Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me

"Dammit. Not only will Baron Eselschwanzed be having his way with me later, but this shampoo's lilac-scented.
I hate lilac. Well, at least the water's warm..."

Count Drusus Beausoleil: Shall I have her bathed and brought to your quarters, then? Mu ha.
Du Quay: Tch. Drusus, you really need to stop reading those Othar Tryggvassen adventure novels.

— Girl Genius (Vol. 15 p. 74)

The villain has the lovely damsel right where he wants her. His plans for her at this point will likely involve putting her in Go-Go Enslavement, invoke ''ius primae noctis'', and possibly giving her a Sadistic Choice between preserving her virtues and preserving the life of that insufferable do-gooder she calls her true love...

...but first, it looks like she could do with a nice hot bath! He has his servants (hot maidservants usually, or failing that, eunuchs) take her away to be cleaned up and groomed properly. Bonus pervert points if he then watches them strip and bathe her via hidden camera, two-way mirror, peephole, Crystal Ball, or the like.

Justified in pre-modern settings, since in many societies throughout history, bathing had been a luxury which only the upper classes could afford themselves and the heroine should be expectably dirty. In less adult-oriented media, the bathing is just to make sure she'll look nice in her wedding dress.

Compare She Cleans Up Nicely and sometimes No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine. Related to, but not necessarily the same thing as, Go-Go Enslavement. Undressing the Unconscious may occur if the character is bathed while they're unconscious. Can precede a Shameful Strip if no clothes are provided following the bath. May go hand-in-hand with And Now You Must Marry Me and Sex Slave.

An Important Notice: Please remember folks, that bathing or at least some mention of bathing is a key element to qualify as an example of this trope. Thank you, carry on.

Not to be confused with Bring Him to Me... Except when it can be. And being a Bathing Beauty is not a pre-requisite for this treatment either. A more comedic related trope is Forced Bath.

noreallife

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Sarasa is taken prisoner and chosen as a ritual sacrifice in the last episode (ep. 13) of Legend of Basara, and undergoes a purification ceremony with utterly undisguised loathing. (see above picture) Part of what makes it so abhorrent for Sarasa is that that she and her love interest (assumed to have been killed by her captors at this point) often met at open air baths.
• Black Butler: In the anime, Lord Trancy chooses young boys to be his sex slaves in episode 8 of season 2 and before they are presented to him to "entertain" him they are bathed and treated like livestock by the house maids.
  • In the manga, this is what happened to Ciel and his twin brother before being prepped up to be sacrificed.
• Early in Boys over Flowers, Tsukushi is borderline kidnapped and brought to Doumyouji's Big Fancy House, where she gets a bath and a makeover from the house staff. Somewhat averted, as there is little to no sexual coercion intended - Doumyouji wants either to bribe her to be his girlfriend or bribe her to stop interfering with the F4, depending on the adaptation. Doumyouji is just that dense.
• In Inuyasha, Kagome is taken captive by the sage Kokajin and wakes up in a bath. In a rare subversion, he has no sexual intentions with her, but rather just wants her to be clean before he turns her into juice for a man-eating tree. In the manga, he just wants to outright eat her.
• Legend of the Blue Wolves: Jonathan is forced under a shower spray by one of Captain Continental's subordinates before the Fat Bastard himself enters completely nude to rape Jonathan.
• In Mobile Suit Victory Gundam the protagonist Uso Ewin is ordered to be put into a bubble bath by the Zanscare Empire Lieutenant, Lupe Cineau. She then takes this a step further by getting into the bath with him and attempts to "Interrogate" him causing him to fight back and escape.

Comedy

• One of Jimmy Carr's gags, when either talking to a sexually adventurous woman in the audience or as a reply to an audience member whistling at him.
  "Have her washed and brought to my room. I'm joking; don't wash her."

