Non-Humans Lack Attributes

aka: Aliens Lack Attributes

(Slightly more) anatomically correct for a fish.

[discussing a Londo Mollari doll being sold on the station]
Londo: It's a mockery. It doesn't even have any — ahem, attributes.
Sheridan: Attributes?
Londo: Do I have to spell it out for you?

— Babylon 5, "There All the Honor Lies"

One of the common decency standards in comics, television, and other media is that aliens, monsters and other nonhuman creatures are never depicted with visible genitals, anuses, or nipples, even in scenes where such things should be plainly visible. This is helpful in conserving decency when the plot requires otherwise, but does the exact opposite if the nude in question is sufficiently humanoid, such as with Beast Men, Half Human Hybrids, or mutants, especially if they also possess certain other features like Non-Mammal Mammaries (which tend to come with the suggestion of breasts instead of actual ones) and/or are normally expected to wear clothes. Even when Censor Steam or dark shadows are present to preserve decency, a silhouette or outline of the character may reveal that there is... something missing....

In most cases, this concession of realism is a subtle form of censorship — not necessarily at the insistence of meddling managers or Moral Guardians, but also because not every artist wants to actually think about such anatomical details themselves, nudity taboo or otherwise. (It's too easy to joke about what could be misheard from the art department: "Bill, do these balls look right to you?" "Yeah, they're fine. Stop playing with them and work on the legs.")

It's also a function of the Law of Conservation of Detail, especially in literature where it is merely left to the reader's imagination instead of being explicitly pointed out by the narrator; indeed, it's rare to see anyone actually address the subject onscreen. If this subject is addressed, there are a few stock explanations that are used to explain it. The most common assumption is that the details are logically present, but are obscured beneath a layer of body fur or other Bizarre Alien Biology or, more usually, is simply not important to the situation/storyline/characters/audience (delete as applicable).

The nipples variant involves a female Civilized Animal, Funny Animal, or Beast Woman who has at least some definition to her chest, but doesn't have any visible nipples. They have either a subtle or distinct "puffing" of fur to their chests, a suggestion of breasts, or flat-out breasts. This can be justified if the nipples are hidden under the fur, but can be as much due to the Law of Conservation of Detail as censorship, especially for male animals because male nipples are not typically seen as taboo.

One way to subvert the genitalia side on a Civilized Animal, Funny Animal, or Beast Man is to give the character shaggier fur around the pelvic area. This simply implies that the character has genitalia, but their fur is covering it.

A subtrope of Anatomy Anomaly. Compare Animals Lack Attributes for anatomy (genital, anus, and nipple) censorship as it applies to (otherwise normal, real-life) animals in fiction, and Barbie Doll Anatomy for the censorship of humans. See also No Biological Sex, Funny Animal Anatomy, Ambiguous Gender, and Exposed Extraterrestrials. Contrast with Monster Modesty, where creatures wear shorts or other coverings even when it seems unlikely they would need to.

Fur Is Clothing, Removable Shell, and Eggshell Clothing (these usually being Played for Laughs) are a few ways it can be averted, and adding some Tertiary Sexual Characteristics can resolve things.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Inverted with Jamba!'s ringtone mascot "Crazy Frog", a.k.a. "The Annoying Thing". The blue frog creature sports ambiguous but noticeable genitalia that caused some controversy when he began appearing in late night ringtone ads. When he first began appearing in music videos in the United Kingdom, a prominent black bar was used to censor his groin area. (Which if anything just drew attention to it.) What makes this an inversion? Well, with the exception of the tailed frog, amphibians don't even have external genitals.

Anime & Manga

• Dragon Ball Z:
  • Many of the humanoid animals that appear through the entire series wear no clothes and show no sign of genitalia.
  • Frieza's final form is unclothed and just has a blank space on his crotch (the other three forms wore black briefs). Supplement sources state the white parts of his body are actually Instant Armor his body created, which grew to cover his lower half with his final form.
  • Cell has insect-like plates covering parts of his body, including one on his crotch that resemble a cod piece. He doesn't need genitals, as he's capable of asexual reproduction, giving birth through his back.
  • Surprisingly, when Oolong turns his arms into wings to reach Pilaf before he wishes to Shenron, his clothes disappear (despite most of his body still being the same) and he does have genitals.
• Digimon meanwhile tend to vary. There are some seal, dog and wolf-like Digimons that play this trope straight. Then we have evolved ones, who are anthropomorphic in build, that wear pants or shirt to cover their area (Angewomon, Leomon, WereGarurumon, LadyDevimon, etc.). And then there are some that are biped yet play this trope straight (Zudomon, Renamon, etc.)
• Averted in an instructional video about using the toilet where Shimajiro the tiger cub is actually drawn with visible genitalia when his pants are removed.
• The Vision of Escaflowne: Various non-humans are shown naked and/or pantsless. No attributes.
• Averted near the end of My Neighbor Totoro where the Catbus is actually revealed to be extremely anatomically correct (and male) during the scene where he is shown running on top of several telephone lines while helping Satsuki and the three Totoros find her younger sister Mei. Played straight with the Totoros themselves however.
• Justified within the universe of Attack on Titan and coupled with Barbie Doll Anatomy for the less deformed individuals. The Titans are noted to lack any sexual organs, and have no lower digestive tract. In keeping with this, they notably also do not have navels. They otherwise look like giant, naked humanoids with various deformities.
• In Cardcaptor Sakura:
  • Ruby Moon lacks breasts, even though she's ostensibly a teenage girl. She explains that she has No Biological Sex; she chooses to present as female because she likes women's clothes.
  • When Watery is flying, she looks like a mermaid, she is naked, but she has no nipples◊.

