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Playing With / Defeat by Modesty

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Basic Trope: A fighter of either gender (though usually female) calls off the fight when she ends up fully or near naked.

  • Straight: Alice and Bianca are fighting in a tournament. Bianca accidentally (or intentionally) rips off Alice's top. Alice, rather than continuing the fight, gives up.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Alice gives up when her shoe gets removed.
    • Bianca strips Alice naked in a chess tournament, baking contest, rap battle or political debate.
    • Bianca strips a whole competing football team naked.
    • Alice not only loses the tournament, but is arrested for public nudity while Bianca gets off scott-free.
    • Alice not only loses the tournament, but is forced to dance naked and pose for photographs for the audience.
    • After stripping her, Bianca has her friends take photos and videos of Alice naked and circulate them online.
    • After stripping her, Bianca has her friends taunt Alice until she runs offstage.
    • The Alpha Bitch is defeated when she is stripped naked in front of the school.
    • A terrorist is stripped and paraded around nude.
  • Downplayed:
    • Both are generously covered but Bianca manages to damage the strap of Alice's chest plate. As Alice tries to readjust her armour in mid-fight, Bianca uses this opening to strike Alice down.
    • Bianca manages to damage Alice's mask. Not wanting her Secret Identity revealed to the world, Alice makes a quick withdrawal.
  • Justified:
    • Underneath all her warrior bravado, Alice really is modest and ending up naked in front of leering eyes is her greatest fear.
    • Alice's clothes give her the power to fight. If they get slashed or removed, she becomes weak.
    • The clothes Alice was wearing were armor. There's no way she'd risk continuing the fight while unprotected.
    • The tournament rules, in order to preserve public decency, disqualify combatants who do not remain improperly attired (or count significant Clothing Damage as defeat).
    • The fight is a Fanservice Faux Fight, no better than a foxy-boxing match mixed with a Cat Fight, and everyone knows it. The loser is whichever female fighter ends up naked first.
  • Inverted:
    • Alice is in a Stripperific fighting outfit and gives up when Bianca tries to clothe her.
    • Alice suffers Clothing Damage and doesn't mind being naked (or half-naked), but Bianca has an aversion to nudity and calls off the rest of the fight.
    • Alice is a Shameless Fanservice Girl who fights best when unclothed, and in a matter of seconds, her Full-Frontal Assault overwhelms Bianca.
    • Alice, upon being disrobed, starts flirting with Bianca, who gets flustered/distracted enough to go down easily.
    • To stop herself from being seriously injured or killed, Bianca pulls Alice's top off and gets herself disqualified.
    • Alternatively, Bianca pulls her own top off to disqualify herself.
    • Alice tricks Bianca into pulling the former's top off so she will be disqualified.
    • The match begins with both women naked; the first to put a bra and trunks on the other wins.
  • Gender-Inverted: Bob wins his fight against Steve by pulling his trunks down.
  • Subverted: Alice is stripped naked and is initially embarrassed (or not) but continues fighting regardless.
  • Double Subverted: Bianca still wins because the judges disqualify Alice.
  • Parodied:
    • Before the match, Bianca tells her male friends that she's heard her opponent Alice is the sexiest, most beautiful fighter in the league, and has one weakness — she won't fight if someone rips off her clothes. The male fighters hoot and holler in lecherous anticipation — until we go to a Whip Pan of "Alice" — a short, fat, hairy, disgusting, androgynous troll in Stripperific battle armor.
    • The fight turns into an Overly Long Gag in which Bianca tries to remove Alice's armor, but discovers that she dresses in a crazy amount of layers. Bianca calls off the rest of the fight because of how monotonous stripping her has become.
    • The only thing Funny Animal Alex wears is a collar. Somehow, removing it has this effect on him.
    • Alternatively, Alice is naked except for a shoe on her right foot. When Bianca removes her shoe, she is outraged.
