Show Some Leg

Calvert: Now listen. You've got to distract the guard.
Sue: How?
Calvert: Guess. [starts to unlace Sue's blouse] Don't! [blocks her slap] ...do that.
Sue: Well what do you expect?!
Calvert: Look, you're a very nice girl but the last thing I need is that, especially on a staircase.
Sue: What do I do?
Calvert: Just appear and lust will do the rest.
Sue: What if he doesn't fancy me?
Calvert: Well, that's all we need — a guard that's queer!

— When Eight Bells Toll

A character (almost Always Female) provides a distraction by flirting with and/or showing some skin to an opposing guard, Spear Carrier and/or Red Shirt characters. Of course if you have large breasts it's a lot easier. And some characters are distractions all by themselves.

This trope does not mean characters whose outfit only covers their top half; that's Stripperiffic or Leg Focus. This trope is probably the only reason a female warrior would even consider a Chainmail Bikini. Might be more directly applied via a Kiss of Distraction.

See also: Fanservice, Distracted by the Sexy, Action Dress Rip. See also Leg Focus, a more general trope about legs as fanservice. Compare Fake-Out Make-Out. See also I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!, where flirting and acting sexy is done to gain a favor, rather than distraction, and Lust Makes You Dumb, which sometimes overlaps with this trope. Contrast Ignore the Fanservice.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Ah! My Goddess, Urd turns the tide of a softball match by showing up in a uniform two sizes too small without a bra, destroying the focus of the all-male team she and the rest of the cast were playing against.
• Gorgon in Air Gear lived off of this strategy in AT matches. It had the opposite effect on Onigiri. It really helps that he rode the AT by HIS HEAD. Gorgon's tattoo is hypnotizing enemies looking at her Sexy Backless Outfit, making them numb/slowed down. And by turning it upside down (Onigiri, I look at you) it increases his speed to the point Onigiri activates funnily awesome Smell Road.
• Black Butler reveals this to be one of Sebastian's tactics during the cricket tournament in the Weston College arc. He has Lau and his horde of Ran-Mao girls sit close to the cricket field. The girls are all showing their legs (back then, the equivalent of naked breasts) to distract the opposite team. It works wonders... until Lau and his girls are forced to leave the field.
• In the very first episode of Burn Up! W, "Skin Dive", Rio distracts a band of terrorists by bungee-jumping naked. Technically she was wearing a full-body suit that appeared as flesh-colored until she activated it.
• In A Certain Magical Index, Oriana Thompson is a master martial artist, but she also enjoys adopting sexy poses, cupping her boobs, etc to get male opponents to pause mid-attack, landing her easier victories. She is one of the few women Touma Kamijou is attracted to, but he completely ignores her sexy tactics and punches her face in when they fight.
• Inverted in Claymore. Teresa is going to be raped by bandits, so she just takes off her clothes, revealing some kind of hideous deformation in the middle of their torso that all Claymores have as a result of the process used to create them.
• Subverted in Code Geass. One of the clubs in Ashford Academy try to do this to Lelouch in order to catch him during Milly's graduation event. It fails because it's not actually Lelouch but Sayoko posing as him.
  • This ends up being a Funny Moment, as Sayoko declares "Those bodies have no effect on me!", to the girls' mild surprise. Lelouch, acting as Mission Control, responds to this with "Please quit making me say such strange things."
• Cowboy Bebop:
  • In the anime, Faye Valentine regularly invokes this trope for her own benefit (obvious, really) although it doesn't always work, Spike in particular possessing an almost Zen-like resistance. Spike is able to resist Faye's beauty because he sees her as a "woman with attitude" which he states in one episode that he doesn't like, and also because he is still in love with his girlfriend Julia who he had been searching for.
  • In the manga, this happens to a man who was arm-wrestling with Spike in one of the side-stories. If the man won, Allison MacDool (a woman who was traveling with Spike) would be his, but if he lost, Spike would win a bunch of money. When it looked like Spike was losing, Allison opened her shirt (behind Spike), which distracted everyone there, allowing Spike to win.
• Dirty Pair:
  • In the television incarnation, this is a tactic Kei resorts to once when some guards have them at gunpoint with no other choices available — she tears her top open, and the guards take their eyes off Yuri for just one fatal second. (This is frequently counted as a Moment of Awesome.)
  • Yuri pulls this off in the first OVA episode simply by being a woman in a maximum security prison where the inmates haven't seen a woman in years. All she has to do in order to lead a group of guys straight into an ambush is stand hipshot, giggle, and run her hands seductively through her long hair.
  • In the 8th episode of the series Yuri sneaks up behind a guard and strips naked behind a revolving door, she knocks on the door to get his attention and shows him her bare leg behind the window, she then motions for him to come to her, he excitedly follows her and we hear sounds of her beating him up and she comes out wearing his uniform.
• Dominion Tank Police takes this a little further than usual, with the Puma sisters distracting the cops with a striptease while their boss reloads his machine gun.
• During the first Budokai Tenkaichi in Dragon Ball, Nam's opponent Ranfan strips down to her bra and panties as a distraction. The trope is then subverted when Nam realizes he can fight with his eyes closed.
• The proto-Ranfan is a character from Doctor Slump named Renault Citroëen who shares the same design and fighting style. She easily beats Senbei with her looks alone, but not Arale (as she is a female robot) and she quickly gives up.
• Dragon Ball Super has Cawey (from Universe 4). She uses sex appeal to distract male opponents, specifically trying to use this to trick Master Roshi. This works initially, but when she tries to spear him and he catches it, he transforms into his max state and talks about how his suppressed lust is making him stronger. Fearful that he'd sexually assault her in that state, she jumps out of the ring.
• Subverted in Fairy Tail, where most of the time when Lucy tries or is forced into attempting this, the enemy is more confused than distracted, and keeps attacking anyway.
  • In the first episode, she invokes this in an attempt to get a Spirit Key for a reduced rate from a magic item store. It does work, but not nearly to the extent that she expected (or would have liked).
  • Also used when Natsu realizes an enemy is on his way and gets Lucy to dress up in a revealing outfit and pose seductively in order to distract him. It fails.
  • Used again when Gemini transformed into Lucy and lifted her top to distract Taurus.
  • Lucy and Cana use it rather effectively during the S-Rank test to win their duel against Fried and Bixlow. Except for the fact that Fried and Bixlow are intentionally throwing the fight. The sexy strategy only appears to work.
  • Also averted during the Tenrou Island arc, when Grimoire Heart's Azuma holds the Fairy Tail mages as hostages by sapping all of their magic through his uprooting of the great Tenrou Tree, all except for Erza, whom he provokes into fighting him at full power by this means. At a point during the fight, Erza briefly considers requipping into her newly-acquired Seduction Armor and seeing if a change of tactics availed her, but she ultimately decides against the notion.
  • In the 7th, OVA, though, Erza makes some tears in her Sarashi bandage halter top to show large amounts of cleavage to lure a bunch of alligators towards her so she can pummel them.
• In The Familiar of Zero, Colbert has Siesta walk up to two guards and lift her skirt. While the guards try to flirt with her, the others get behind them and knock them out.
• Used in the Colus/Hagooda War story arc in The Five Star Stories. After being kicked off the bus they were taking to see King Colus, Mission Routh forces Ladios & Meg to strip down to their underwear to flag down cars on the highway. A bit of a subversion, since one is an Artificial Human & the other is actually a very feminine-looking Bishounen, and they didn't even need to do it anyway, since the king sent them a limo.
• Full Metal Panic!: The Second Raid. The soldiers guarding Amalgam's giant mecha are pleasantly surprised when twin Emotionless Girls Yu Fan and Yu Lan come in and start smooching and feeling them up. When a mook takes his hand off the AK-47 he's holding to accept a hotel room key, one of the twins grabs the weapon and promptly blows his head off. Everyone else dies rapidly after that.
• Done in Fushigi Yuugi by Miaka when she is held captive by Kutou soldiers in the dungeon. She calls it "Operation: Sex Plot".
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex:
  • Episode "Angel's Share". To make a long story short, Chief Aramaki and an associate are being held hostage in a London winery. Motoko approaches an officer wearing her trenchcoat so that her cleavage is exposed, asking him for a "favor". He's distracted for a critical moment, whereupon The Major knocks him out and takes his uniform. Ironically, she usually wears less clothes...
  • In 2nd Gig two female androids are sent down to "entertain" the guards who are immediately suspicious, but provide enough of a distraction for Section 9 personnel in therm-optics to take them out. In the same episode the Major (in a Navel-Deep Neckline Sexy Backless Outfit) acts as a distraction for a perverted businessman with a thing for cyborgs.
  • Lampshaded in the Man/Machine Interface manga where an operative warns his men not to be distracted by Motoko's microskirt, as it's just "eyepull".
• Gunslinger Girl. In Chapter 39, Alessandro Ricci has his cyborg Petrushka dressed as a scantily clad blonde bimbo during a meeting; he explains to her afterwards that this is so the man he's dealing with will underestimate him.
• Sonia the nun from Hayate the Combat Butler uses this tactic against the modest and polite Hayate. It works, but not because he gets distracted; it works because there's another character nearby, and he fears that if she observes the scene, she'll misinterpret it as him making a sexual assault. (And given his Cosmic Plaything status and the nature of the series, his worry is justified.)
• High School D×D: When Coriana Andrealphus faces Issei Hyoudou in a fight, she starts stripping. It works at first because Issei is paralyzed with lust and refuses to attack her. Unfortunately for her, she starts to pull her panties off, hitting a Berserk Button of Issei's (to him, a stripper must always pull their bra off first) and making him knock her out with an energy blast.
• Used in the first arc of Higurashi: When They Cry Kai, where Rena, um... disables Keiichi by amplifying the moe factor.
• Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Yukiro Star yanks up the already short shorts of Yumi to distract a couple of terrorists holding them hostage so she can attack them.
• In the second episode of Koihime†Musou, Chouun first draws the guards attention by shaking her stocking. Then shows off her leg. Naturally, the ruse works perfectly.
• Done off-camera in Macross Frontier. Sheryl Nome walks onto the bridge of the Macross Quarter unannounced. When the crew asks how she got past security, cut to a shot of a very happy security guard touching a Lipstick Mark on his cheek.
• Episode 4 of Majikoi! Love Me Seriously! has a scene where Momoyo uses one of her ki attacks to deliberately flip her skirt, causing Yamato to drop his guard (because he easily dodged her attacks before this), and she subsequently puts him in an arm bar.
• The fourth Mazinkaiser OAV where Sayaka end topless in front of both heroes and mooks. Admittely, this was accidental: Koji had tried to stop her from going gung-ho on the armed mooks, but when he tried to grab her by the shoulder, he ended up undoing her bikini top instead... and then being the Idiot Hero he is, he turns it into a strategy to completely distract the rest of the guards at her expense. No wonder she's so mad.
  • This scene was adaptated from a similar one that happened in the Mazinger Z original manga.
• This backfires on Roux Louka in Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ. Flirting with Glemmy Toto gets her out of the jam she was in, but also leads to him become a very persistent and increasingly dangerous Stalker with a Crush.
• In the Monster Rancher anime, Fairy Hare — Hare's New Old Flame — provides this when she, Hare and Wild Hare go to raid a Baddie's warehouse.
• A male version in Moriarty the Patriot during The Two Detectives when Sherlock uses his and John's attractiveness to weasel their way into Milverton's manor. John's Sexy Soaked Shirt helps a lot.
• My-HiME. In episode 9, due to a confluence of circumstances, Mai, Natsuki, and Mikoto are stranded on the side of a beach road in the predawn hours of the morning. Natsuki loses at Rock–Paper–Scissors, so she has to strike a Sexy Pose to flag down a ride to hitchhike. The car she flags down is full of her friends, who start laughing at the Tom Boy acting very out of character indeed.
• Naruto:
  • Naruto has this as a named combat technique.
    "Sexy No Jutsu!"
  • Subverted when Itachi tries to do this to Jiraiya by using his Sharingan to control some girl; however, he is unsuccessful in distracting Jiraiya.
• One Piece:
  • Boa Hancock turns it into killed by the sexy. Her power allows her to turn anyone attracted to her into stone, and she's been objectively described as the most beautiful woman on the planet. Naturally, Luffy is immune, because he seems to have no concept of "sexy", having taken "Chaste Hero" to the extreme. For those who are attracted to her, the only known defense is to distract themselves with pain (for example, a Marine Vice Admiral stabs himself in the leg to avoid being turned to stone).
  • Despite not being able to use those powers in Impel Down (Devil Fruit users, including those recognized as allies, are restrained using Sea Stone before entering) she makes good use of this to deliver a message to Ace. (The catcalls from the other prisoners distract Magellan, and his entourage is just as frightened of him as the prisoners are. As a result, nobody hears the message Boa gives to Ace.)
  • Earlier, Mr. 2 Bon Clay would transform into Nami to distract Sanji. Incidentally, Mr. 2 is one of the people who'd be immune to Hancock's power, seeing as he's very, very gay. Or possibly very, very metrosexual; he endorses ambiguous gender identity, not that the subject is treated with any respect whatsoever. His sexual orientation never comes up. He's insane, but also innocent as all get out. Item two, she has no problem taking down completely straight women, so gay men should be completely within her batting range. The truly asexual are her Kryptonite. Or possibly it's those with no aesthetic sense whatsoever...
  • Much later, Mr. 2 Bon Clay does it again on vice warden Hannyabal. Indeed, Hannyabal has this problem a lot. When he first shows up, he's remembering when he first joined the staff of the facility and a female inmate nearly escaped the same way.
  • Nami herself has used this tactic frequently in her early career as a pirate targeting thief. Frequently showing a bit of cleavage and faux vulnerability to distract a goon long enough to KO him with one strike.
• In one episode of Princess Nine, the all-girl baseball team tries the tactic on an all-boy team. It works for a few innings....
• Ranma ½:
  • Dirty Old Man Happōsai is very susceptible to this trope, something that Ranma takes advantage of quite liberally when fighting him. The first Pantyhose Tarō arc involves lots of actual pantyhose and Ranma uses this trope multiple times to trick Happōsai.
  • Herb, Lime, and Mint from the Musk Dynasty have never seen women before leaving their kingdom hidden deep in China. Although all three are lethal adversaries with supernatural abilities and fighting skills, they can ALL be very easily distr—
  "Look over there! A NAKED GIRL!"
  "Where?!" *bonk*
  • Ranma is able to stop Prince Herb in his tracks by flashing her breasts at him, not once but several times. Seeing how he has come within inches of chopping off her head in one such instance, it's understandable. Just don't try it too often with Herb. Showing him the real thing will distract him long enough to pause, but he'll become mad with fury at the indignity.
  • In the manga, Ranma loves using this trope to his advantage. He's a loveable but manipulative tease. Would you expect anything less? Although most of Ranma's other opponents (even girl-shy Ryōga) are immune to Ranma's feminine attributes.
  • Ranma also does this to save Ukyō from Ryōga: when the former is first introduced to the school, Ryōga misunderstands and (like everyone else at first) thinks Ukyō is a man, and nearly skewers her with his umbrella. Ranma quickly dashes in and rips open Ukyō's uniform jacket, showing her breasts (bound tight with Sarashi) to Ryōga. He gets smashed with a giant steel spatula by way of thanks.
  • Even Akane (!) gets into the act: in order to save Ranma from the Orochi, she rips off her own jacket, revealing her true gender. The woman-eating dragon is sufficiently distracted and stops in its efforts to eat Ranma. That is after female-Ranma's attempts to Show Some Leg (or breast) at the Orochi (in order to draw it away from Akane and Shinnosuke) backfired horribly. The breasts went over fine — the boxers, not as much.
  • Nabiki invokes this trope once by flipping up Akane's skirt in front of Ranma. Not only does it distract him, but it completely stops him from finishing an attack based on strong emotion. In this case, the strong emotion is depression. Ranma uses a similar technique on Ryōga at a critical moment of the same depression-technique, causing it to backfire.
  • The Vengeful Doll (in Akane's body) invokes this by stripping in front of Ranma, then tries to kill him while he's stunned.
• Slayers:
  • Subverted when Gourry asks Lina Inverse to jiggle to distract a guard and her response is "I can't do that!" (Lina's relatively small chest is a Running Gag in the series.)
  • Played straight, however, in an OVA, using a much bustier Naga and Lina's flying dropkick.
• In Soul Eater, Blair seems to favor this tactic to actual combat, as she tried to seduce Soul in the first chapter. And Blair during a run-in with some flipped Gender did this as a man, to a succubus... by transforming into her (his) human form. Regardless of gender, Blair is very hot.
• Time Bokan:
  • In Zenderman, Muujo often uses her beauty to seduce the heroes Gorilla mecha during the battles.
  • Mun Mun, in the episode 4 of Ippatsuman, to ticket collector and not only the legs.
• Trinity Seven: Liselotte Sherlock fights the Headmaster, but he is too powerful. She distracts him and escapes by flashing her breasts.
• Mobile Suit Victory Gundam: Subverted. Kathejina Ruth attempts to take advantage of Usso Evin's known fondness for women by outfitting a squad of female soldiers with bikinis and bazookas. Unfortunately for them, Usso has a minor Freak Out, shouting "This can't be real!" and brutally killing them, including vaporizing one with his beam saber.
• When Allen is imprisoned by his own king in The Vision of Escaflowne, Princess Milerna uses this to distract a guard while Gadess sneaks up and administers a Tap on the Head.
• Yami no Aegis: Tate seems to like this trope. A particularly notable example involves asking a female police officer to get naked to distract the bad guys, even threatening to strip her and roll her out if she didn't do it herself. Admittedly, utterly surprising the bad guys for a few seconds was their only chance to survive, but still....