Comic Books

• In a Catwoman comic book, before her wedding to a nobleman, the title character was forcibly given a bath by two of his henchwomen.
• In Femforce #51, the Claw mind controls Ms. Victory and intends to make her his queen. He declares her costume to not be raiment fit for a queen and strips her before handing her over to handmaidens with the instructions:
  "Now, handmaidens, prepare a hot bath for your lady! Your royal robes await! Tomorrow, my American beauty, you shall take your place as the Bride of the Claw!"
• Happens in Little Ego when Ego is siezed by the Green Sheik and taken to his harem. The Green Sheik hands her over to the other women of the harem to have her bathed. This being Ego, it quickly turns into a Two-Person Pool Party. Which then turns out to be all just an Erotic Dream
• The New Mutants: immediately after being captured by the forces of the priestess Selene, she has her servants bathe Wolfsbane, Dani, and Magma, which then leads to the girls being drugged with wine, dressed in skimpy slave outfits, and being sold into (arena fighting) slavery.
• Has happened to Red Sonja more than once, when some Evil Overlord decides to make her part of his harem. See the Sonja Goes East one-shot for one such example which ends with the man dead or "Birth of the She-Devil" where Sultan Bashir, despite knowing she's killed kings, tries it and ends up dead.
• Superman/Supergirl: Maelstrom: Subverted. After Maelstrom has been tortured in punishment for trying to start a slave revolt, Darkseid orders she is bathed, cleaned and brought to his chambers... so he can tell her personally her obsessive crush on him is unhealthy and unrequited.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: Queen Clea has Steve Trevor stripped, cleaned up, dressed in a loincloth and brought before her...to face some of her monsters in the arena for her entertainment. Despite the heavy BDSM overtones this series was aimed at children and thus remained within limits of the rating.
• In the furry comic Xanadu, when Tabbe Le Fauve is captured, the unicorn Empress Alicia orders him bathed in the magic unicorn pool. Being a cat, Tabbe is frantically resistant to be thrown into water, but immediately changes his mind when he is thrown in: the magic water feels more like silk and Empress Alicia, naked, smoking hot looking and horny as her horn, climbs in to join him.
• In X-Treme X-Men, interdimensional conqueror Kahn captures Storm and intends to make her his bride, and has his servants bathe her.

Comic Strips

• Modesty Blaise: Kang, the leader of the Chinese deserters, orders this done to Modesty after she enters the valley posing as a mute slave girl in "Death Symbol".
  "She is Americano—hurt head, cannot speak—she has been searched and washed—you speak to her, Mo-Ree. See to clothes and food, tell what she must do, and find name for her. Kang will have her tonight."

Fan Works

• At the beginning of Chapter 23 of Code Geass: Lelouch of Britannia.
• Dreamland University Redux: Gender flipped version happens to Meta Knight when he's captured by Dark Mind and trapped in the Mirror World, although it's somewhat justified. Not only does Meta Knight have injuries that need treated, but he'd previously been in a fight and spent some time in a dungeon.
• In the Naruto fanfic Duty Before Honor, Sakura is subject to this when she goes undercover to retrieve a vase from a dirty old pervert. Unfortunately, this washes off most of the poison she smeared over her body to protect herself from said pervert.
• This Voltron fan fic at fanfiction.net in the third chapter.

Films — Animation

• Heavy Metal:
  Barbarian Leader: Have her bound and washed. Then... bring her to me.
• The Prince of Egypt: Tzipporah, a Midian woman who was kidnapped by the Egyptians and given Ramses as a concubine, is passed off to Moses, who tricks her into falling into a pool of water. Ramses gives the order, "Have her dried off and sent to Prince Moses' chambers!" Moses doesn't look any happier with the thought than Tzipporah, but she swiftly enacts her own escape before any awkward confrontations can occur. Funnily enough, this is inverted later—he winds up in Midian after wandering in the desert and is bathed by some old women. He seems just as uncomfortable as before.

Films — Live-Action

• In American Psycho (Uncut; 39:12), Patrick Bateman prepares his escort Christie a bath and instructs "I want you to clean your vagina, ... get out, dry off, robe and meet me and [the second escort Sabrina] in the living room for drinks."
• The Barbarian: What is happening in the infamous Bathtub Scene where a (seemingly) nude Myrna Loy is getting a wash (in 1933!), although she does not know it. Diana makes her way to a palace in the Sahara, where the lady servants of the house give her a bath. She enjoys the bath, but what she does not know is that the palace belongs to Achmed Pasha, who lusts for her and has arranged for her to be brought there. She's taken into his presence immediately afterwards.
• The Best House in London: Walter is a sleazy, slimy young aristocrat who is setting up a brothel. After getting a look at one job applicant, Walter, who has already said he will test all the girls personally before hiring them, says "Give her a wash."
• In Bunraku, Killer #2 tells the prostitutes to get Momoko ready for him later that night, luckily giving the heroes some time to rescue her. Alexandra is also bathed before being sent back to Nicola.
• In Gun Fury, the outlaw Frank Slayton has the whores at Pedro's ranch bathe the captive Jennifer before he comes to her room and forces himself on her.
• In The Death of Stalin, Beria orders his men to bathe a young girl he later rapes.
• The Masque of the Red Death: The depraved Prince Prospero orders his coach to halt so as to abduct a pretty peasant girl, who once back at his castle is duly bathed...
• In My Fair Lady, Henry Higgins orders his maids to do this to Eliza Doolittle, verbatim. He just wants them to wash off the filth of the London streets before he and Eliza begin their lessons, but Eliza assumes he has more nefarious things in mind and fights like a wildcat when they try to undress her, insisting that she's a "good girl".
• In Prince Valiant (1997), Lady Ilene is bathed by the other captured princesses. However, she manages to convince them that she can bathe herself, sneaks out and spies on the bad guys, then sneaks back in and gets dressed without them noticing.
• Implied in Return of the Jedi: Jabba never orders Leia's change in wardrobe from Bounty Hunter to odalisque on screen, but there is little question as to which of the two desired the change.
• In Super Mario Bros. (1993) Koopa has Lena clean Daisy up and give her a makeover before they meet face-to-face, including a princess dress that belonged to her mother, a different hairstyle, and red lipstick.
• This happened to Bo Derek as "Jane," in Tarzan, the Ape Man (starring Miles O'Keefe), as she was captured by generic African savages and prepared as the royal bride for their chief.
• The 1956 Cecil B. DeMille classic The Ten Commandments:
  Tears? When you have been bathed in scented water.... when your limbs have been caressed by sweet oils... and your hair combed with sandalwood... there will be no time for tears.
• Virgin Territory: A rare male example with Lorenzo and the two nuns, who have him bathe before joining him.
• The Warrior's Way have the ruthless Colonel, who had a penchant for raping young women with healthy teeth, demanding a pair of teenaged sisters to be washed by his men before being sent to his quarters. After he killed their parents, that is.