Comic Books

• Bone:
  • Played very straight with the Bone cousins, who never wear pants.
  • Averted with Roque Ja the giant lion, who when seen from behind has a very prominent scrotum.
  • Played also ridiculously straight with the Rat Creatures. Writer Jeff Smith even said "I never bothered to look under their fur to find out."
• Justified in Concrete. The aliens really don't have any of the typical anatomical features. It's brought up semi-regularly as well, much to Concrete's chagrin, although if he did have any features they'd probably be equally discussed and mocked by the public.
• All angels in the Vertigo Comics universe (including Lucifer, Sandman and Hellblazer, notably) are generally depicted as genderless. They are, however, still apparently capable of intercourse. The closest we get to an explanation of this is someone who has experienced this whispering in someone else's ear and her looking shocked.
• Averted in Planetary, in which a naked alien Green Lantern Expy falls on Earth. He has a very disturbing mangina.
• The preservers in ElfQuest have androgynous bodies without genitals or nipples. Justified, as they're apparently asexual and sexless.
• The title characters of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles probably get a pass for being reptiles, but Splinter plays it dead straight.
• Marvel Universe:
  • An Exiles storyline introduces an alternate universe version of Morbius who looks like a giant bat. He is naked all of the time and doesn't have genitals or nipples.
  • Discussed with the Vision in West Coast Avengers. U.S. Agent demands that he "show some decency" and put some clothing on, but Vision points out that clothing would be pointless since as an android, he doesn't have nipples or visible genitals.
  • The Silver Surfer, despite looking like a human Chrome Champion, displays no genitalia whatsoever. Presumably covered or removed as part of his transformation into the Silver Surfer. Other natives of Zenn-La apparently have the same attributes as humans, which they cover in similar ways.
  • Slapstick has no naughty bits in his superpowered cartoon form. His increasingly deranged behaviour after getting Shapeshifter Mode Locked is at least partially because of sexual frustration.

Comic Strips

• Bloom County: "No dice! Comic strip animals aren't anatomically correct!"
• Played straight in Scary Gary with every monster without clothes except for Leopold. He is technically a heavily genetically mutated human who runs around buck-naked in every scene he's in, yet his privates are always... private. Possibly justified due to the "genetically mutated" part. The moment he accidentally, temporarily un-mutates himself, he spontaneously gains a full suit and tie.

Eastern Animation

• This is sometimes averted in Eastern Animation, where common farm animals (dogs, chickens), when seen from behind, may have a tiny dot drawn that represents the anus.
• Averted in one episode The Little Mole, where a girl rabbit becomes pregnant and gives birth... on screen. Played straight with her mate, the boy rabbit.

Fan Works

• In The Lord of the Rings fanfic Surprises of a Wedding Night this is hilariously justified: Male elves don't have penises, because the female tentacles serve the purpose of getting sperm where it needs to be. Aragorn recalls having noticed that male elves "lack certain attributes".
• A Twisted Toyfare Theatre parody has the Thing refusing to talk to the Silver Surfer until he puts on some pants. So the Surfer dons blue jeans. Returning thus clad to Galactus, his master says, "Pants? I didn't remove your genitals so you could wear pants!"
• The Terraria Game Mod Calamity adds two bosses, the Siren and Brimstone Elemental, who appear as nude humanoid women with Barbie Doll Anatomy. The same applied to the Cloud Elemental before Art Evolution gave her a new design with armor.
• Gadget spends large parts of Of Mice and Mayhem either completely clothesless or only wearing a turtleneck. Chip who has only ever seen her fully dressed is quite uncomfortable with that, but she tells him there's nothing to see because she's fully covered in fur just like him.