Comic Books

• Batgirl: An early story has Barbara Gordon bemoaning the fact that her "female instincts" are hindering her abilities as a crime fighter. She regains her confidence by exploiting this trope, mixed with some Obfuscating Stupidity (pretending she got a run in her tights as an excuse to stretch out and caress her leg), to distract a criminal so Batman and Robin can catch him.
• Camelot 3000: King Arthur has Sir Tristan, who'd been reincarnated as female, pull this stunt on some enemy guards. As Arthur knew Tristan hated being stuck in a woman's body, this was as much a loyalty-test for Tristan as a means of neutralizing the guards.
• Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk: In the dwarf underground city, when confronted with a mob of unruly dwarf civilians accusing the party of being the cause of the bad guys' attack, and of stealing their valuables (they're not wrong on either count...), the Priestess makes a magic-enhanced Rousing Speech to calm them down... and gets a potent circumstance bonus by having herself and the elf baring their breasts to the all-male crowd.
• Excalibur: The comic plays this for laughs when one of the female villains of an arc pulls this on Lockheed. Yes, Lockheed, Kitty Pryde's (admittedly sentient) pet alien dragon. Afterwards, Kitty is shown dressing down a disconsolate Lockheed, accusing him of dropping his guard as soon as she "shook some of that bad girl booty."
• Harley Quinn: In Harley Quinn (New 52), Harley does this to a mugger with her butt until Power Girl swoops in.
• The Incredible Hercules: The page pic is from an issue when Hercules impersonates Thor and faces three challenges by the Dark Elves. During the third and final challenge, Hercules is attacked by multiple foes until Alflyse (queen of the Dark Elves) hikes up her dress, causing Hercules to ogle her and lose the challenge (howewer Alflyse declares him the winner anyway and starts flirting with him amorously).
• Lady Rawhide: In the Lady Rawhide/Lady Zorro mini-series, Lady Rawhide explains that her Stripperific costume is designed to distract male opponents.
• Ms. Tree: Ms. Tree sometimes performs "The Nailer", in an acknowledged Shout-Out to Modesty Blaise.
• Savage: Subverted. Martine Green tries this on Bill to persuade him not to kill her when he comes after the crew that killed his brother, Tom. Savage just shoots her.
• Sin City: In the story "A Dame to Kill For", a disguised Gail flirts with a guard before popping him in the jaw and setting a bomb at a crimelord's estate.
• Star Wars (Marvel 1977): There is a point in which Dani dances◊ to distract an Imperial patrol. It works so well that they don't even notice that Leia's just off to their other side, out in the open trying to keep something from flying away.
• Superman/Batman: In Public Enemies (2004), Power Girl is told to distract a thirteen-year-old boy. She asks how on Earth she is supposed to do that before saying "Oh", with a slight glance at her cleavage.
• Thunderbolts: When the villain Gypsy Moth joined the Thunderbolts under the name Skein, she used this as a tactic. Considering that her power is command over textiles and other solid objects, it came naturally.
• The Ultimates: In issue #6, Wasp flies in front of the Hulk's face and distracts him with a "Mardi Gras special".
• X-Men: In Uncanny X-Men #466, to help Rachel sneak out the mansion, Psylocke performs her daily exercises in plain sight of the Sentinels to distract their human pilot.

