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Wait, when did Marge get a waist? And cleavage?! Now, a corset can do a lot for a lady Especially when a lady's got a lot And a lady can do a lot for that cor-set By filling in the bottom and top.
First you push it up here
Pull it down there
Tighten down the middle
Til you're *GASP* gasping for air!
— "A Corset Can Do a Lot For a Lady", The First Traveling Saleslady
Of course a corset is sexy. Designed to shape a woman's silhouette, it has captured people's attention for centuries for its ability to shrink the waist, define the hips, and to create heaving bosoms where there were once none. Even after they stopped being ubiquitous in the early 20th century note thanks in part due to the rise of the brassiere, they remained a feature in period films and fetish magazines. More recently, they have gone through a renaissance of sorts-—now oftentimes as outerwear—thanks in part to the popularity of movies like Moulin Rouge and the rise in popularity of things like the Goth and steampunk genre and the resurgence of the burlesque scene.
In older fiction, corsets were sometimes used as a way to provide mild fan service—after all, getting to see a woman's corset meant seeing a woman in a state of undress. While they are still sometimes used in this manner, corsets are now also something the costumers go for when they want something unconventionally sexy but doesn't require them to show a lot of skin.
Can involve Impossibly Low Neckline, Sexy Coat Flashing. See also Of Corset Hurts for another common use of the garment in fiction.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Ruby in Rosario + Vampire wear one of these as a default outfit, when she's not in a costume for the lulz. She's quite aware of the sexiness factor, and quite often uses this to her advantage as well.
- Moka's mother Akasha combines a fiery corset and a pair of short shorts under her dress, as revealed during her sacrificial attempt to go Medieval on Alucard's ass.
- Though she changes her outfit regularly, Mai Valentine of Yu-Gi-Oh! always keeps a basque/bustier as an accessory.
- Male example: Loran Cehack from ∀ Gundam is ordered to show up at the party arranged by the Moon Race as the Turn A Gundam's pilot, though the Moon Race were told he was a female pilot named Laura. Kihel thought Loran was feminine enough and filled out a dress well, but added a corset just to make it more convincing.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima!:
- Asuna and Setsuna are forced into this, and despite the obviously awkward structure of the outfit itself (never mind the undergarment), they managed to fight at full strength.
- Far later in the series, Yuuna is shown fighting in this as well as it is included with her pactio.
- Einhart Stratos of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid wears an underbust corset as part of her standard outfit.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: There's the resident Dark Action Girl Adiane the Elegant who combined a corset with her tail whip and eyepatch for maximum sexiness.
- One Piece has Team Mom Robin, wearing one of these, possibly a gift from her previous boss, Mr. O, since running around ruins in that and fishnets is hardly practical.
- In the first episode of Texhnolyze a bizarre, bionically augmented woman wears a red one as she has sex with Ichise.
- Slan, the only female member of the Godhand from Berserk pretty much wears one as her only article of clothing. And it's an underbust. To make it even kinkier, she wears a neck corset too.
- While every woman in Victorian Romance Emma wears a corset, one scene in the manga stands out: Emma's employer, Dorothea Meredith, is being dressed for the day, when her husband, Wilhelm, enters the room, and proceeds to lace his wife's corset, as a prelude for impromptu sexy-time.
Comics
- In Knights of the Old Republic, the female members of the Crucible all wear dominatrix style outfits.
- Batman villain White Rabbit wears this, and very little else.
- If X-23 isn't wearing a short tanktop or what essentially amounts to a bra or bikini top, chances are she's wearing one of these.
Films
- Rita Escobar, love interest of both of the main characters from Wild Wild West and several other gorgeous women in corsets as one of its better points.
- Underworld. Selene wears a corset over her black leather (pleather? latex? vinyl?) catsuit. The sequel implies that the corset has an actual function: being bullet-resistant, which comes in handy when the character gets buckshot straight to the chest. The corset comes away with only minor damage, and Selene just gets pissed off.
- Several of the characters from The Rocky Horror Picture Show appear in corsets and fishnets for the final act, albeit under mind control.
- Maggie Cheung spends much of her screen time in Irma Vep wearing a fetish bodysuit with built-in corset. At one point, her body double complains that the corset is too tight, but Maggie replies that she feels fine in hers.
- Jane Smith wears a corset as part of her dominatrix outfit (which she wears to get to a mark) in Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
- As if she needed any more help catching male viewers' attentions, Lilah in Jonah Hex wears a couple of shockingly tight corsets.
- Carmela strips to a black corset and stockings for an examination by doctor Peter Sellers in The Millionairess.
- Miriam strips down to her corset (and then removes it, slipping under the sheets nude except for black silk drawers) during her first bedroom scene in The Great Train Robbery.
- The intense desire of Patti Robinson to be allowed to wear corsets as a mark of her transition to young womanhood is a key plot point in the early-1950's musical Two Weeks With Love. She wants to wear corsets so much, in fact, that she even has fantasies about them, set to the music of the aria from "The Chocolate Soldier"; she sashays around wearing only a snug corset, long white gloves, high heels and a picture hat, drawing the attention of every man around her like a lodestone!
- One scene in the 1962 comedy It Happened In Athens features Eleni Costa stripping down to her underwear, revealing an impressively tight corset
 . It is in that state of undress that she first meets and tries do seduce a young man, Spiridon Loues, whom she finds taking a shower in her bathroom.
- Lina Cavalieri fights a sword duel while stripped down to her camisole and corset (with a pair of tight pants and cavalier-style boots) in one scene in La Donna Piu' Bella Del Mondo ("Beautiful But Dangerous"), and is clearly tightly corseted in several other scenes under her Gorgeous Period Dress.
