TV nudity has never come easy and a lot of network television still won't show nude scenes. So how did it come to be that ANY nudity wound up on our televisions? Well, here is a brief and unofficial history of TV nudity.
While the electrical television set was first invented in 1927, it took a few decades for TV sets to fill family living rooms across America. In fact, they weren't for sale to the public until 1938. That means that for a few decades in early television, there were few people tuning in - which means fewer incentives for nudity.
In fact, TV was incredibly tame for decades. It still is by some accounts. Bewitched with Elizabeth Montgomery was the very first show to even have its married couple share a bed and that was in the swingin' sixties. It is likely that early TV documentaries may have shown nudity, but allegedly the very first incident of nudity on TV, in general, happened in Holland. Leave it to Europe to get to nudity first! It was on a show called Hoepla (Dutch for "whoops") in 1967 where a woman was reading a newspaper full frontal. Well, that's certainly a nude debut!
So European TV was obviously going nude. But what about American TV? That's what I want to focus on.
1970s
Valerie Perrine holds the distinction of having the first nude scene on American television thanks to 1972's PBS broadcast of Steambath. Two men encounter Valerie as she steps out of the titular steamy bath. She towels off and shows her buns, side breast, and a nipple as she casually chats with the men. This was such a casual foray into TV nudity in America!
Local broadcasts showed nudity on TV before anyone else in the form of uncensored films being shown to the public. In the 1970s, KTVU in San Francisco regularly showed nudity-filled films like Angie Dickinson's full-frontal scene from Big Bad Mama. These things went relatively unnoticed until the 1980s when complaints about these affiliate stations made their way up the corporate ladders. Dang. Some people are no fun!
1980s
The 80s were an interesting time when moral panics caused the media to button itself up somewhat. That meant that very few advances were made in TV nudity. The Key to Rebecca was a two-part adaptation of a novel by Ken Follett that allegedly showed toplessness. It is now extremely difficult to find any copy of this made-for-TV movie.
It is worth noting that the first lingerie ad was shown in the 1980s with lingerie on a human woman. Prior to that, lingerie was only modeled on television commercials with mannequins. That changed in a 1987 Playtex ad.
1990s
TV shows got freakier in the 90s with a lot of sideboob thanks to shows like Baywatch which were downright softcore in their portrayals of their female stars like the infamous Pamela Anderson.
But one show officially changed the game and it was NYPD Blue. From 1993-2004, this cop procedural drama had some arresting nudity.
Amy Brenneman is technically the first nudity on the show with a very shadowy sex scene that shows her on top. You can see her breasts in silhouette, but the entire scene remains fairly dark. Still, that scene was clearly testing boundaries that the series itself was about to push. In 1994, Sharon Lawrence put her booty front and center on the series.
All of this nudity was purposeful. "I wanted to have adults in realistic sexual situations," said NYPD Blue co-creator Steven Bochco. To him, that included showing nudity on TV because adults - surprise! - get nude. The nude scenes in this series were absolutely groundbreaking for TV to come.
Ally McBeal was a law comedy on Fox that launched Calista Flockhart into our hearts and hard-ons. She never went nude on the series, but the show featured several frank discussions on sex. However, Courtney Thorne-Smith went nude on the show by showing her long legs and buttcheeks in a flirty snippet of nudity that was a first for Fox.
Softcore
Channels started broadcasting softcore programming in the late 80s, but the heyday of softcore TV shows was the 90s. Throughout the 90s, new channels such as HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax aired not-safe-for-work programming. We've touched on these shows recently, but the popular ones include Red Shoe Diaries, The Hitchhiker, and many more.
Playboy even launched The Playboy Channel and enjoyed success with their 1993 series Eden. Is this heaven or is this Playboy's Eden?!
Prestige TV and the 2000s
In 1998, a shocking comedic series debuted that forever changed the game. Sex and the City. The show was notable for several reasons, but it had everyone talking because of the way that the showed four female stars openly talking about sex. TV had not yet seen women be this raunchy in their graphic descriptions of their sex lives.
Descriptions of their sex lives were met with, well, visual examples...a lot of visual examples. Star Sarah Jessica Parker never went nude, but her four co-stars certainly did.
Following in Sex and the City's footsteps, HBO landed its drama that wound up changing the TV landscape with its anti-hero trope and that is The Sopranos. After these two shows debuted in the late 90s, HBO was safe to explore nudity outside of the softcore realm.
If it weren't for these two shows, HBO would have never given us the skincredible nudity we've come to expect. The 2000s went on to provide a lot of nudity after these two shows aired!
Reality TV
The height of reality TV occurred in the early-to-mid 2000s and the reality shows got very weird very fast. VH1's series Dating Naked was one of those weird shows. Jessie Nizewitz became a star for being a naked contestant looking for love on the beach. Everyone was totally naked on the show, leaving nothing to the imagination. Censors mostly blur out Jessie's body, but we did see an uncensored butt and backburger in one shocking scene. She's getting sand and mud in places where the sun doesn't shine!
This moment was a slip-up on VH1's behalf. They were supposed to censor it, but they missed this part. Jessie obviously doesn't have a problem with nudity, but she took the opportunity to file a lawsuit anyway and she walked away with $10 million. Now she can afford to cover up those juicy parts!
Accidental
Finally, the majority of TV nudity has been accidental. Nipslips happened even in the variety show days in the 1970s. From WWE wrestling with Stephanie McMahon's nipples to Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction", accidental nudity has been spicing up broadcasts for eager audiences that are paying close attention.