Comic Strips

• Modesty Blaise would occasionally get the drop on the bad guys by stripping prior to a fight, a maneuver known as The Nailer. Depending on how easily-distracted the bad guys were, she would sometimes keep her underwear on, and sometimes not.

Fan Works

• Exploited in All Things Probable, where Rhonda uses a selfie picture of herself in Grimm's battle suit doing a pinup pose to justify why she had it as the first step of what may become a Heel–Face Turn. Grimm is too distracted by the picture to think further into what she was doing that night after a few basic questions like why it took so long.
• In Forward's "Charity" episode, this is used quite deliberately. River is heavily — and sexually — distracted by Jayne because an Academy escapee is using her psychic powers to keep her focused on him so River doesn't recognize her.
• In A.A. Pessimal's The Graduation Class, Discworld'' Assassin Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Epées uses this gambit to get past guards after performing her first working contract. Posing as a Seamstress, she deliberately wears a very low-cut dress, having placed a large false mole on one breast. This way the guards remember her breasts and have only a hazy memory of her face.
• In Harry Potter and the Spygirl, Hermione suggests breaking Neville's father's wand if his grandmother still refuses to get him a new one and Harry advises that she not get caught doing it.
  Harry: If you wear your exercise clothes, they'll be too dazzled to notice anything.
  Hermione: Anything but my body, you mean.
• An Impromptu Proposal has Marinette and Adrien arrange for him to encourage Lila's flirting and pretend to reciprocate, so that he can get up close without Lila becoming suspicious, and snatch the Butterfly Miraculous from her necklace. Marinette doesn't like it, but she's confident that they have a Seduction-Proof Marriage and that the prospect of ending the akumas is worth it.
• Jade Dragon: How does the newly modified and much less stealthy Viper (or rather, Fei in Viper's body) manage to get away from Jackie? By flashing her newly "modified" bosom to catch him off guard.
• In the Gunslinger Girl Jethro and Monty fancomic they dance the tango so a nearby guard with be Distracted by the Sexy and not put much effort into interrogating a colleague who wants to get through the door he's guarding. Monty tears her Little Black Dress to show some leg during the dance, and afterwards she asks her dance partner why he took off his jacket. Jethro points out that the guard might have been gay.
• A comparatively tame version of this features in Lost in Camelot; with Bo already involved with Merlin, once she establishes that Morgana also has feelings for him while she is attracted to both of them, Bo dresses herself and Morgana in identical outfits for a private celebration of Merlin's birthday, reasoning that this way she and Morgana can talk Merlin into the idea of Morgana joining their relationship by keeping him too distracted to think about countering their proposal until they've shown him some of the "benefits" of it.
• In A Minor Miscalculation, Ryuko distracts Mataro during their second battle by grinding against him and moaning sexually in his ear. It confuses and arouses him enough to let her escape his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and gain the upper hand.
• In My Old Kentucky Home Pandora wears a form-fitting outfit and pretends to tie her shoe in order to distract an invisibility-cloaked watcher.
• Streets of Rage Saga: During the second story, Origins, Blaze invokes this to lure two guards away from their post, by stripping naked, coming into their line of sight, and begging them to come give her a good screwing. It helps that she's not at all shy about baring it all to begin with.
• In A Solid Foundation Narcissa puts on some pheromone perfume and unbuttons her shirt a bit, then pretends to trip and hurt herself before incapacitating the guards.
• During one of their training spars in The Vow, Shen traps Lianne in his hold with his Guan Dao, with only an inch separating his chest from her back. She suddenly takes an audibly deep breath of him and presses herself against him in an intimate way, wriggling herself free as his mind goes numb.
• Vow of the King: Attempted twice.
  • Bambietta hikes up her skirt when cornered by Tosen and Hisagi, only to shoot at them mid-sentence. Hisagi dodges while Tosen merely smacks the bullets aside.
  • Like in canon, Rangiku unbuttons her shirt to coerce Ichigo into letting her stay at his place. Having been living with Nemu for months (and recently entered a sexual relationship with her), he completely ignores the attempt.

Films — Animation

• Jasmine in Disney's Aladdin when she flirts with Jafar to try to give Aladdin enough time to get to the lamp. Which works a bit too well; it distracts Aladdin too.
• In El Cid: The Legend, Jimena is captured by the Big Bad and added to his harem. She escapes him by offering him some wine and then whacking him in the head with the jar.
• Parodied in The Emperor's New Groove, in which the very old villainess Yzma prepares to lift up her dress, causing Pacha and Kuzco to scream in terror. Cue Yzma revealing a knife strapped to her calf, and Kuzco and Pacha sighing in relief.
• Heavy Metal 2000: Julie tries to seduce Tyler to get close enough to kill him. This works, though the attempted assassination doesn't.
• Shanti in The Jungle Book blatantly does this to Mowgli at the end of the first movie (which she attempts to deny in the second). Lampshaded by Baloo and Bagheera.
  Baloo: [furious] She did that on purpose!
  Bagheera: [smiling] Obviously.
• Used to distract the enemy in Mulan by having three of Mulan's fellow soldiers dress up in female clothing. Doubles as a Funny Moment.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas plays with this trope. To distract Oogie Boogie, Sally (a living doll who can detach and reattach her limbs) shows him one curvy leg around a distant corner, while the rest of her works to free Santa Claus. Mr. Boogie is not pleased to discover that her leg is detached.
• In Shrek the Third, one of the ugly stepsisters does this to one of the soldiers to provide a distraction for the rest of the cast to locate Shrek. Considering that she's ugly, and knocks him out afterwards, it is also a Funny Moment.