- In Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Padme Amidala wears a black dress with a mermaid skirt, leather corset, and feather shawl in the fireside scene. In the scene Anakin tries to convince Padme to have a relationship with him. She unconsciously had chosen a dress that reveals her true feelings for the Jedi.
Literature
- The protagonist of John Varley's Steel Beach adopts corsets when she moves into a Victorian-era historical reenactment community (even though period underwear is not required) on the theory that anything worth doing is worth doing right. She freely admits the titillation factor played a significant role in her decision.
- In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett's corset wearing skills are such that she has the smallest waist in the region, which is cited as one of the main reasons for her appeal. Later on (between and after pregnancies) she absolutely refuses to let go of that waist and demands her servants to lace her up as before.
Live-Action TV
- Abby on NCIS has a few; they go rather nicely with her tiny miniskirts and combat boots.
- A requirement for female vampires. Who don't have to breathe, as noticed by Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- This seems to extend to The Vampire Diaries, as sexy vampire Katherine wears one even when she's in bed. Sorta justified, as she lives in Civil War America. She seems to have ditched them in the present though.
- Mrs. Peel wore one in the episode "A Touch of Brimstone" of The Avengers, which was about a resurrected Hellfire Club.
- In Coronation Street, Rosie Webster tries to seduce someone while wearing a basque. This got the "ban this filth" brigade at the Daily Mail hot and bothered, and they promptly printed a picture to accompany said article.
- Considering her Mata Hari status, it is not too surprising that Sydney Bristow ended up in one on more than one occasion. One incident involved Sydney singing in a nightclub (it wasn't apparently that good), sidling her way over to The Dragon during it, with the objective being to get his biometric data for later use in cracking his security system.
- In one of the Babylon 5 TV Movies (River of Souls), a shady businessman runs a holo-brothel Down Below. One of his more popular models is Captain Elizabeth Lochley in a corset. It's especially popular with the female customers.
- In "Western Show", an episode of Wizards of Waverly Place, not only does Theresa say she likes the corset she's wearing, but then Jerry asks why he doesn't have one.
- Aside from the 'corset-as-outer-wear' that the Queen wears as part of her costume, Queen of Swords (being set in 1817) also features the female cast wearing corsets as the more traditional undergarment. Naturally the writers never pass up an opportunity to show The Vamp Vera lounging around in her corset waiting for her lover.
- The Smallville episode Spell has the witches in corsets, as mentioned in the commentary, and when Lana's boyfriend asks her why she's dressed like that she says it makes her feel sexy. At the end of the episode Clark says that the witch who had possessed Lana had been aggressively sexy so Lana calls her an evil slut.
Music
Video Games
- Yashiro in The World Ends With You wears one, although curiously she wears it over her shirt.
- Yggdra and Monica from Yggdra Union are both drawn wearing corsets (and Yggdra starts out with an item called the Silk Corset equipped). Seeing as the game is in a vaguely medieval-renaissance-industrial-revolution-type era, it only makes sense that Yggdra (as a princess) might have to wear one. Seeing as Monica is a peasant, though, she shouldn't be able to afford hers...
- Batman Arkham Asylum puts Harley Quinn in one as part of her Naughty Nurse Outfit.
- Castlevania:
- The vampire Stella, from Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, wears one as part of her costume.
- The succubus from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night wears a corset, albeit one that only covers her waist and leaves her breasts exposed.
- Fable II has it as an option, if worn by a female hero, it raises the attractiveness stats by a considerable amount. when worn by a male hero on the other hand...
- Mabinogi has several NPCs and supernatural non-humans in corsets. Most notable are the Succubus, higher level versions of which drop a (non-wearable) corset; and NPC nightclub singer Rua, who wears a rather brief version.
- Among other stripperific costumes, most of the modded heavy armor in the Neverwinter Nights mod A Dance with Rogues turned into external corsets and panties. And nothing else.
- One of these is Casey Lynch's alternate costume in Guitar Hero III.
- Saika Magoichi from Sengoku Basara wears a backless corset that only seems to stay on through sheer force of will.
- Trish from Devil May Cry wears one with a giant slit down the front.
- Young Lescanzi Witches in Dungeon Siege III tend to favor this look, including playable character Katarina and her sister Leona. Also confirmed by a Where Are They Now segment if you turn control of Gunderic Manor over to Leona.
- Natasha from Rusty Hearts wears a midriff-baring one.
- The female prostitutes at the Blooming Rose in Dragon Age II wear variously colored corsets and nothing else...as does, perhaps surprisingly, the wide-eyed innocent Merrill if you romance her.
Webcomics
- Lucy, the Daiva of Lust, in Devil Bear wears a corset as part of her standard wardrobe.
- Amber in Shortpacked! wore this during her sexy phase (while Robin filled in for her as the Meganekko).
- An early arc in Queen of Wands involved Kestrel and Shannon shopping for corsets as a sexy-time thing for Shannon and Felix's anniversary.
Web Original
- A few characters from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe wear these as part of their costume:
- Internet babe Vinyl Meow (also known as Amy Villainous) is almost never seen without a corset. This might be one reason why she looks nowhere near the 200 pounds her modelling profile lists (the other being her enormous breasts).
Western Animation
- The The Simpsons picture above comes from the episode "Helter Shelter" where the family becomes the star of a 1900's House-style reality show. The scene in question shows Marge getting laced into a corset and initially being satisfied at its effects on her figure, before realizing that the stays had made her feet swell up to twice their normal size.
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