Films — Animation

• Particularly noticeable with Gus in Cinderella, because his shirt is so teeny-tiny on him.
• Fievel in An American Tail is usually fully clothed, as are the other mice in the series, but in the brief nude scenes in which he's taking a bath he follows this trope.
• Edmond in Rock-A-Doodle gasps and covers himself up after being turned into a kitten and realizing he's naked, despite not really having anything to cover up. He then "covers up" with a big shirt that still leaves his furry but otherwise featureless bottom half exposed.
• Justified in Flushed Away during the Toad's Start of Darkness where the Toad actually does not have genitalia at all due to him being an amphibian.
• Although Po from Kung Fu Panda is always portrayed as wearing only pants and nothing else, as seen in the flashbacks in the sequel, he wore nothing as a baby.
• This is actually a plot point in Badly Drawn Roy in which the main character is a cartoon in a live-action setting. He and his girlfriend broke up because they, uh, couldn't take their relationship to the next level (though they remained friends).
• Averted in the films based on Richard Adams' books Watership Down and The Plague Dogs. While the bunnies in Watership Down don't have any visible genitals (which is Truth in Television, as rabbit genitals aren't easily visible in real life), the dogs in both films have visible testicles and penile sheaths.
• Fritz the Cat doesn't show any genitals either — unless a sex scene comes up. Female characters always have visible nipples and genitals, but they usually cover them with clothes whereas Fritz is a Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal.
• The mammals of Zootopia are fully clothed, so if not for a rather gratuitous scene in a nudist club we would be none the wiser about the lack of reproductive organs. Considering the animation detail goes as far as to visibly vary Judy's bust depending on what she's wearing, it seems very odd.
• In Turning Red, the red panda forms of Mei's female relatives have no definition to their chests at all even though their human forms do (which is Truth in Television, as red pandas do not have noticeable breasts).

Films — Live-Action

• Mystique, in the X-Men Film Series, despite being human, is decent even while naked. This might be part of her shapeshifting (seeing as how she can look like she's wearing clothes too). Rebecca Romijn even remarks on this by commenting that her character's costume was "strategically placed body paint, pasties, and clever camera angles".
• The prawns of District 9 are hermaphroditic and thus self-fertilize. Despite that, interspecies prostitution is briefly mentioned.
• Star Wars' Wookiees. You'd hope. Mark Hamill's initial reaction to seeing Chewbacca on the set of the first Star Wars movie was: "The wookiee has no pants."
• In Dogma, angels have no genitals. Neither does Serendipity the Muse.
  "See? I'm as anatomically impaired as a Ken doll."
• Averted with the Na'vi in Avatar, who do have them, and wear loincloths. There is some confusion over the role of the queue, but this simply allows shared emotion, memory and senses between a mated pair... which must lead to some amazing sex.
• Averted in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. While on the prison planet of Rura Penthe, Kirk fights an alien prisoner and kicks him in the middle of his legs, injuring it and causing it to wail in pain. Kirk remarks that he was "lucky that thing had knees." Another prisoner remarks, "That was not his knee. Not everybody keeps their genitals in the same place, Captain." Interestingly, the camera shows a detailed closeup of the art department's version of injured alien genitalia which is plainly visible through a tear in the alien's clothing (a tear which seems to exist for no other purpose than to allow us to see the squishy and unrecognizable alien goodies).
• The Coneheads don't have asscracks.

• Averted amusingly in The Monster Squad: "Wolfman's got nards!"
• The Xenomorphs from Alien have no visible genitalia, although it's justified in that they reproduce parasitically.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Because the movie has a PG rating, the Toon Patrol weasels, including the one that Eddie Valiant kicks in the crotch to rhyme with the “walls” on one verse, don’t show any genitalia, including the ones whose slang term rhymes with “walls.”
• Seemingly played straight but later averted in The Shape of Water. The Amphibian Man initially appears to lack genitals but is then able to have sex with Elisa. Being a Cute Mute she is unable to verbally explain this but her hand gestures imply his penis is normally inside his body but his crotch opens up to extend it when needed.

Literature

• Averted in Neil Gaiman's Troll Bridge, where the Troll's penis is described not because it is any way relevant, but because it stood out to the narrator.
• Averted in Michael Chabon's Summerland, where after Ethan tells Cutbelly the werefox to get off his stomach (so he could breathe properly), the fox flips backwards off the boy, temporarily exposing his equipment, to Ethan's shock and dismay.
• Averted in Wildcards with The Walrus, an alien undercover agent who looks very much like an anthropomorphic walrus. It is mentioned that it has quite peculiar genitalia (although not really described) and is a hermaphrodite.
• In a fantasy/comedic novel from L. Sprague de Camp, the main characters summon a demon who's clearly devoid of genitals despite being otherwise human-like. When he's asked about mating, he explains that the members of his race "grow" genitals in the right season.
• A villainous character in the Well World novels passes through the Well and is sent to a hex populated by frog-like creatures. Transformed into one of them by the Well, he's perplexed by his new body's lack of external genitalia; one of his first questions, upon meeting the hex's natives, is how they have sex.
• Averted and Conversed in Sky Coyote by Kage Baker. For his disguise as the eponymous Native American deity, Joseph wears prosthetics that give his genitalia canid attributes. At one point, he decides to show the Chumash people he's there to help evacuate a Roadrunner cartoon and blames the lack of attributes on a very unfortunate dynamite accident.
• Lilith's Brood: The Cthulhumanoid Oankali have no breasts or genitals, which confuses one human who makes several attempts at a Groin Attack before realizing she's not kicking anything. Justified by their innate Biomanipulation: they create and implant fetuses without any need for gametes, then grow a temporary orifice to give birth. In addition, their digestive systems only produce small amounts of dust as waste, which they secrete through their skin.