Films — Live-Action

• 10 Things I Hate About You. Julia Stiles' character Kat flashes her boobs at the sports teacher to grant Patrick (Heath Ledger) an unnoticed escape from detention. She was actually suggesting this strategy at the time, too.
  Kat: I dazzled him with my "wits".
• Inspector Nancy Ho from the Aces Go Places a.k.a. Mad Mission series carries her gun concealed under her skirt. The downside is that it takes forever to draw it; the upside is that doing so can distract delinquents until she finally gets a hold of her gun.
• In Aladdin (2019), it's averted, matching the more suspicious personality of Jafar. Instead, Jasmine simply recites her vows during her forced wedding to him, and suddenly steals the lamp when she's close enough.
• A standard tactic of the Angels in Angels Revenge.
• There's a somewhat humorous variation in the film adaptation Around the World in 80 Days (2004). Monique flirts with Fogg by showing some leg, but since it's the Victorian era all this really amounts to is showing off her ankle.
• Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me: Felicity Shagwell enables herself and Austin to escape by baring her chest to the guard, causing him to stumble forward and into a lava pit.
  Felicity: What do you think of these, my man?
  Guard: ...Mommy!
• In Black Angel Vol. 1, one of the two female assassins who knocks on Don Amaoka door is wearing a very short skirt. The bodyguard who answers the door is so distracted by her legs that he opens the door to them despite their dodgy story about blowing a fuse in their apartment.
• Black Robe. After they've been captured by a hostile tribe, Annuka seduces the young brave on guard and then clobbers him in the face with some firewood while he's having sex with her doggie-style.
• Implied in Breaker Morant where a Dawn Attack by Boer commandos is helped by a pretty girl smooching with the soldier in the guardhouse. She makes a quick exit when she looks out the window and sees them coming — the next thing that comes through the window is an explosive charge with lit fuse.
• In Catch Me If You Can, Frank Abagnale uses this technique to sneak through an airport crawling with law enforcement and FBI agents who were waiting specifically for him. He waltzes through the airport with 8 hot stewardesses, and everyone looks at them, completely forgetting that the person they are hunting is walking with them.
• In the first Charlie's Angels (2000) film, Drew Barrymore's character wears a patriotic (red, white and blue) styled auto racing firesuit/jumpsuit that showcases her bountiful cleavage. She, in the process, proceeds to distract a chauffeur by flirting with him while Lucy Liu's character plants a camera into the trunk his car.
• In the City Hunter film with Jackie Chan, the group of protagonists sends one of the Buxom Beauty Standard girls to distract a male mook, only for said mook to punch her in the gut and chase instead one of the male characters.
• The title vigilante Action Girl in Coffy does this quite a bit in order to get close to her targets or put them off guard. To be fair, Pam Grier is very easy on the eyes.
• Conan the Barbarian (1982). Conan of all people pulls this stunt, on another man no less. In order to infiltrate Thulsa Doom's cult, he lures away one of their priests for a private chat with homoerotic overtones, then knocks him unconscious and steals his robe.
• In Derailed (2002), Galina bends forward and flashes her cleavage to distract the sentry at the research facility before she kicks him and knocks him out.
• In Diva, Alba, a young lady, is shoplifting LP records in a store, sneaking them into a hidden compartment in a portfolio case. When a clerk asks to examine the case, he only finds several nude photos of her, and hands it back with embarrassed apologies.
• In Dracula: Dead and Loving It, vampire Lucy attempts to use her sexy on Harker, to seduce him into vampirism.
  Harker: But Lucy, I'm British!
  Lucy: [exposing her cleavage] So are these!
• Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine: Fembot Diane does this when faking car-trouble in order to lure in her assigned Honey Pot target as he passes by. The fact that she's only wearing a gold bikini under her Conspicuous Trenchcoat doesn't hurt her cause.
• The film Druids has an example of this where a woman distracts a guard in order to sneak into a castle or some other stupid thing. Then she dispatches him.
• In Duel to the Death, a female ninja whips off her clothes in the middle of a fight with a Shaolin monk, who averts his gaze and is then defeated.
• Escape to Athena (1979). The POW's put on a variety act for their German guards, the climax of which is a strip show by an interned female USO performer. While the Germans are busy leering over her performance, the Greek Resistance sneak up and take them all prisoner.
• In Fierce Creatures, Willa Weston uses this on Vince McCain and Rollo Lee... successfully.
• In The Flintstones, Halle Berry's Character, even named Miss Sharon Stone, is used by Cliff Vandercave to seduce Fred and trick him into swindling money for them. There is a particular scene where she lies down on a table, provocatively, to prevent Fred from reading the contents of a document.
• In The Fly, when Seth asks Veronica for a personal item to demonstrate how his telepods work, she removes one of her stockings, noting that she doesn't have any jewellery on her. Seth watches intently (if a bit awkwardly) as she does so, in probably the most, err, Goldblumm-est you'll ever see Jeff Goldblum.
• Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) in Get Smart gets into the party at the Kristik's house by showing some leg to the guard at the door. And then showing some leg to Kristik (and his guests) to keep him distracted while Max searches the house.
• In G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Lady Jaye dresses in a skimpy jogging outfit to distract the White House Chief of Staff long enough for the other Joes to drag him into a car.
• Gleahan and the Knaves of Industry: Madison tries to distract a guard with her attractiveness, but the guard's having none of it. She proceeds to knock him out.
• In The Gumball Rally, Mike Bannon is behind at the very end of the race, so he invokes "Emergency Plan Alpha" to distract Franco Bertollini into pulling over and letting him pass and therefore win the race. "Emergency Plan Alpha" is this extremely well built blonde (played by Linda Vaughn) standing by the side of the road in short and tight clothing.
• In Hellbound: Hellraiser II, this is what Kristy does to her depraved uncle Frank when she sees him in hell. He catches her, holding a knife to her and tries to rape her. She ends up kissing him, causing him to stop restraining her. It apparently distracted him enough for her to be able to figure out how to destroy him (throwing his blanket into the fire, causing him to burn).
• High School High: Victoria distracts The Dragon by pulling back her skirt to show her entire leg and saying she has a pantyhose problem. The Big Bad suspiciously comments that whatever the problem is, it shouldn't go up that high.
• It Happened One Night is the filmic Trope Codifier. To wit: Clark Gable's character tries to catch the attention of cars by sticking out his thumb, but no one stops. After a few moments, Claudette Colbert gets sick of waiting, marches to the roadside, and hikes up her dress to show off one of her legs. Cue a car instantly pulling over. From then on, every comedy in which someone hitchhikes by showing their leg is an Homage to the classic way Colbert gets the job done.
• James Bond:
  • In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Tracy Draco is held prisoner by Blofeld and coldly refuses his advances. But when she recognises her father's voice on the radio from the approaching "Red Cross" helicopters, she starts flirting with Blofeld, who gets annoyed when one of his men tries to draw his attention to them.
  • For Your Eyes Only. When James Bond is infiltrating The Dragon's residence in Spain, one of the owner's own harem girls provides the distraction he needs by choosing that moment to smooch with one of the guards. Unfortunately Bond is captured shortly afterwards by a couple of guards who are doing their job properly.
  • In Octopussy, James Bond is captured and held at gunpoint in the back of a moving truck. Driving by is a pretty girl (his ally) who reveals her thighs, distracting the guards so Bond can escape. In the Storming the Castle scene, Octopussy's Amazon Brigade pose as dancing girls, keeping the guards distracted while their compatriots sneak in elsewhere (in an ironic touch, the Big Bad isn't bothered by his men being Distracted by the Sexy as he's about to do a runner).
  • In The Living Daylights, knowing that a guard is coming he turns to a girl, tears her bathrobe off as she screams, and then has her face the door, distracting the guard for a few seconds when he enters.
  • In GoldenEye, Famke Janssen's character distracts both a fat admiral and James Bond with her sex appeal whilst actively trying (and succeeding, in the former) to break their ribs with her thighs.
• Jonah Hex (2010): Played for Laughs. Jonah and his prostitute girlfriend are chained up, so he's in the midst of suggesting she use her "feminine wiles" to lure the guard close when she reveals she's just picked the lock.
• Subverted in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Martha, who is in the body of a sexy Action Girl in the titular video game, is sent to distract some guards. However, since Martha in real life is a nerdy loner, her attempts at flirting just come off as incredibly awkward even after she's given some lessons by Bethany and the guards being NPCs mean that they just keep repeating the same line of dialogue in response to her flirting. So she decides to just beat them up.
• Part of the 3-person group's scam strategy in the movie Kingpin. Roy would set up a bowling match bet with potential suckers, Ishmael would do the actual bowling, and Claudia would distract Ishmael's opponents with revealing outfits and seductive actions. Humorously, this worked every time, even against a group of old women.
• In Ladron que Roba a Ladron, while the team is preparing for a heist, one of the head con guys tells the tomboy mechanic that they'll need a distraction, and looks pointedly at her. "How am I the distraction?" she asks. In response, he unzips the top of her jumpsuit, revealing impressive cleavage.
  [later...]
  Rafaela: Why should I have to wear a dress?
  Alejandro: Because none of us would fit in it.
• In The Lone Ranger, Red does this to distract the Captain at Promontory Point. What makes this example unusual is that the leg she flashes is a prosthetic one made of ivory. The ploy works brilliantly.
• La Résistance uses this technique to sneak past a checkpoint in the opening scene of The Longest Day. Two German guards are starting to jab their bayonets into a straw cart, when they notice a hot French girl in a cleavage-revealing blouse cycling up. They quickly wave the cart through and check her papers instead; the girl rides off and winks at the cart driver as she passes him, who gives the thumbs up to the men hidden in the straw. Later subverted when she tries the same trick to distract a late-night German patrol from discovering the explosives in the railway tracks and nearly gets killed in the process.
• The Long Kiss Goodnight. Geena Davis' character is dressed in a bathrobe while Samuel L. Jackson's is wincing over a penetrating injury.
  Samantha: Uh, oh. You're seeping. Here, look at this. [she opens her bathrobe; as he looks, she rips off the bloody bandage. Mitch screams]
  Mitch: Oh, shit! Ah, that hurt like shit!
  Samantha: I know. That's why I distracted you first. Same principle as deflowering virgins.
  Mitch: Huh? What? Virgin—? What?
  Samantha: Read it in this Harold Robbins book. Guy bites her on the ear. Distracts from the pain. Ever try that?
  Mitch: No, no, I sock 'em in the jaw and yell, "Pop goes the weasel."
• A rare gender-reversed example was played for laughs in Mickey Blue Eyes: The title character tries to distract his fiancée by acting in a sexy and suggestive manner in order to prevent her from noticing a painting that is hanging right next to her. He ends up looking absolutely ridiculous, and (probably) not particularly sexy to any segment of the audience — however, the distraction works.
• Accidentally invoked in Mrs. Doubtfire by the cross-dressing Robin Williams, who is just leaning over to fix his stocking when the bus to his apartment pulls up, which leads to the elderly driver flirting with "her" several times.
• In The Mummy (1999), Evelyn kisses Imhotep so that his spell will stop working and the plane Rick O'Connell is in can land.
• Also subverted in Munich when the Israelis track down a female assassin who killed one of their own. The woman tries slipping off her blouse to expose her breasts, but is shot at that precise moment.
• Hilariously subverted in The Naked Gun 33⅓. Tanya, who wants to get the guard away from the envelopes with all the academy awards in them, tries showing some leg... and some cleavage... and spinning the straps of her dress around like helicopter blades... to no avail. Finally she tries to play with bubble wrap seductively. The guard strolls over as if hypnotized... shoves her away and proceeds to happily play with the bubble wrap.
• In the second National Treasure movie, Abagail and Gates have to search the US President's antique Resolute desk. Abagail gets them into the Oval Office via a White House staff member she's dating, then pretends to lose an earring which they both crawl about on the floor trying to find, while Gates secretly checks out the desk. The staff member 'finds' the earring, and when Abagail sees Gates still needs more time, she begins to snog him passionately to show her 'gratitude', much to the bemusement of her ex-boyfriend Gates.
• In Ninja In The Dragons Den, it's established that Chinese sorcery requires pure thoughts, or it backfires. While facing a sorcerer, the Chinese hero throws him some pornography, which interrupts his spell. A little later, the Chinese hero disrobes the Japanese hero's wife. Her breasts shoot yellow energy rays at the sorcerer, causing him to go apoplectic.
• Both played straight and subverted in Jackie Chan's Operation Condor. Early in the movie, Jackie distracts the thug with the gun by pulling the towel off a recently-showered Elsa, then kicks the guard unconscious. Later, when Jackie, Elsa, and Ada are in a similar situation, this time with Ada fresh out of the shower, Elsa de-towels Ada... and Jackie is just as distracted as the thug.
• In Pig Hunt, a naked hippie girl distracts one of the rednecks by running up to him jiggling and begging for help. While he is distracted, one of her friends sneaks up on him and stabs him.
• The Professionals. Maria offers sex to Dolworth if he lets her escape, but tries to grab his pistol while they are smooching. Dolworth however is expecting this—his gun is not in his holster but ready in his hand. He doesn't take it personally and respects her willingness to do whatever is necessary.
• In Rat Race, a woman flashes her breasts at Duane and Blaine, causing them to drive into a ditch.
• Raw Deal (1986) has a scene where a Mafia mook is sitting in his car, gaping at the sight of a female jogger running braless towards him. She leans down with a big smile, sticks a gun in his face and suggests he go tell the drug house he's guarding that he needs to take a leak. With the sentry taken care of, detectives come out of the woodwork and pull a crash-bang-gotcha on the occupants.
• In the Syfy film Red Faction: Origins, Mason tries to do this when he and Tess are locked up. He has Tess take her top off and face the door to distract the guard that comes in so he can take them out. Unfortunately for him, a female guard comes in and catches on before he can jump her. Luckily, Tess manages to knock her out while she's busy struggling with Mason.
• The Replacements: The cheerleaders deliberately use this trope to cause a penalty call against the Dallas team for a false start, while the replacement Sentinels are still learning to work together. It is also distracting to the fans and the refs.
• Retroactive: In one temporal loop Karen tries to distract Frank by acting rather comely and suggesting a threesome with his wife so she can reach for his gun.
• Subverted in The Scorpion King prequel Rise of a Warrior when Mathayus and his friends need to bypass some guards. Ari tells Leila to use her feminine charms to distract them. She gives him a disapproving look, but seemingly goes along with it. When she accosts the guards, they mistake her for a concubine and direct her to her intended location, and she opts to knock them out instead.
• In Sex and the City 2, when the ladies are in Abu Dhabi in need of a dire situation to get to the airport to return to New York City, Carrie Bradshaw manages to get a taxi driver's attention by lifting up her burka and flirtatiously showing some leg.
• Rachel does this while hitchhiking at the start Siren (2010): dressing in an extremely short minidress to flag down a lift. This turns out to be a sexual roleplay between her and Ken.
• Lampshaded in Snake Eyes. Naval officer Kevin Dunne is supposed to be escorting the Defense Secretary, but leaves his seat to talk to an attractive redhead. While he's away, the Defense Secretary is assassinated. Subverted when it's revealed that Dunne is the murderer, and the woman is working with him.
  Dunne: I was three feet away from a known terrorist, and I had my eyes buried in some broad's tits.
  Santoro: Well, Kevin, this might not make you feel better, but don't you see? That's what she was there for, that was the plan. To give you a boner. And you got one! Congratulations, you're human.
• Played straight — to quite a few people's dismay — in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, when Uhura does a fan dance to distract some guards. Nichelle Nichols didn't look bad for 57, but was hardly the usual sexy distraction. Given that the men she was dancing for were living on a Crapsack World for years without the company of a woman, they probably liked her just fine.
• Done purely for the Fanservice in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III when, after having escaped the Daimyo's castle, April cuts off the lower portion of her robes leaving her legs completely exposed. When the turtles notice she claims that she's allowed on the grounds that she is technically on vacation even if they are stuck centuries in the past in Japan.
  Turtles: Absolutely! Schwing!
• One The Three Stooges short had fun with this. When their car breaks down on the road, Curly Joe decides to try hitchhiking as he's seen in the movies; He pulls one of his pant legs up and waves. And a car does stop...so the driver can snag a sawbuck Curly Joe happens to be standing on. And then he drives off without another word.
• In To Catch a Thief, the protagonist, John Robie is escaping from the police in a speedboat, driven by a pretty girl. When a police plane appears looking for him, he hides in a chamber, and instructs her to wave to the plane "as if you're a pretty girl out for a ride". She pulls up her skirt to show her knees and waves. Robie says: "Not that pretty. We want to get rid of him."
• Tormented (the 2009 English film, not the 1960 film). Tasha attempts to stop Mullet from killing her by flirting with him after she tries to run and falls into an open grave, leading to her saying something like this:
  Tasha: Look, look, I'm sorry! I'm really sorry! We were just joking around! I always liked you, it was the others who didn't like you! Actually, I kind of... kind of... fancied you! I wanted to go out with you but i was too scared, too scared to ask, and thats the truth, ok? I wanted to go out with you... and... maybe... and maybe its not too late!
  (Mullet appears behind her and decapitates her with a shovel)
• Total Recall (1990): After failing to kill Quaid by herself, Lori tries to distract Quaid until her associates can deal with him by acting sexually suggestive towards him, implying that he should "tie her up". However, Quaid glances over to see them walking through the hallway on a CRTV, and knocks her out.
• Appears, complete with actual showing-of-leg, in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, with something of a twist since the one showing leg was John Leguizamo in drag.
• We're the Millers: Why else have Jennifer Aniston play a stripper?
• A problem with this tactic is raised in the 1971 film adaptation of Alistair MacLean's When Eight Bells Toll. The Damsel in Distress is told to distract a guard so the hero can sneak up and clobber him.
  Sue: What do I do?
  Calvert: Just appear and lust will do the rest.
  Sue: What if he doesn't fancy me?
  Calvert: Well that's all we need — a guard that's queer!