Literature

• Downplayed in The Alice Network. The mistress of a Man of Wealth and Taste is asked to take a bath before coming to his bedroom each night, but she bathes herself and she isn't forced into it. She is humiliated by the insinuation that she smells, but she also appreciates the hot water and expensive soap, neither of which she has access to otherwise.
• In The Bakers Boy, Melli is at one point captured by one of the Big Bads and offered a bath, which he subsequently watches through a hole in the wall with delight.
• The Belgariad: Salmissra sends the kidnapped (and drugged) Garion off with her eunuchs and maidservants to be bathed, as a prelude to being dressed up in Go-Go Enslavement. For added Squick value, he's 15. As a result, it is not surprising that Polgara's Mama Bear instincts kick-in and she tears apart most of Salmissra's palace as part of her Roaring Rampage of Rescue.
• In the non-fiction Beyond the Call by Lee Trimble, an American officer arranges for a female refugee who's been sleeping rough to have a bath at the hotel where he's staying. She assumes this trope is in play and he wants her body in exchange for his help.
• The Blackadder Chronicles script book included a transcript of Captain Darling's application form for Emergency Transfer to Somewhere Much Safer. At the bottom were three checkboxes for the superior officer to choose between: "Application approved"; "Applicant to be Shot at Dawn"; and "Applicant to be washed and sent to my tent".
• Inverted in the Anne Rice novel, Blackwood Farm. After being kidnapped by Petronia, Quinn Blackwood awakes to find a pair of servants bathing him in preparation for his vampiric conversion. They even go so far as to give him a haircut and a shave before bringing him before Petronia. The rest of the event unfolds in a less pleasant fashion as Petronia has Quinn fight her in a hopeless battle for his own life where Quinn eventually attempts a Groin Attack. Petronia then forces Quinn to fellate her hermaphroditic penis, which he does...just before he bites down hard. The blood from that bite is what eventually forces Quinn into vampirism.
• When Amara of Codex Alera is captured by Brencis Kalarus Minorus, he collars her and taunts/questions her, complete with maidservant doing the washing, while she's being cleaned in the bath. This being a Jim Butcher work, though, it's actually a ploy, as she made herself immune to collaring by being pre-collared by her husband/spy-partner around her thigh, hiding it under her pants, and went into the situation expecting to probably be captured so that she can get close enough to make a (successful) attempt on Brencis' life.
• In The Crystal Cave, after 12-year-old Merlin is caught spying on a secret rite, Count Ambrosius orders him brought to his headquarters, where he is given a hot bath (a Roman custom) and a meal. Later the Count questions him, and then invites Merlin to sleep in his room. For a moment Merlin wonders whether Ambrosius is "Roman in other ways". He isn't, and Merlin is shown to a bed in a small alcove. It turns out that Ambrosius is Merlin's father.
• The Familiar of Zero: When Siesta is made into a servant for Count Mott he explains suggestively he didn't hire her just to do household chores and a later scene shows her getting a bath while crying before she is requested to appear before Mott, presumably to engage in sexual activities with him (unwanted by her of course).
• Subverted in The Hunger Games. On reaching the Capitol, Katniss is stripped naked, bathed by the "prep team" (who make rude remarks about her peasant dirtiness in the process), and delivered to Cinna still nude. But it turns out that Cinna isn't interested in sex at all; he's an eccentric tailor and his first step in designing clothes is looking at his client naked.
• Shadows of the Empire: when Prince Xizor was both trapping Princess Leia and teasing her with possibilities of an alliance while attempting to seduce her. She was his guest for a while, and explicitly dressed in the dark so it would be harder for him to spy on her. He once invited her to take a bath with him. She got back at him later.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Tales of Dunk and Egg: In The Sworn Sword, it's sarcastically noted that the name of this trope could just as well have been the personal motto of the late and infamous womanizer king Aegon the Unworthy.
    "Fire and Blood" were the words of House Targaryen, but Dunk once heard Ser Arlan say that Aegon's should have been, '"Wash Her and Bring Her to My Bed."
  • A Dance with Dragons: Ramsay Bolton takes this to the next level with his (unwilling) bride. He's a bit of a hygiene freak, and has her constantly bathed. However it is implied that his wife is doing this because she feels ashamed because of the things Ramsay has been doing to her.
• Spellfall: A non-villain (but still Jerkass) example. Natalie, a twelve-years-old girl, is captured by an evil Wizard Hawk, and after a few days of capture, escapes with Merlin, Hawk's son, who is 11 years old. When they arrive at the Council of Oq, she is told that before she can speak with the council, she has to take a swim in a special cleansing pool. As she herself also wants to be clean (after days without shower or bath), she is actually glad — until she learns that Merlin also has to take a swim in the same pool, and no, bathing suits are not provided.
• Tawny Man: Fool's Fate, the last book of trilogy, has the hero brought before the big bad as she bathes. She then gets out of the bath in a seductive manner and leaves him to relax in her still hot, used bath water. Given that he's been worn ragged searching through ice caves and frozen wasteland for the past few weeks, he resignedly accepts.
• The Traveller in Black: This functions as a semi-important detail in the novella "The Wager Lost by Winning", where the rather unsympathetic protagonist is bathed before being claimed by Lord Fellian.
• Treasure Hoard: Rori is told he will be getting a bath from two people upon arrival at his new home and fears this trope. Turns out, the Master simply thought he'd appreciate getting a bath before meeting with him.