  • Zig Zagged: Alice wears a flimsy strapless sundress for her fight with Bianca. Unable to pass up the opportunity, Bianca quickly and easily pulls it completely off, exposing Alice in front of everyone. Alice shrieks and covers herself, but the judges disqualify Bianca for using an illegal move. Seeing all of this, Alice's friend Charlotte borrows the sundress to wear for her own match. However, since she isn't used to fighting in it, she accidentally trips over the hem and rips the whole thing off before her opponent can even do anything. This time, it is Charlotte who's disqualified for losing her clothes.
  • Averted:
    • Bianca doesn't think of removing Alice's clothes.
    • Alice's clothes don't come off during the fight.
    • Alice doesn't care.
  • Enforced:
  • Lampshaded: "Why did I wear such a flimsy outfit for this fight anyway?"
  • Invoked:
    • Bianca is a Combat Pragmatist, and she knows Alice is very modest and can't stand being seen naked, so she focuses her attacks on Alice's outfit.
    • Bianca is engaging in Loophole Abuse: the rules disqualify combatants for immodesty but not for inflicting it upon one's opponent.
  • Exploited: Candice, who knows both Bianca and Alice, finds out that they're scheduled to fight each other in the tournament and immediately decides to bet on Bianca.
  • Defied:
    • Alice fights in sturdy, non-revealing armor.
    • Bianca manages to grab Alice's top, but Alice simply slips out of it and finishes Bianca off before she can react.
    • Bianca manages to grab Alice's top, but graciously lets go to avoid humiliating her opponent.
    • Bianca manages to rip off Alice's top, but it just drives her into an Unstoppable Rage.
    • Alice goes in nude, so there's nothing to rip off.
    • Alice wears a sturdy bodysuit which is difficult to tear.
    • The judge immediately calls a time-out when Alice's top comes off and covers her in some fashion, allowing Alice to put it back on or replace it before continuing the fight.
    • Additional to the above bullet point, the judge instantly disqualifies Bianca for unsporting behaviour and/or orders her arrest for sexual assault.
    • The tournament's rules have an explicit and extensive "do not trigger Defeat By Modesty on your opponent" sub-set of rules, with multiple additional sub-sections for various types of deliberate and accidental Clothing Damage and an attached research paper suggesting kinds of outfits for varying fighting styles that have an increased chance of averting Wardrobe Malfunction. The rules are required reading in order to be accepted into the tournament, with the judges ordered to make questions about this section (among others) to make sure the contestants did read it.
    • Alice sues Bianca for damages after the match.
    • As punishment for stripping her opponent in a fight, Bianca is to be forced to fight naked in every tournament for the rest of the year.
  • Discussed: "And Bianca goes for Alice's top! What a fight this turned out to be!"
  • Conversed: "Why'd Alice stop fighting? Everyone's already seen her boobs."
  • Implied:
    • Charlotte finds out that Alice is scheduled to fight Bianca next, so she suggests that Alice wear something sturdier than last time.
    • Alice is mentioned to despise Bianca for humiliating her in a fight.
  • Deconstructed:
    • A part of Alice's breasts have been exposed, but this didn't conveniently stop her. Instead, she wants to attack Bianca brutally even more.
    • Bianca's assault is treated in-context as both sexual harassment and as a cruel, dirty tactic. Even if the audience is titillated at first, Alice's humiliation, shock and public shaming ruin any fun to be had.
  • Reconstructed:
    • Alice has become too angry to maintain concentration on her other surroundings, and Bianca regains the upper hand before long.
    • Being naked, Alice is also Exposed to the Elements and loses body heat more quickly, so she must also keep her core temperature elevated with at least one limb, perhaps even more.
  • Played for Laughs: Naked People Are Funny
  • Played for Drama:
    • Being naked triggers traumatic memories in Alice of being raped, sending her into a Heroic BSoD.
    • Enraged and humiliated, Alice fights back and accidentally (or intentionally) kills or seriously injures Bianca.
    • Alice's sister Diana murders Bianca for humiliating Alice after the match.
    • Alice is Driven to Suicide after the match. Bianca quits wrestling in remorse.
  • Played For Horror: Alice being stripped naked in the middle of the fight is the first step to raping her.

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