This was not an issue in the original book, because that particular guard fancied himself a ladies' man and had already tried to seduce the woman concerned.

• The Whole Nine Yards: Amanda Peet distracts assassins by walking out of her room naked.
• In Yesterday Was a Lie, Hoyle persuades a male physics student to spill secrets to her by sitting in front of him in a miniskirt and crossing her legs.

Jokes

• In one old joke, a gorgeous woman in a low-cut, slinky dress sidles up to the craps table as a shooter. She leans forward and pushes a large stack of chips toward the betting line and says, "I always feel a little luckier without this dress." She lets it drop, grabs the dice, and throws. The woman screams out, "I won, I won!" while jumping up and down, then hastily scoops up the chips and her dress. After she leaves, the croupier says, "Hey, what did she roll?"

Literature

• Avalanche Express by Colin Forbes. The Spymaster requests that the female member of his team, who is helping him courier information sent by a Soviet defector, cross her legs while on the flight to Britain, so that if anyone catches him looking at her "the sight of your legs will provide sufficient explanation." She snarks that another explanation is that he's misusing his authority for immoral purposes.
• Anansi Boys: Flashing is used as a diversion, but it's played with in that the rear end in question belongs to the extremely bony Mrs Noah, so the would-be assailant is Distracted By The Fan Disservice.
• Anna Pigeon: In Destroyer Angel, Heath has herself tied topless to a tree; the plan being that her exposed breasts will distract the kidnapper long enough for Anna to jump him and knock him out.
• The Bio of a Space Tyrant series by Piers Anthony. During their military training, Hope and Juana decide to take a shortcut across a simulated area of quicksand, so they announce to the Observer that they intend to swim across it using makeshift paddleboards. They're not sure if the Observer will allow this, but the sight of Juana stripping naked for her swim apparently removes any objections he might have.
• Chronicles of Chaos:
  • In The Orphans of Chaos, when Vanity wants to distract Glum, she makes her appeal while carefully posed to give him a view down her shirt. Later, both she and Amelia arrange their clothing to distract him again.
  • And in Fugitives of Chaos, the girls stage a burlesque show to lure Colin, who's stuck in the form of a hawk, back to humanity.
• The best weapon of the pulp heroine Domino Lady was her beauty, which often distracted and entranced opponents.
• In The Dresden Files novel Fool Moon, when Harry needs a distraction to get past a police stakeout, Tara West takes her coat off and goes dancing in the rain. Since the coat was the only thing she had on, even Harry is a bit distracted. It helps that West is a wolf-were (wolf assuming human form) and therefore an Innocent Fanservice Girl.
• This backfires in Eternity Road. After they're captured by river pirates who make their intentions obvious, the priestess Avila uses her former skills as an erotic dancer to keep them entertained while getting them lined up for the Lost Technology stun guns they're secretly carrying. Unfortunately because their attention is on Avila, the moment people start collapsing for no apparent reason and Avila grabs a gun, the pirates concentrate all their fire on her.
• The Executioner. In Brothers in Blood, two hitmen pay a scantily-clad woman to come with them, intending to use her as a distraction when they kill Bolan. However she's not in on the plan, so her gasp of shock when they draw their weapons to shoot Bolan In the Back tips him off.
• In Fingerprints, the heroes try to get into a bar. When their fake IDs fail, Yana proposes a different solution:
  Yana: I think that bouncer liked me. I bet I can get us in.
  Anthony: What, you think you're just going to smile at him and he'll fall on his knees and say yes to anything you want?
  Yana: Pretty much.
• Garrett, P.I.: In Gilded Latten Bones, intruders break into Tinnie's and Garrett's love-nest, and she flashes her breasts at one to distract him while Garrett's punching out the other.
• James Bond:
  • In Role of Honour, undercover CIA-agent Cindy provides distraction for Bond by undressing on front of her room's window. This catches the attention of two guards, giving Bond a chance to make his way to his car and send an important message to his people.
  • Bond's female partner Flicka in Never Send Flowers distracts a henchman that has them on gunpoint by moving in such fashion which makes her skirt get caught in the railing next to them, uplifting it. As the guy is stunned by the sudden sight before him, Bond tackles him.
  • Devil May Care features the main female exposing her breasts to a guard so Bond can choke him to death.
• Subverted in the Mechwarrior: Dark Age novel Service for the Dead. In preparing to fight in a Trial of Grievance against a rival, Anastasia Kerensky opts to wear tights and what amounts to a backless, halter-style bikini top, the latter of which she removes mid-combat. Her opponent is unfazed... until she strangles him to death with it.
• Deety tries flashing an impostor Park Ranger in Robert A. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast, in order to give the two nearby swordsmen a chance (he had a gun, they lacked Implausible Fencing Powers). It didn't work as intended, as blue-blooded hermaphrodite demons from another dimension have no interest in human women, but the motion did draw his attention for a moment. Fortunately for our heroes the moment was still sufficient.
• In Parrish Plessis, Parrish tries turning up the sex appeal to get past some security guards. It ends up working a little too well.
• A Piece of Resistance, a novel by Clive Egleton set in a Soviet-occupied Britain. A couple working for La Résistance kill a counter-intelligence agent and throw his body off the train. Realising the ticket collector might have seen the three of them in the carriage together the couple pretend to be on the verge of stripping off for sex when the ticket collector does his rounds and 'surprises' them. Later a wanted notice in the newspaper shows an excellent identikit image of the woman, but a poor one of the man.
• A somewhat disturbing bit in Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes has Lazue pull off her shirt, walk up to a pair of Spanish guardsmen, and proceed to slit both of their throats while they are staring at her.
• In Courtney Milan's Proof by Seduction, Jenny is arguing with Gareth, who is brusquely interrupting her and dismissing her concerns. Frustrated, she puts her foot up on a chair, lifts her skirts up past her knees (this is the Victorian era) and slowly peels off a stocking. Gareth completely forgets his argument in order to watch this mild striptease.
• The Action Girl in Heinlein's The Puppet Masters uses this to detect men who've been possessed by the Alien Invaders. Those Not Distracted by the Sexy are assumed to be controlled by a Puppeteer Parasite, though as the President points out at one stage, it could also mean they're "harem guards" (e.g. homosexual).
• Rise of the Living Forge: Reya's sales technique includes telling a potential customer, "Look at me!" Not because she's wearing a suit of the armor she wants to sell him — she isn't — but because the way she saunters over to said armor definitely draws his attention.
• In one of the Sharpe novels, Teresa distracts a group of Frenchmen who are searching for Sharpe's men by taking off all her clothes and going for a run. As luck would have it, Sharpe is the only man present who has a telescope.
• Sword of Truth
  • Kahlan leads a midnight raid on an enemy army naked and covered in white paint. The white paint is because for all the enemy knows, she's dead and returning to torment them as a ghost. The naked part is because if nothing else, a naked woman on a horse will provide enough of a distraction for her other soldiers to gut the enemy.
  • Also from the same series: Kahlan trying to distract a group of rapists and murderers long enough to regain her power to use against them, Jebra distracting a guard by making out with him while some prisoners escape, and... well, let's not even get into what Nicci gets up to.
• In Unseen Academicals, Juliet promises a kiss to the bus driver if he'll make the bus go faster. It works less well when it's coupled with a threat from Trev that he'll use a lead pipe. Negotiations on how much kissing versus how much hitting with lead pipe the driver will get ensue.
• In one of The Vampire Files, Faustine interrupts a squabble between Jack and some Mafia bruisers in the alley behind his nightclub, and tilts the odds in Jack's favor by dropping her robe in the thugs' view, leaving herself stark naked. Subverted in that, while she succeeds in distracting them, she's very nearly shot in the ensuing crossfire.
• Subverted in the first Vampire Hunter D novel. Doris tries to distract D during their initial fight by dropping her robe, revealing that she is naked. It doesn't work.
• A very effective strategy in Xanth for a female fighter opposing a male one is to flash her panties, because panties worn by a woman have the magical effect of "freaking out" men. In one humorous example, a woman tried to distract a vampire this way, forgetting that vampires are more interested in necks.
• The Zone (the World War III series by James Rouch). Trapped Behind Enemy Lines, Major Revell sends the sociopathic yet stunningly beautiful Andrea out to get some transport. She runs out in front of a Soviet truck in knickers and a tight T-shirt ("It stopped — a bloody armoured regiment in full cry would have stopped" as someone says afterwards) then cuts the driver's throat.