Live-Action TV

• When the Alien Autopsy was presented on Fox, they pixilated the part of the "body" where the genitals would be, if it had any. (And truthfully, it looked like it was lacking.)
• The Asgard from Stargate SG-1. Justified, as they don't reproduce. When we see precloning Asgard popsicles, the relevant area is hidden behind the frost.
• Naboo the Enigma from The Mighty Boosh is an alien, and reveals this about himself at Howard's birthday party.
• Played with in the Farscape episode "The Flax". A male alien drops his pants to show the crew murals on his legs from being in prison. The crew lampshades this trope with Zhaan even saying "For an anthropoid biped, there seems to be something missing." This is later hilariously explained when the alien is revealed to be the female of her species and in love with D'Argo.
• In addition to the page quote above, Londo Mollari of Babylon 5 also averts this trope by using his... *ahem* "attributes" to cheat in a poker game in "The Quality of Mercy". Hilarity ensues when one of the other players accidentally puts a glass of ice water down on the appendage in question.
• Averted in the tokusatsu Lion Maru where Lion Maru's costume has a visible penis.
• Kryten in Red Dwarf is "a bit like Action Man in that respect; it's just plastic pants and a trademark". On the other hand, he does have a groinal socket into which he can plug a vacuum cleaner hose or electric kitchen utensils.

Myths & Religion

• Angels are usually depicted as androgynous-looking (but extraordinarily beautiful) Winged Humanoids. This may stem partly from Byzantine art depicting angels as resembling imperial eunuchs (in a nice aversion of Eunuchs Are Evil), which fits their role as God's courtiers. In many cases, they are said to be sexless (though not always; see, for example, the Archangel Michael). When they are not depicted as Winged Humanoids, they are some kind of bizarre Eldritch Abomination.

Pinballs

• Played straight in Devil's Dare, where the assorted green-skinned demons are completely naked but sport no genitalia or nipples at all.
• Similarly, the merwomen of Barracora wear nothing and show nothing, even on their Non-Mammal Mammaries.

Tabletop Games

• In an early Dragon Magazine article, "The Psychology of the Doppleganger", a captive doppleganger's lack of genitalia or nipples in its natural form is openly discussed, as it provides its human captors with evidence (confirmed via interrogation) that such Dungeons & Dragons monsters have no true gender, and bred by changing into a gendered creature's shape and mating outside their own species.
• This trope comes into play In-Universe in the Magic: The Gathering story "Dragon's Paw" by Edward Bolme. Urza magically creates a dragon to aid him in his experiments, but doesn't bother to give it a gender. The dragon talks him into making it stronger and bigger and eventually wants to be given a gender. When Urza admits that he's not sure how, the dragon convinces him to let it do the work - and uses this newfound control to sever the link between dragon and mage and flies off into the world.
  • Thassa, God of the Sea seems to be topless, but has no visible nipples.
• In Warhammer 40,000 the asexual Orks reproduce through spores rather than sex. Nothing's actually been confirmed, mind you, but we're pretty sure any genitalia is vestigial at best (they seem as vulnerable to Groin Attacks as anyone else due to Rule of Funny).
• In Werewolf: The Apocalypse one of the physical features of the Crinos form is "vulnerable features like genitalia withdrawn".

Theater

• Infamously averted in the original Broadway production of Into the Woods where the wolf has a very prominent penis.