Live-Action TV

• Spoofed in 'Allo 'Allo! when Rene is captured by the Communist resistance, and their leader Louise orders her Amazon Brigade to "bath him, shave him, and take him to my bunker."
• Nina, the werewolf, gets this treatment in the Angel episode "Unleashed", although in this case, she was being prepared to meet her host at dinner, as the entree.
• Cheers: A random gag in episode "Simon Says". Frasier's friend Simon Finch-Royce, the marriage counselor, is introduced to Carla. Simon the snooty, upper-class Brit takes one look at Carla, the earthy, foul-mouthed, working-class waitress, and says "Have her scrubbed and brought to my tent."
• Lady Cassandra from Doctor Who plays with this Trope, since she thinks the Doctor's companion, Rose Tyler could become her new host. She makes sure that her servant Chip makes Rose go through a disinfectant in the elevator of the hospital where they are all in. This was done intentionally since Chip hacks the elevator controls in order to lead Rose into their dungeon and asks her if she is all cleaned up. After a good time of snarking at each other, Cassandra manages to possess Rose and despite being disgusted about doing it at first because she is a high-class lady and Rose is of a humble background, she quickly grows fond of her new appeal, spending a good amount of time studying the new merchandise and later sexualizes her new (Rose's) appearance in order to seduce the Doctor. It helps that Cassandra is something like a Femme Fatale archetype so there's a lot of Shameless Fanservice from her side.
• Game of Thrones:
  • In ""Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken", Ramsey's mistress Myranda, who is as sadistic as he is, approaches Lady Sansa Stark's room and draws her a bath, telling her she must be clean and fresh for her new husband. As she washes Sansa's back, she tells her about Ramsay's reputation as The Blue Beard. Sansa listens at first but then she tells Myranda to stop, reminding her that whatever she may have been, she was just a kennel-master's daughter and she should have known that Ramsay would tire of her. The dark implications of the trope are present even though Sansa is a noble woman who agreed to marry Ramsey. Her decision was not exactly voluntary and after the haunting midnight wedding, Ramsey rapes her, and forces brain-washed Theon (who was Starks' hostage/ward and basically grew up with the Stark children) to watch.
  • "Second Sons" has a gender-flipped version. Upon arriving at Dragonstone Melisandre sends Gendry off to be bathed and dressed before he's brought to her chambers where she's planning on seducing him and using him as part of a Blood Magic ritual. Stannis asks her why she's bothering to treat him with such apparent kindness instead of just killing him and getting it over with. Melisandre explains that it's to keep him calm so he won't try to fight or escape, comparing it to how a lamb about to be slaughtered will panic if it sees the knife.
• One Life to Live: when Max Holden has a Near-Death Experience, Death appears to him in the guise of a beautiful, seductive woman, and her first effort to entice Max into her bed (in other words, choose to die rather than live), is to insist that he take a bath.
• Pandora: When the Seeker is getting ready for bed, he has his clone slaves bathe him, paying special attention to all those hard-to-reach places, which has tons of unfortunate implications, especially once it becomes clear that he's quite aware that one of his slaves has been replaced by Atria Nine, who he believes is here to assassinate him.
• Referenced in QI, where the sight of Alan Davies trying on a scold's bridle brought on the Ho Yay:
  Alan Davies (as Stephen Fry): Have him scrubbed and brought to my room.
  Stephen Fry: Actually, don't bother to have him scrubbed.
• Robin of Sherwood episode "The Betrayal": Prince John tells the captured Marion that she'll be bathed, scented, dressed in Byzantine silk, and brought to him.
• Happens to the unfortunate female USAF senior airman captured at the start of the uncut version of the Stargate SG-1 Pilot Movie "Children of the Gods". The Goauld are a race of Puppeteer Parasites, and presumably they want their potential host body to be clean before they inspect and then inhabit it.
• Titans (2018). When Starfire brings her sister Blackfire to meet the Titans, she likes the look of Connor and orders him bathed and brought to her bedchamber. Starfire has to inform her that a) he's a friend not her 'manservant' and b) they don't do that kind of thing on this planet. Plus she's going to have to draw her own bath. Connor does end up in her bed though, but willingly.
• Arms Dealer Mezentius says this in the Xena: Warrior Princess episode "The Path Not Taken", instructing his guards to have a female captive "bathed and perfumed and brought to my chamber".
• In The X-Files episode "Irresistible", a necrophiliac fetishist who became a serial killer indulges in preparing a cold bath for his victims as he liked them corpse-like cold and clean. He pays attention especially to their hair, asking whether they are chemically treated and similar questions. He was preparing the baths himself and his possible sexual intentions were implied. Shudder.