Live-Action TV

• Sydney Bristow did this a lot in Alias, before either knocking her victim out herself or having someone else do it.
• Averted in the Angel episode "Waiting in the Wings".
  Cordelia: You want I should distract him? Make with the nice-nice while you slip by?
  Angel: Don't be stupid. I'm that guy, and the most beautiful woman I've ever seen is making eyes at me? It's either a bachelor party or a scam.
• This was a Running Gag for Penny on The Big Bang Theory.
  • In one episode, she reveals that she paid her last electric bill by sending the landlord a few pictures of her in a crop-top.
  • Penny's Little Black Dress:
    • One night, Penny, Bernadette, and Amy decide to have a girls' night out while the guys are busy playing Dungeons & Dragons. They show off their outfits for the evening, ending with Penny displaying the dress, in her own words, "got her out of two speeding tickets and jury duty."
  • The dress appears an episode where a professor at the university where the guys work dies, prompting a competition over which of them will receive his tenured position. Leonard displays his "secret weapon"—Penny in the dress.
• Blake's 7. In "Orbit", the crew have to negotiate with a Mad Scientist, so Vila suggests this trope as to why the women should go instead of him. Avon insists that Vila come along — we find out why when the Mad Scientist finds Vila entirely to his liking.
• Bridgerton: In the hunting scene in season 2 episode 4, Kate Sharma does this to Anthony Bridgerton as a sign of refusing his helping hand that results him to go slightly stammered.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Cordelia did this a couple of times to help Xander out. In "Innocence", when she accompanies him to the military base so he can get the rocket launcher, and in "Killed by Death", when she distracts a hospital security guard while Xander looks for some files.
• Burn Notice
  • In an episode, Michael's narration both references this trope and gives a more plausible alternative:
    Michael: Most people think that distracting a group of guys is best done by a beautiful woman. The problem with beautiful women is that people want them to stick around, which can cause a lot of problems. Obnoxious guys, they just want to get rid of.
  • Though Burn Notice plays it straight most of the time. If Fiona's not making bombs, she's chatting up Mooks. To be fair, the main purpose of both Fiona and Sam on missions is to be the distraction.
• Charmed (1998) has an episode where the sisters have to distract a street full of workmen without using magic, so Piper tells Paige to use some of her "God-given magic" while unbuttoning Paige's blouse to show off her cleavage. Paige then steps outside with a tray of lemonade, causing all the workmen to rush to her and letting Piper get past them.
• Chuck. Lampshaded in two episodes featuring John Larroquette at Roan Montgomery, described as an "old school James Bond type". In the first episode Chuck must seduce a female spy to steal an item from her. She quickly sees through him, but he managed to swipe the item anyway. In the second episode, Roan infiltrates a female terrorist's base and seduces her, though it's later subverted when Casey (Adam Baldwin again) must seduce his way past a beefy-looking female guard. He's initially successful, but when he unintentionally insults her, he just shoots her with a tranq gun.
  • Played much straighter with Sarah, who frequently does this on missions to cause distractions or take advantage of an enemy agent. Or even to Chuck when they have a disagreement on their wedding.
• Danger 5. Ilsa doesn't bother with subtly regarding this trope. In the first episode she has to stop Goebbels from entering the room where Danger 5 is hiding. A cut later and a stunned Goebbels does up his fly and staggers off while Ilsa gets up off her knees and calmly lights up a ciggie.
• In an episode of Dark Angel, Max is in a prison cell with a telekinetic boy cultist (long story) who's flinging her around with his mind like she's a rag doll. All seems lost until she shows him her breasts, whereupon the boy understandably loses his concentration. Thus freed, Max cold-cocks the kid ("Made you look!") and escapes. Coincidentally, the episode's name is "Exposure". (She also flashes Normal in an earlier episode, but for different reasons.)
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Brain of Morbius" has a subtle non-sexual example: the Doctor knows Solon is obsessed with stealing his head, but needs Solon's medical training to examine Sarah's damaged eyes for him. So, for the scene where he's trying to persuade Solon to help him, notice he's got his shirt collar and cravat undone, revealing his neck (and that Solon is visibly stirred by this).
  • Ace volunteers to distract a guard during "The Curse of Fenric", advising the Doctor that she's "not a little girl anymore". That was weird enough for fans not used to seeing this particular companion presented in a sexual way, but the ensuing and very strange conversation with the guard, involving time seeming to move at different speeds, did not provide the sort of dialogue typically associated with leading women flirting with guards.
  • "The Doctor Dances": Rose references this trope and resigns herself to doing it. However, Jack points out that the person they're going to distract is a) a friend of his and b) gay. He then volunteers to do the distracting himself, and adds, "Don't wait up."
  • "The Doctor's Daughter": Jenny seduces a guard to get his weapon. She just flirts with him and snogs him, not taking anything off — the tight T-shirt rendering it somewhat not required... with the camera panning to a somewhat startled Doctor (her father by less than conventional means) and Donna (his Best Friend), who smirks at him and says, "I'd like to see you try that." Subverted later on, when Donna suggests using her "womanly wiles". The Doctor says to save them for an emergency, clearly deeming the situation as not one - or just weirded out enough for one adventure.
  • "Space": According to Rory, Amy passed her driving exam with the help of a short skirt.
• The Dukes of Hazzard: One of Daisy's specialties. This backfired on her once, in Season 4's "Cletus Falls in Love", where Deputy Cletus, instead of getting wise to Daisy's charms, falls madly in love with her. Anywhere else, Cletus would be arrested for stalking and/or fired for unprofessional behavior, but for the Dukes, his puppy-dog-smothering of Daisy is just an annoyance... until Cletus helps them against the bad guys in the end.
• The Equalizer. Robert McCall and Mickey Kostmeyer get past a posh hotel's commissionaire by sending in a strippergram, then slipping inside while the shocked employee is trying to make her put her clothes back on and leave.
• Farscape. When John Crichton has to disguise himself as a Peacekeeper officer to infiltrate a Gammak Base in "Nerve", Ethical Slut Chiana volunteers to come along as his personal server specifically so everyone will be paying attention to her and not him.
• Averted in Firefly when the crew is being held captive and needs a distraction to enact an escape attempt. Jayne is the scruffy mercenary. Zoe is the hot Action Girl. Wash is Zoe's husband.
  Jayne: We need a diversion. I say Zoe gets naked.
  Wash: No.
  Jayne: ...I could get naked.
  All: NO!
• The Fixer. Calum arranges for a couple of Macedonian twins to flirt with a pair of guards, then steal their bikes so they'll chase after them.
• In the Australian mini-series For the Term of His Natural Life a female convict seduces the duty officer in order to get him out of the way for a convict escape attempt. Unfortunately, a musket is fired and the officer races back to see what's wrong — as it turns out his marines have the situation under control by the time he gets back.
• On a Thanksgiving episode of Friends, the girls cheat at football by flashing the guys. Subverted when the guys cover their eyes when the girls do it.
  • In another episode Rachel is pulled over for speeding and proceeds to flirt with the cop who flirts right back at her. He lets her go with a warning to replace her expired license and tells Ross to take over for the drive home.
• Game of Thrones: Osha does this, which saves the day twice in "The Old Gods and the New".
• Get Smart. In "Run Robot Run", a female KAOS agent is staking out Max's apartment and pretends to be adjusting her stocking to explain why she's hanging around there. A passer-by is so distracted by the sight of her leg his wife whacks him over the head with her handbag.
• This was Ginger's main purpose on Gilligan's Island. She even had her own theme music for whenever she did it.
• In "Grab That Dough," an episode of The Golden Girls, the girls end up stranded at a hotel with no way to get to the titular game show taping they're supposed to attend. Blanche references Trope Codifier It Happened One Night by suggesting that she lift her skirt to hitchhike; Sophia promptly jokes that if she does, motorists will mistake it for a freeway on-ramp.
  • In "'Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas", the girls end up being held hostage at Rose's grief counseling center by a lonely man in a Santa suit. Blanche devises a plan:
    Blanche: Now, I'm gonna create a diversion by bending over and picking something up seductively, then the two of you sneak up behind him and give him a karate chop!
    Dorothy: Blanche, what do we look like, Charlie's Angels?
• The Goodies. In "Army Games", a dolly bird is taking off her clothes by the side of the road for no apparent reason so an army vehicle will stop, and the soldiers get out to look so their vehicle can be stolen by the Goodies. Bill Oddie stops to look himself and has to get hauled off by the others. It's not mentioned where they got the dolly bird from in the first place, as the village they're in only has The Vicar staying there—perhaps Graeme Garden built her?
• On Haven, Jennifer mentions having flashed an orderly during her Rescue Introduction with Duke at a Boston hospital. He insists he only told her they needed a distraction, and when she points out it worked, he concedes that it did.
• Honey, I Shrunk the Kids has a couple such moments.
  • One is in the episode "Honey, It's Doomsday" where an asteroid is headed for Earth. A Drill Sergeant Nasty retired general is prepared to blow it up, but Wayne has discovered that there were people living on it. In an attempt to stop the general's plans... well, here's the dialogue that leads up to the scene:
    Diane: I have to appeal to him on a higher level.
    Amy: That would mean the red dress.
    (Beat)
    Diane: The red dress. Got it.