Video Games

• Half-Life:
  • Possibly Vortigaunts. Totally alien, so anything goes, but a featureless crotch is good for the censors.
  • For all we know, Vorts of the first game could be asexual. No Xen creatures except the Gonarch were shown with genitalia. Speaking of which, the Gonarch DID have a large sack with an orifice on the bottom. Which released baby headcrabs and was the only location which took damage.
• In Knights of the Old Republic, Rakghouls aren't shown with genitalia, despite being hairless and shiny. This is never addressed within the story, even though rakghouls are humans transformed by The Virus. At one point, humans transform into Rakghouls in front of your eyes — their genitalia appear to have instantly disappeared (along with the eyes, and the fifth finger, and... A lot, really).
• One of the few things that you can't give your Spore creatures is genitalia, although you can place body parts designed for other purposes where they should be. Or you can shape them like genitals...
• The Sonic the Hedgehog games primarily features animals without clothing (or very little anyway, as they usually at least wear shoes and White Gloves), except in case of the females (and Charmy Bee, who wears an orange vest and a flight helmet). None of the male characters are shown to have genitals, thankfully. Even Charmy.
• Twelve from Street Fighter III.
• Very, very much averted with Satan in Dante's Inferno, where the attention to detail is far from subtle, probably to conform to some popular depictions of the character. (Oddly, in the pre-rendered cutscenes these critical areas are consistently obscured by shadows. Go figure.)
• Played straight in both Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 3D Land where the Tanuki Suit, unlike many traditional depictions of the Tanuki, is very anatomically incorrect.
• Averted for several monsters in the God of War series. The gorgons and harpies have boobs, and in God of War III the centaurs have barely noticeable sheaths.
• Aliens in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Then again, they are genetically engineered cloned cannon fodder grown in vats, so genitalia would be a superfluous trait at best, a weak point at worst, so why bother leaving them with genitalia?
• The Legend of Zelda: In general, Gorons and Zora tend to be naked, but don't have any details (though in Twilight Princess the male Gorons infamously had nipples).
  • In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker the Koroks, being plant people, don't have any sexual characteristics.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Midna is technically nude most of the time, but since her imp form is devoid of detail aside from her belly button, she gets away with it. When she transforms into her true form, which is much more humanoid, her lower half is covered by a skirt but she is still topless, and so she still has no details there despite obviously having breasts.
  • In Hyrule Warriors, Midna (both versions), Ruto, and the Gorons are all technically naked, but lack visible naughty bits due to being different races than the more human-like characters. Though Ruto's alternate costumes seem to suggest she's wearing a dress that's simply the same color as her skin.
• StarCraft:
  • After being infected by the Zerg, Sarah Kerrigan is turned into the stark-naked Queen of Blades, but lacks nipples or genitalia. Probably justified since she was built with intelligent design by Abathur, and Zerg don't need reproductive organs. On the other hand, she has completely superfluous boobs. Then again, it would be like Kerrigan to insist on keeping them just to Mind Screw Jim Raynor.
  • The Protoss do not have anything resembling human genitalia: although they do have distinct sexes and a vaguely humanoid body-plan. This is because they are well... mushrooms. Sentient telepathic mushrooms. They reproduce via spores.
• In Evolve the monsters have neither genitals nor an anus. The lack of genitals is justified as the monsters don't sexually reproduce, but the best information we have for the lack of an anus is that they're just weird.
• Kirk Langstrom's Man-Bat form in Batman: Arkham Knight doesn't have his traditional Monster Modesty and thus is flying around nude, but is also under the trope as the player doesn't see anything below his waist.
• Werewolves and Werebears in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim don't have any going on down there; vampire lords, on the other hand come, with their own Magic Pants.
• Actually a plot point in Destroy All Humans!. The Furons, after centuries of waging unregulated nuclear war against other alien races, were subject to severe mutations that left their entire species with a lack of genitalia. They tried to get around this sterility by using cloning technology, which made members of the species essentially immortal, but the DNA patterns used for this process gradually became more and more degraded. To solve this, Orthopox-13 and Cryptosporidium-137 decide to pay a visit to a world whose native inhabitants, thanks to some Furon sailors on Furlough, house samples of pure Furon DNA in their gene pool: The planet Earth. In the sequels, thanks to all the DNA that Crypto obtained in the first game he actually gets genitalia and has been happily having sex with human women in-between game.
• YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG:
  • A two-off NPC from the beginning of the game, Proto Woman, appears to be a nude woman with flames coming out her back that flashes orange and blue. Or something like that. She has a visible naval, but lacks nipples or genitals. She also lacks hands, her arms ending in sharp points.
  • In-combat, the final boss appears as a gray fusion between Proto-Alex and the Essentia 995 twisted together, who are nude, but featureless.
• Averted in Epic Battle Fantasy 5 with the cyclops family, if the Mature option is turned on. Jotun has a visible but simply-drawn penis hanging from under his cloth, and he and his sisters all have nipples. Turning the Mature option off removes these.

Web Animation

• Averted in Retarded Animal Babies where Puppy is actually drawn with visible genitalia (even when he's wearing clothing), but played straight with the other Animal Babies.

