Min forces an undercover Kono to strip to her bra and panties to prove she's not wearing a Hidden Wire.
- Jane the Virgin: Petra Andel invokes this when trying to convince a former lover Lachlan.
Lachlan: Why should I trust you?
Petra: Because I'm naked. - Naked Attraction: The opening monologue presents nudity as a way of cutting through the superficiality and dishonesty of modern dating:
"In a time when serial swipers are at stalemate, we're stripping back to basics to help singles find their soulmates."
- Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: Cookie keeps a lot of technology on his person, often using it to study. In "Guide to: Cheaters and Bullies", his science teacher Mr. Sweeney accuses him of using it to cheat on tests. Cookie agrees to take a science quiz in his underwear to prove his innocence. Played for Laughs. He finds the experience so freeing that he decides to set up a curtain around his desk to take all of his future tests and quizzes in his undies, much to Sweeney's annoyance.
Mr. Sweeney: You got an A on the quiz in your underwear, but you don't have to do this for every test.
Cookie: I wouldn't want you to think I was cheating or anything. And besides clothes were holding me back. - NYPD Blue: One case had the detectives completely baffled for almost the entire show. A group of people were brutally murdered in a warehouse, and they were all completely naked, with their clothes neatly folded over in a corner of the room. The detectives kept coming up with increasingly bizarre theories (orgies, etc), until one of the suspects informed them that the group was packing drugs and money for a local gang, and they were naked because "No pockets means they can't steal anything". The detectives shrug and accept the explanation.
- The Office (US): When Michael shows suspicion that Dwight might be recording their conversation, Dwight immediately lifts his shirt and drops down his pants.
- Peaky Blinders:
- In a season 3 episode, Arthur and John Shelby are instructed to strip down in front of two exiled Russian heiresses, before they and Tommy will be allowed into their vault. The logic, according to Tommy, is that members of The Mafiya commemorate their status with tattoos, so they need to be checked to make sure they're not infiltrators. Whether or not this is true, or just Tommy and/or the Russians having a laugh at their expense (all three seem highly amused in the scene, and one heiress takes the opportunity to get very up-close-and-personal with Arthur, on the pretense of giving a thorough search), is never revealed.
- Discussed and implied in a season 4 episode, where Luca Changretta is negotiating with Shelby ally Alfie Solomons to allow some of Changretta's men to infiltrate an event (a boxing match between one of the Shelby's allies and Alfie's nephew) disguised as Alfie's security. Alfie notes that the Italians will need to be circumcised, because the Shelbys know all of his men are Jewish, and they will check to make sure. While not shown, later in the episode Tommy reassures Arthur that Alfie's men were "checked", which given the prior context implies this trope.
- Shades of Blue: When accused of being The Mole by Woz, Harlee strips down to her underwear to prove she isn't wearing a wire. Woz believes her and is too ashamed to look at her and properly check, and the camera pans behind Harlee, we see a red recording button blinking on a box attached to the back of her bra.
- Sherlock: Interestingly inverted in the first appearance of Irene Adler, where she meets Sherlock while totally nude. This foils Sherlock's Sherlock Scan, as he's used to discerning lots of tiny details from a person's clothing and accessories, and he therefore can't immediately deduce Adler's motives, history, or weaknesses.
- Spooks: In one episode, Tom Quinn and Patrick McCann, the head of a Real IRA cell, meet in a field to discuss an information trade concerning an imminent third party terrorist attack. As they approach each other, they wordlessly disrobe to their underwear to prove that neither is wearing a wire. Once they are both satisfied, McCann suggests they both put their clothes on before they end up as farmer’s porn, and they put their clothes back on to start the discussion.
- V.I.P.: Nikki meets with a criminal in the sauna, both clad in towels. When he asks her how does he know she's not wired under her Modesty Towel she promptly drops it.
- White Collar: In "Out of the Box" Alex convinces Neal to go Skinny Dipping with her on a pool, so she will know he isn't wearing any wire.
Sports
- In Ancient Greece, athletes traditionally competed naked. While the main purpose was to showcase the beauty of the human body, it also had the benefit of depriving them of any advantages their clothing could give them (like concealing a weapon in a wrestling competition).
Tabletop Games
- The Dungeons & Dragons splat book The Book of Exalted Deeds introduces Pistis Sophia, the archangel paragon of asceticism and self-perfection. Her personal philosophy discourages material baggage, so she has no clothing or other possessions, regarding materialism as a type of greed.