The result is Diane performing "Hey Big Spender" in said dress... with full orchestral accompaniment somehow.

• The other example is in "From Honey, with Love": One of the gadgets Wayne produces for the Canadian secret agent he's working with is a hat that, when donned and activated, hypnotizes onlookers into seeing the wearer as an attractive blonde in a bikini, allowing anyone to distract their opponents this way.

• Stacie pulls this trick several times in Hustle, notably in a scene where she distracts several middle-aged security guards by posing as a flirtatious art student in a short pleated tartan skirt.
• In I Love Lucy episode "The Courtroom", Ricky encourages Lucy to do this to sway the judge, who has to settle a case between the Ricardos, and their friends, the Mertzes. When Ethel follows suit, her husband Fred objects, thinking it'll ruin their case!
• Played for Drama in the 1990's Australian Law Procedural series Janus. A woman is being hammered on the witness stand by the lawyer of her psychopathic ex-boyfriend, who's staring coldly at her the whole time. Realizing this, the policewoman guarding her sits in the front row of the public gallery, crosses her legs and makes eye contact with him. With her boyfriend's attention off her, the witness rallies under the questioning and provides the testimony they need.
• The Kill Point: One of the hostages, Ashley, tries to distract Mr. Pig, who shows some sexual interest in her and makes various awkward attempts at flirting, so she can grab his gun. She later tries to arrange a "date" with him so the other hostages can try to overpower the hostage takers.
• Aneka, of Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, is... remarkably willing to do this for any reason and, unlike most examples, she follows through. Much to the dismay of her boyfriend ("You gave it up for the time of day? We were standing under a clock!")
• On Leverage both Parker and Sophie often play this role with Sophie being more emotionally seductive while Parker simply relies on her looks. Tara however takes this to a whole new level with a much more direct approach to get inside a hotel room by pretending to be Naked People Trapped Outside.
• Parodied on Lizzie McGuire. To rescue Gordo from a gathering of "Dwarf Lord" players (a D&D parody), Miranda flirts with the student guarding the door so Lizzie can ambush him and steal his costume.
• The Magician: In "Nightmare in Steel", Tony's Lovely Assistant distracts a pair of guards on a boat by setting up on the dock to do some painting, and taking off her jacket to reveal an extremely abbreviated top that makes it look like she is topless from the back. While the guards are ogling her, Tony sneaks on board.
• In one episode of Married... with Children, the Bundys are challenged to a bowling game. Kelly turns up late and Peggy yells at her for not doing her part. Then she takes off her coat...
• A typical activity of the female agents in Mission: Impossible. Especially the season 1 two-parter "Old Man Out" which not only featured two female IMF agents acting as rivals to distract a guard, but then getting into one of the longest cat fights ever shown on TV to keep him distracted.
• Alluded to by the MythBusters. When every (mostly-)legal way to beat police speed radar they try fails, Kari comments that if you want to get out of a speeding ticket, "short skirts and crying are still the way to go".
• In the 1999 TV movie Net Force, a member of the eponymous force has a couple of attractive female staff members from the local US Embassy join him on a yacht, which he sails alongside a Russian cargo vessel they suspect is up to no good. As the two women dance around in swimsuits and the crew line the rails to enjoy the sight, he's waving about a video camera recording the whole thing, enabling Mission Control to get pictures of the crew's faces (and gripe about why they're not selected for missions like these).
• In one episode of Night Court, Christine flashes her breasts to distract a man for few crucial seconds.
• Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. In an episode about state surveillance, they set up hired stooges in a van with a controllable camera to watch some supposed Homeland Security target. Just when they were bored, a hired pornographic actress named Taimi Hannum, wearing some revealing clothing, would have a staged argument and make-up spicy times with another actor. The "target" would then leave. Most of the bored stooges fell for it.
• Psych: One episode has Shawn and Gus needing to distract an orderly in order to steal the patient away from him. The woman with them strips and seductively propositions the orderly. Her plan works perfectly.
• In the Quantum Leap episode "The Right Hand of God", Sam leaps into a boxer in the 1950s, and convinces his girlfriend to distract his opponent by streaking at a critical moment so he can get in a knockout punch.
• Jess in The Real Hustle. The opening credits call her the "Sexy Swindler" for a reason.
• Played for Laughs in the Grand Finale of Seinfeld. When the gang is in danger of going to jail, someone offers to try seducing the judge to help get them off the hook. Unfortunately, said someone is George's mother. Needless to say, it does nothing for the case.
• This is a whole ability in Sentai, which refered to something like "Cute techniques" where female characters beauty is weaponized. Often, just a sexy wink from the Pink member is too much for the Mooks to handle and they fall straight over.
  • This was actually used as bait rather than a distraction in an episode of the Sentai series Fiveman. Since the monster of the day tunnels through the ground to capture victims and especially likes leggy females, Five Yellow dons a short skirt and prances around getting it to follow her right into the trap they set for it.
• Stargate:
  • Stargate SG-1: The female members of the SGC does this to pheromone-controlled Airmen to escape from their cells and regain control of the base in the episode "Hathor".
  • Stargate Atlantis:
    • Then in the episode "Trio", when Carter, McKay, and Dr. Keller are trapped in an abandoned mine, McKay tries unsuccessfully to convince Carter that the pubescent boys outside will be more willing to get help for them if she flashes her breasts.
    • Subverted another time, when McKay needs Weir to "distract" Billy Lee so that he can access his computer. She asks "how?" Then after a Description Cut (sorta), we see Lee saying, "I gotta say, I have never met a woman this into World of Warcraft."
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
  • In "The Homecoming", Major Kira infiltrates a Cardassian work camp by pretending to be a Bajoran prostitute being brought to the camp commander. The guard too has a taste for Bajorans and turns off the forcefield so he can sample the merchandise. As he bends down to check her out, Kira punches him in the face.
  • In "Sons of Mogh", Worf accuses Dax of dressing in a revealing outfit to distract him during a sparring session. Dax scoffs at the idea that she would dress this way for his sake.
• Star Trek: Enterprise. In "Babel One", Shran uses his second-in-command Talas, a Blue-Skinned Space Babe in Pink Lingerie, to distract the MACO guard outside his quarters ("Andorian women are permitted one final conquest before their wedding. I've never had relations with a member of your species. I was hoping you'd indulge me.") The guard doesn't fall for it and knocks out Shran when he tries using the diversion to jump him, whereupon Talas knocks out the guard instead.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • "Unification". Riker runs into difficulties with an Obstructive Bureaucrat called Dokachin, so he asks Counsellor Troi for help. This seems natural enough, as Troi is an empath who's done this sort of thing before. The moment Dokachin sees Troi, however, he instantly deduces Riker's real plan.
    Dokachin: He probably figures that we don't get to see a lot of handsome women out this way. And someone like you might get a little more cooperation from me. (Troi starts to deny it) He's probably right.
  • Happens in reverse in one episode ("Angel One") where they come upon a planet where the women are the rulers and men are the servants. Riker dresses in a very thin and mostly mostly bare-chested tunic to get on the good side of the matriarch of the society.
• Star Trek: Voyager. Captain Janeway of all people does this in "Resistance". There are guards in the tunnels under the detention area she's trying to break into, so she dresses as a prostitute (thanks to the slit in her dress, she does this trope literally). The guards say that "you girls aren't allowed down here any more", but as they're bored she easily convinces them to walk off with her into a dark place where they can be knocked unconscious.
• Supernatural. In "The Girl With The Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo" the titular girl, Charlie, is trying to help Sam and Dean when she sees that she will have to get past a guard. To his credit, Dean takes the time to check and see if the guard has ever shown interest in her, before telling her to flirt past him. The problem is she's gay.
  Dean: Pretend he has boobs.
  Charlie: (looks disgusted) Worse.
  • Dean then resigns himself to instructing her how to flirt with a man. Hilarity Ensues.
    Charlie: I feel dirty.
    Dean: You and me both, sister.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
  • In the episode "Automatic for the People", Cameron dons a low-cut top to attract the attention of power plant's security guards during a pool game, so she can scan their security cards. It proves quite effective at being distracting, too...
  • When Cameron is talking to John in the episode "Mr. Ferguson Is Ill Today". In order to psychologically probe him, she deliberately strips down to shorts and a tight white shirt with a clearly-visible red bra underneath it and lays down onto the bed next to him. The subsequent exchange is tense and distracting for multiple, fairly obvious reasons.
• In the series of V (1983), Elizabeth (normally portrayed as quite innocent) draws away a guard so he can be quietly disposed of by hinting that she's bored and "knows what men want". Later she's asked where she got all that from. She responds coyly that she was Taught by Television.
• In "The Wake-Up Call," a late-season episode of The West Wing, conflict arises when, after a British plane is mistakenly shot down over Iranian airspace, Chief of Staff C.J. contacts the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom without waking President Bartlett first (his multiple sclerosis means he must get as much rest as possible). When a reporter hears rumors about Bartlett not being on C.J.'s call, he comes snooping around to ask questions. As it happens, the winner of the Miss World Pageant is at the White House that day for the champion's annual visit with the administration. Deputy Press Secretary Annabeth Schott quickly sends Miss World to intercept the reporter, who's completely smitten and forgets all about his story.