Web Comics

• Both lampshaded and subverted in this strip of Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire. Buck, on the run from an ardent pursuer, drops into the rooftop garden of his best friend (and bartender)'s fiancé, Tal. Both she and her husband-to-be are Thuxians, vaguely resembling somewhat "softer" versions of the Xenomorphs from Alien. Tal was apparently sunning when Buck dropped in, and is thus buck-naked, which causes her to complain loudly about Buck's sudden appearance. He silences her, however, by pointing out that since humans and Thuxians are biologically incompatible, he wouldn't even know which parts of her could be considered "naughty". Then he comments on how her plump thorps bring out the sway of her tail,^note Damn straight they do! and promptly gets Megaton Punched through a window. (The lesson, my friend: Buck Godot ALWAYS knows more than he lets on.)
• Averted in Digger: we don't see anything because it's not that kind of comic, but given Ursula Vernon DID do her research, it is alluded to that The People (a race of sentient Spotted Hyenas) DO have pseudo-penises. As for Digger herself, It's hard to tell: She never wears any trousers, but given she's a female wombat, it's not like there would be much externally visible, or of interest to non-wombats, anyway. The flying rats are either all female or suffer from this, though.
• Averted in favor of Scenery Censor with Crunch the troll in Dumnestor's Heroes, who doesn't have enough fur to viably cover up the parts in question anyways.
• El Goonish Shive:
  • Grace's fur covers unsightly parts when she is naked. This is even lampshaded by Greg. Somewhat justified due to the whole Voluntary Shapeshifting thing.
  • The Uryuoms, who are shapeshifters as well, actually do lack attributes when they don't need them.
• This page of Exterminatus Now plays with the trope by talking about it with regards to Pokémon, despite the fact that at least two of the main characters seem to be subject to it.
• The Greenhouse: Played with.
  • The demon 'Red'. She starts off as little more than anthropomorphized mist (plus horns), but even as she gets increasingly solid and humanoid (including clearly defined breasts and legs) never develops 'attributes'. This may be an intentional choice; the way she describes her abs while they're disintegrating suggests she has some control over the way her body develops. Or maybe she just hasn't developed far enough yet.
  • We later see a demon called Aris, who does have nipples and appears to wear pants, averting the trope.
  • And at the same time, meet a possibly demonic being by the name of Amihan, who has nipple-less breasts but always has her groin censored by her Godiva Hair or speech bubbles.
• Humon's webcomics avert this; the most interesting example being the female tentacle monster, who is very embarrassed when she notices that she has been waving her small tentacles around in front of her lover's mother. The small tentacles only serve one specific purpose. Played straight with the personifications of certain animals in the series on weird animal reproduction habits — they all have Barbie Doll Anatomy.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • The issue is addressed in one strip in regards to reptilian humanoids.
    Gannji: It's called a genital sheath, look it up.
  • Possibly averted in the same comic with a different species. The Oracle, a kobold, mentions having balls, but in context (insulting someone with "Lick my orange balls"), he may have been joking.
• PvP has Skull, a large, fat, blue naked troll. Several characters have commented on his lack of genitalia, particularly when he was dating a normal human girl. Skull mentioned at one point that trolls are asexual, which immediately got used for a Pun.
• Sluggy Freelance:
  • The alien Aylee, who would occasionally shift form as a response to a new environment, mostly had nonhuman forms with no such attributes. Even her brief "buxom blonde secretary" form had a uniformly scaly exterior. Eventually she would adopt a form so human that she actually does have "human female naughty parts" under her wings-dress, though she's still green, which naturally causes embarrassment and some downright distress before she realizes human nudity rules now apply to her.
  • Mospinispinosp, the snake-woman-demon from the Dimension of Pain, has a human figure (without legs) but a featureless, scaly texture.
  • Lacey, a woman possessed by a lacewing demon, takes on a different demonic appearance at times, like most other possessed humans. In her case, her dress opens to form wings, which is handily accompanied by her body turning featureless too.
  • Most demons do actually wear clothes, indicating there may be something underneath. This also applies to Satan — except when drawn by Ian McDonald, when he's pantsless and featureless.
• Subverted in Sonichu. At first, the title character seems featureless (he is based on Sonic after all). However, in issue 8, the author dedicates a good dozen pages to describing how his Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal characters' sexual anatomy works and how some characters can walk around naked without exposing their genitals... culminating in a graphic depiction of electric-hedgehog-Pokémon-on-electric-hedgehog-Pokémon intercourse.
• Tyson Hesse's infamous Sonic parody plays the trope straight like the source material, then plays it for laughs with Super Sonic's inexplicable briefs.
• In Our Little Adventure, Angelika lampshades that the Nemurik Fish People don't have anything in the crotch department. Justified, since they exchange genetic information through their tails.
• The main female lead in Komos & Goldie averts this. Despite looking like a naked golden human woman, she's always drawn with nipples. Komos plays this straight, though, given that he's a reptile.
• In Yokoka's Quest, critters with fur have no attributes to show (the comic is for all ages).
• Kill Six Billion Demons
  • Angels are sexless, and neither the stone bodies they use to manifest nor their real bodies (even when humanoid, and even when noticeably resembling one gender) seem to have attributes.
  • Devils "don't procreate normally," and at least blue devils have been shown naked and showed no attributes, in spite of most of them having a clearly "female" shape. They have been known have sex anyway, but the details haven't been explained.
• Alice Grove: Laridia appears as a nude humanoid without breasts or genitalia. Justified because it's a temporary body, grown for them to leave their native virtual-reality world.