Theatre
- Liberation invokes this in a scene where the radical feminist group at the story's center holds a meeting in the nude, where they then speak frankly about their bodies. It's mentioned in the scene that other radical groups such as the Redstockings were known to hold nude meetings as well.
Video Games
- Deponia: The Organon officers looking for another character unexpectedly barge into a house while Toni is taking a shower. They open the door and ask her if she's hiding something. Whilst still in the shower, she replies she really has nothing to hide.
- Marathon: The Pfhor build simulacrums, suicide bomber androids that mimic humans. However, the Pfhor leave a few design flaws (such as reddened eyes, two-toed feet, and no genitals) and give them all green airlock technician uniforms, leading all the real techs to work naked instead. (This is not seen in-game.)
- Papers, Please: All entrants strip on command when you click the search button. Those without contraband or weapons, and those whose heads look like the opposite biological sex than what is stated on their passports but whose bodies match the said biological sex demonstrate this trope. The rest should be arrested.
- Path of Exile: In the lore, Queen Atziri would hold court nude and demand that her courtiers appear before her nude as well. While the stated reason was that a naked man had nothing to hide, an in-universe scholar speculates that Atziri was also using her stunning beauty to her advantage.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: At the beginning of the second chapter, the player can find Mondo Owada in the newly-opened bathhouse looking for the missing Byakuya Togami, where it's revealed that Mondo believes in hadaka no tsukiai, and suggests he and Makoto Naegi test out the bath later with that as the reason. Also, a Free-Time Event with Kiyotaka Ishimaru reveals he subscribes to the same thinking, innocuously suggesting he and Makoto bare themselves to each other to in order to deepen their bond as fellow students. Both cases only serve to embarrass Makoto considerably. Notably, Mondo and Taka would eventually form an Odd Friendship after an endurance contest in the sauna (albeit one in which only Taka is naked and Mondo is still fully-clothed with a towel wrapped around his Delinquent Hair).
Webcomics
- Constance of the Battle Bunnies meets with Varanasi of Rajland in the sauna area of a bathhouse. Varanasi specifies on page 7 that this place was chosen because "I had to ensure you weren't hiding a blade." They discuss a mission in the Forbidden Zone necropolis, because a covert team of Khans are seeking an Artifact of Doom there. "And what they want, we must have." Interestingly, despite this precaution, Constance is able to produce a small blade; it serves as subtle warning that crossing her means she will avenge herself, safeguards notwithstanding.
- Subverted in this Touhou Project fan comic (potentially Not Safe for Work due to Toplessness from the Back) parodies the Stage 4 Boss Battle of Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom. The boss, Sagume, wants to enlist Player Character Reimu's help, but due to the nature of Sagume's powers, does not want to ask her directly. So she flings off her clothes as a show of good faith/Self-Fanservice. But while she intends it as a show of good faith, all she gets from Reimu is a flustered look and a lump on her head for her trouble.
Web Videos
- Youth & Consequences: When Colin and Farrah share particularly important secrets, they do so while naked in the shower, since both don't fully trust the other isn't taping their chats. Colin calls it the "Chamber of Trust".
Western Animation
- Miraculous Ladybug: G-rated example; In "Protection", Marinette and Adrien have hit a snag in their relationship after Adrien learns that Marinette's Cute Clumsy Girl tendencies are not an act but actually the outward signs of some really deep-seated emotional issues. At the same time, he's also not proud of the fact that he savagely attacked Marinette's first boyfriend after finding out what a jerk he was, and worries that he's not much better. As the two try to arrange a low-key date at Adrien's house, Marinette impulsively decides to show up in her pajamas so that Adrien will see that she's ready to show him what a mess she is. When Adrien sees her, he decides to change into his own pajamas so that she can see that it's safe to be open around him.
Real Life
- In the ancient world, slaves were usually sold naked (or at least made to strip before the transaction was complete), as it prevented the sellers from hiding potential physical defects under baggy clothing.
- The ancient Olympic Games forbade women from even attending, and made all athletes compete nude to verify their sex. When it was discovered that Kallipateira of Rhodes disguised herself as a man to serve as her son's trainer, the rule was extended to trainers as well.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt accidentally entered Winston Churchill's room while he was a guest at the White House. Churchill had just gotten out of the bath and quipped, “You see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide.”
- Chess grandmaster Hans Niemann offered to play tournament games naked after he was accused of using a concealed device to cheat.
- One legend says Cleopatra VII rolled herself up into a rug, naked, and had herself smuggled into Julius Caesar's chamber. Being naked showed that she carried no weapon and wasn't an immediate threat.