Music Videos

• In the Mötley Crüe music video "Too Young to Fall in Love", a young, dirty homeless woman is taken in by some kind of secret underground kung fu clan. She is then bathed to look presentable for the leader.

Myths & Religion

• Older Than Feudalism: In the Book of Esther, concubines of the king must spend months in a bathing and beauty regimen before they go to his bed.

Video Games

• Generals in Medieval II: Total War may use a similar line in their pre-battle speech. "And if you happen to find a young lass in their ranks, wash her and bring her to my tent!"
• In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Dr Strangelove captures Cécile, but takes pity on her and treats her well, with particular emphasis on giving her sponge baths every day (when Snake asks why, Strangelove responds that she was just "admiring her beauty"). Played with somewhat in that Cécile seems to enjoy the attention and teases Snake with the mental image.

Webcomics

• Inverted in Darths & Droids, where Pete (playing as R2-D2) demands as his reward for saving the Queen's ship to be cleaned and oiled by the most beautiful handmaiden.
• Girl Genius:
  • A minion named Drusus suggests his master do this to the captured Agatha. His master replies that he's read too many stories and that this would be a distraction from the crucial moment of his plot. Though he does suggest leaving her in the Velvet Dungeon for later.
    Du Quay: I was under the impression that one of the advantages of being the Master of Paris would be no longer having to kidnap young women for an evening's company.
  • When the King of the Silver Lands captured Agatha's entire party, he did this to all of them. Including the Jaegers.

Web Original

• Can You Spare a Quarter?: Jamie once met a man who let him wash, but the encounter ended with the boy limping for the next week and not relishing the memory.

Western Animation

• Spy Groove: The villain, Champagne Du Jour, has Agent #2 brought to her chambers and bathed. It's a ploy by the Agent, so it's not played for drama.
• The Venture Bros.: In the episode "Love-Bheits", Dean Venture is dressed as Princess Leia for a themed costume contest entry and is on the way back before the Ventures and Brock Samson are captured by Baron Ünderbheit. Mistaking Dean for a female because of the outfit, Ünderbheit tries to marry him off while keeping the others prisoner, sending him to a bathhouse run by eunuchs. They do find out Dean's not female as soon as he is stripped, but will not tell Ünderbheit. Ünderbheit goes through with the marriage, which gets him dethroned, because gay marriage is illegal in Ünderland.

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