Western Animation

• Killface in Frisky Dingo. Averted in the finale.
  Lady Mom: "Why haven't you destroyed this planet?"
  Killface: "Well, uh, you see..."
  Lady Mom: (gasps) "And where are your clothes?!"
  Killface: "Welp... Funny story."
• American Dad!:
  • Roger mentions to a date that he doesn't have any genitals. (It was okay; she had both).
  • In another episode, he claims it's just imperceptibly small due to years of steroid abuse.
  • Yet in several other episodes, Roger has sex with human women as though he has identical genitals to a normal human male.
  • In the episode "Jenny Fromdabloc". Roger (after tricking Steve's best friend, Snot, into thinking he was the eponymous "Jenny Fromdabloc" to cheer him up after being denied by his crush) is caught cleaning up a stress ball by Steve. Roger had been using it to cure Snot of his "stress".
• Overlapping with Pop-Culture Urban Legends, Bugs Bunny may have actually averted this trope in the short The Wabbit Who Came to Supper, during a scene in which he's coming out of the shower and his towel slips, revealing what looks like a white fur-covered penis for a couple frames. This has been discredited by most, though— it was most likely supposed to just be a gap between his legs and above the towel, through which either the bathtub or another part of the towel is visible. Make your own judgement.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force features several relatively anthropomorphic food items, who all expressed sexual attraction to women (Master Shake likes to look at dirty magazines alone), but none of whom wear clothes or show their genitals. The episode where Shake sells Meatwad to the circus features the "prince of Saturn" sent to Earth to reproduce with our women. In a notable aversion, he reveals his genitals and they are horrific (and thus his mission failed); that's why he's running a circus now instead of still trying to take over the planet.
• Regular Show: Oddly, Mordecai and Rigby are the only Funny Animals without some sort of clothes on. Rigby's brother Don (who's also naked but drawn with a MUCH more human-looking anatomy) lampshades this, especially how they'll often be clothed in flashbacks to indicate their age:
  Don: Remember when you started walking around naked? I thought you were SO cool.
• Zig-zagged in The Amazing World of Gumball, where the anthropomorphic non-humans may wear body-covering clothes, non-body covering clothes, or no clothes at all. When the first type lose their clothing (most often Gumball), they're treated as naked and usually have pixellated genitals. Sometimes the second type losing their "clothes" (Darwin the goldfish's shoes, Leslie the flower's pot) will be treated as naked, complete with the uncovered area being pixellated. Tina Rex and her father are more specifically of Animals Lack Attributes types.
• Parodied in the Saturday TV Funhouse Yogi Bear parody "The Anatominals". Both "Kogi" and "Boo" seemed to be smuggling potatoes in their underwear, and Cindy Bear and her coyote friend have their own issues.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic plays with this. In "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", Fluttershy is embarrassed when Rainbow Dash yanks the sheets off of her, despite the lack of any visible genitalia. Yet in "A Canterlot Wedding", Twilight Sparkle shakes her naked flank in Queen Chrysalis's face, treating the viewers to a view of featureless pony arse. In the general run of the show, attention is inadvertently drawn to their lack of attributes by the way their tails always point up rather than staying in line with the spine and frequent from-behind perspectives.
• Brian from Family Guy has been the butt of several penis jokes, despite his own lack of visible genitalia. Brian claims it gets pulled inside when he stands up. Truth in Television; dogs have a sort of retractable penis on their belly that normally rests inside a sheath.
• Even though SpongeBob SquarePants showcases species that would not have external genitalia in real life and are shown lacking them, the male animal characters in the show have lampshaded this trope from time to time.
  • SpongeBob has been seen completely naked (well, completely naked except for his shoes) in multiple episodes. In "Nature Pants", Scenery Censor is used to cover that area most of the time, but it can still be seen a few times. In "Hooky", he is traumatized when Pearl and her friends (as well as the audience) sees his non-existent genitalia.
  • Patrick and SpongeBob become Invisible Streakers in one episode and terrorize the town. Mr. Krabs catches them and puts them on show before they have a chance to get clothes on. They try to use their hands to cover their nudity, but it is obvious they have nothing to hide.
  • Squidward usually wears a shirt and no pants. He's still embarrassed when he finds himself naked in public and a police officer even fines him for it.
  • Mr. Krabs is completely naked when Plankton uses a machine to switch lives with him (a variation on the "Freaky Friday" Flip) since Plankton is usually completely naked. Even though it is obvious that he has no genitals, Plankton is still mortified to see him in the nude.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) this is played straight with Splinter and Leatherhead and possibly subverted with the Turtles themselves, if you look closely, the Turtles in this version have a bit of plastron that goes between the legs forming 'built in pants' as it were one can only assume this means their "naughty bits" are underneath the shell.
• Steven Universe: Despite their female appearance and generally wearing clothing that would cover them up, gems don't appear to have any breasts and certainly don't have belly buttons. Amethyst has on a couple of occasions pulled her top down far enough that the audience would have certainly seen something if there was anything to show, while Sugilite, Jasper, Blue Pearl, Yellow Pearl, Doc, and Navy have very chest-baring shirts with no hints of any features. Indeed, Rose Quartz is the only one with visible cleavage (and that might just be the way she's shaped), even though her original form, Pink Diamond, had no breasts. Guide to the Crystal Gems states that Rose had to use shapeshifting to make a womb for Steven to be born, implying they don't usually have genitals either. All of this makes sense, though, as gems really have No Biological Sex and reproduce artificially with machines.
• Played straight with Fitz and his friends from 12 oz. Mouse. This is very applicable with the former, as male mice have obvious testicles.
  • Averted in "Bowtime", where you can see Golden Joe and Peanut Cop's dicks (albeit pixelated).
• Played straight in Bluey, where most of the characters almost never wear clothes, even though they are bipedal and civilized, and you see nothing down there (since it's a kids' show of course). There are some times however when they do act as if they possess such parts:
  • Groin Attack is surprisingly frequent in this show. Both Bandit and his brother Stripe have had their fair share of getting hit or kicked in the crotch, despite the audience not seeing anything.
  • At the beginning of "Born Yesterday", Chilli is upset when she sees Bluey and Bingo taking pictures of her bottom while she's doing yoga, despite not really having anything to hide.

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Nipples Variant

Comic Books

• Sally Acorn in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) can be either fully nude save for boots, or wear only an open vest. Either way, she has obvious breasts without nipples.

Films — Animation

• Moto Moto the hippo from Madagascar: Escape to Africa has this.
• Played with for laughs in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Scrat is a saber-toothed squirrel... thing, and is presented with neither visible genitals or nipples. Until a patch of fur gets ripped off his chest, revealing two nipples on the skin underneath. The female Scratte plays this straighter, with the impression of having breasts, but once again no visible nipples.
• Lola and the other female martians in Marcianos vs. Mexicanos have three breasts to go along with their three eyes that the martians (except Jacinto, who has one eye) have by default. They don't have nipples however.
• Surprisingly averted with Walt Disney's Fantasia. The centaurette from the Pastoral Symphony sequence bathe topless and visible nipples are shown. The harpies in the Night on Bald Mountain sequence are also topless, with nipples.
• Also averted in The Last Unicorn with the harpy and her three Non-Mammal Mammaries.

Pinballs

• The merwomen of Barracora have breasts but no nipples visible.

Video Games

• The Pokémon games give us Nidoqueen.◊
• Shantae: The game series features a variety of monster girls as some of the enemies. They're usually topless, but with no nipples to speak of. Usually the mermaids, with the Monster Modesty exceptions of the Giga Mermaid, who wears a Seashell Bra, and the Sirens of Shantae and the Seven Sirens, who all wear chest coverings.

Web Comics

• Amy, created by the creator of Sabrina Online prior to the latter and its titular character, had defined breasts without nipples.
• TwoKinds generally follows the "covered in fur" approach. Lampshaded using those exact words when Maren reminds a shy Raine that "You're covered in fur remember? Nothing's going to show." Raine, who has severe body image issues due to her barely controllable Voluntary Shapeshifting, admits her modesty is silly but helps her feel human. The nipples are definitely there, though, as told by one character that female Keidran have rows that go below the two "primary" mammaries.
• Questionable Content: Zig-zagged as the designs for AI bodies are refined, to Roko's surprise when she has to replace her chassis:
  Lemon: So how do you like it? The tech blogs are deeply divided over whether the nipples are a necessary addition.
  Roko: No comment

Web Original

• Subverted in Sonichu. While some of the characters do appear topless with seemingly featureless breasts, issue #8 explains that the females of the Sonichu species have retractable nipples.

Western Animation

• The female reindeer in Robbie the Reindeer have plainly defined breasts without nipples.
• A little bit of it is present on the females in Father of the Pride. Also averted with the female pig in the "Donkey" episode; she has eight nipples showing. Not only is she an aversion, she is a very rare female aversion and the show is rated TV 14 rather than TV MA.
• The female chimp that appeared in one episode of The Penguins of Madagascar doesn't have any nipples showing, but averted with Phil and Mason the male chimps; they still have their nipples showing. Also averted and Bada and Bing the gorillas.
• Averted with the male and female animals in Almost Naked Animals. Unlike with the male animals in the same show, they’re all wearing bras except the cows, which have udders instead.
• Averted with the titular character from Chowder.
• Richard Watterson from The Amazing World of Gumball is pretty frequently shown shirtless. Although he has very visible saggy man breasts, they have no nipples barring a few episodes from the first season. Gumball is also shirtless a lot, and has no visible nipples except in one scene where the dialogue mentions them (he wondered if he could sell them).
• Humphrey and many of the other bears his cartoons in the Classic Disney Shorts have Wrong Type of Mammal Mammaries and their nipples don’t show, but since they’re male, this is a notable example of Law of Conservation of Detail.
• Averted with Porky Pig in Duck Dodgers and The Looney Tunes Show.
• Sylvester's mom from The Looney Tunes Show has small, human-like breasts, but because of Nipple and Dimed for female animal characters, her nipples don't show.
• Sometimes averted on The Ren & Stimpy Show, especially when the title characters gain muscular bodies.
• Flavio and Marita, the Hip Hippos from Animaniacs have this.
• Averted with Skips the gorilla from Regular Show.
• Averted in the Family Guy episode, "The Book of Joe." Brian is shown to have ten nipples on his chest. Truth in Television as actual dogs have ten nipples.
• Averted with Coverton in the Monsters vs. Aliens (2013) TV series. He has six breasts that each have nipples showing when he is naked.
• 12 oz. Mouse: Fitz's wife has visible breasts, but has no nipples.

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