Music

• The Babe Ruth song "Gimme Some Leg" is a sarcastic deconstruction of this trope; singer Jenna Haan is explaining that however good the lead singer is, however powerful her voice, there'll always be some asshole in the audience demanding she shows a bit more flesh.
• This doesn't half piss off some singers, and justly. Amanda Palmer was incensed that the Daily Mail ignored the fact she is capable of singing a bit, and chose to concentrate instead on the Wardrobe Malfunction that resulted in an exposed nipple during her Glastonbury set. She wrote a savage song lampooning slavering middle-aged journalists, and obligingly performed it naked at her next gig. (possibly NSFW — available on YouTube). The Mail, strangely, did not report this.
  And dear Daily Mail? Fuck you!
• Happens in the Stereophonics song "The Bartender and the Thief" when the title bartender is distracted from the con by a horny lesbian describing her sex life (or something like that).

Music Videos

• Toni Braxton's "He Wasn't Man Enough" includes a small animation at the beginning in which she is a superheroine. In it, she bedazzles a band of male enemies by, ahem, unzipping her very tight jumpsuit midchest, giving her the time to finish them off with her voice attack.

Myths & Religion

• When a justifiably annoyed Menelaus found his erring wife in the flaming ruins of Troy, Helen merely uncovered her breasts and he promptly forgot he'd ever been angry with her.
• Norse Mythology: Loki once shapeshifted into a mare in order to distract a stallion. Bore him a few children, too.
• In Japanese Mythology, the sun goddess Amaterasu hid herself away in a cave after a traumatic experience with her brother Susanoo, leaving the world in perpetual darkness. The gods tried many different ways to get her to come out to no avail. It was Ame-no-Uzume, goddess of merriment, who came up with the winning strategy. Setting up a mirror and necklace nearby, Ame-no-Uzume stripped naked and danced around, creating a lot of commotion that drew Amaterasu's attention. When the sun goddess peaked out at the noise, she was so distracted by both Ame-no-Uzume and her own reflection that the other gods were able to drag her out of the cave and seal it off.

Pro Wrestling

• Omnipresent in wrestling; nearly every female manager or valet has, at one time or another and generally on a regular basis, used her... *ahem* assets to distract her client's opponent, the Easily-Distracted Referee, or both.
• The most famous instance of this was probably when Miss Elizabeth did it at the very first SummerSlam. It probably surprised everyone too, since as the (Real Life and later Kayfabe)) wife and manager of Randy Savage, she was known for her impeccably ladylike behavior while wearing blouses, long skirts, and High-Class Gloves. But when Savage and Hulk Hogan (known at that time as the "Mega Powers") needed to pick up a victory over Ted DiBiase and André the Giant in a tag match, Elizabeth had no problem with ripping off her skirt to expose her legs and bright red panties and distract the enemy long enough for her husband and the Hulkster to get the win. Elizabeth was a Face when she did this, and that she remained a Face afterward.
  • Actually, Elizabeth whipping her skirt off was a compromise. The original plan was for Elizabeth to take her whole dress off, leaving her in just her bra and panties, but Savage balked at that idea.
• This was all Stacy Keibler did during her time in wrestling, after her relations with David Flair in WCW anyway, usually by slowwwly ducking herself between the middle and top ring ropes when entering or exiting. Given that her legs are forty two inches long, who can complain?
• When Truth Martini changed the bout between Davey Richards and Silas Young at the unauthorized ROH A Night Of Hoopla into a lumber jill match to make Young get back in the ring, one of the jills stuck a leg out from behind the curtain. Cue Silas's reaction going from bewilderment to disgust when the jill and every other one turned out to be men in drag.

Tabletop Games

• Weaponized in GURPS with the "Sexy Feints" perk.
• Shadowrun: the 4th Edition supplement Attitude notes that female Urban Brawl champion Svetlana Jurjewa is known for her tactic of opening her top and flashing her breasts at members of the other team in order to distract them while one of her teammates makes a play. It's technically against the rules but so popular with viewers that she (and other female players who started copying her) are allowed to do it anyway.

Theatre

• In The Moon is Blue, Patty puts her leg up at one moment to test how lecherous David really is. He doesn't take the bait, though he later compliments her legs.

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed:
  • In Assassin's Creed II, the courtesans you find throughout the cities are (after Sequence 1) on Ezio's side. For some coin, he can hire a cluster of them to surround him as he walks the city — their sexiness being sufficient distraction to keep Ezio "invisible" while he walks the streets. He can also send the hooker entourage to "distract" troublesome guards, though he'll automatically "lose" two of his four courtesans whenever he passes close enough to a group of guards, as in both cases the courtesans are occupied with their distraction so that Ezio can move on.
  • In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, this is given a darker edge if Ezio achieves "middle" rank with the Courtesans' Guild, unlocking the ability of Courtesans to distract Horsemen, but also somehow arming every affiliated courtesan in Rome with a dosage of poison which they can inject a guard with. Unfortunately, since the player can't control this at all, it sometimes leads to a distraction of a far less desirable sort...
  • In Assassin's Creed: Revelations the courtesans are replaced by Romani dancers, though the desired effect is still the same.
• In Desperados, Kate O'Hara can do this to attract some kinds of enemies and lead them away from their posts and into deadly traps – you know, like in real life. It's far from the Game-Breaker it seems to be, though: a good deal of the enemies are disciplined enough not to approach her, the trick doesn't work if the mook's too agitated, and even the dumber ones will pretty soon get that Kate is stringing them along and will knock her out or even shoot her – once again, as in real life. In fact, in later levels, it's a better tactic to leave her out in the open without using the garter trick, wait for them to come restrain her once she's spotted and knock them out once they get in range of her boot – the enemy types that will fall for this I Surrender, Suckers move are much more varied than the lustful ones.
• Inverted, then subverted, in Dragon Age: Origins, when a Templar who doesn't want to lets you pass points out (if you have her in your group) that he might not mind spending some time with Morrigan in exchange for letting you pass. Morrigan lets him know, not explictly but in no uncertain terms, that even if she agreed to do so she would kill him (and possibly ingest him and then spit out his bones). Leliana however plays along.
• Dragon Quest VIII has Jessica, who actually has Sex Appeal as a skill. She has been known to shake her "pom poms" to distract enemies. Add a hint of playing to the fetishes, because of her Stripperific special outfits and her whip.
• In Fear Effect, Hana is at one point confronted by a guard while unarmed and only wearing a towel. You escape by going into your inventory and using the towel. Hana then removes it, and her allies deal with the now-distracted guard.
• In Granblue Fantasy, Claudia lifts her skirt in front of Soriz during their match in the "A Thousand Reasons" event (as she is aware that her opponent is a Dirty Old Man). This distracts him enough to let her knock him out of the ring in one hit. Aliza, who is watching the fight, isn't amazed by this tactic.
• In Heavy Rain, Madison pulls a combination of this and Rip Tailoring in hopes of seducing (and further interrogating) a man in a seedy club.
• inFAMOUS:
  • In inFamous, Sasha tries to do this to Cole to get him over to the Dark Side.
  • And in inFAMOUS 2, Kuo reveals she planned to do this to Cole to get him to come with her. However, seeing how he was still distraught over the death of his girlfriend, she doesn't use it.
  • The leader of the Rebels is easily distracted by Kuo and Nix, where Kuo even had to yell at him to focus on their meeting.
• In the fighting game Killer Instinct, one of Orchid's Finishing Move is to flash her breasts at her opponent, who then has a heart attack and dies. Seriously.
• Rare male example in Love And Legends. At one point in Altea's route, resident pansexual elf Iseul distracts two (male) guards by flirting with them. One of them is annoyed, the other is into it, but both are distracted.
• The Elise boss fight in MadWorld sees Jack trying to break her grip during his power struggle. Thing is, once he breaks her hold, her huge rack is directly in his face and he can't help but stare. There's another action command to look away — if you fail, Elise bites Jack's neck and drains his health, restoring her own.
• In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty onwards, you can distract guards by dropping porno mags on the ground.
• In Neverwinter Nights mod Dreamcatcher 3 when the player character needs to get into a certain guarded house the female henchman asks the guard if he could check out a kink in her leg armor.
• This trope shows up in the Pokémon games via the move Attract and the ability Cute Charm, which both give the Infatuation status ailment to opposite-sexed Pokemon. Under Infatuation, a Pokemon has a 50% chance of being too busy mooning over their opponent to actually attack them, and Gym Leader Whitney's frequent use of Attract is just one of many reasons why she is That One Boss.
• Lampshaded in Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure by Kururu, of all people: "Show a little leg. Guys can't resist a little leg."
• In the game Red Ninja: End of Honor, the female main character can use this maneuver to distract guards. It never works when you really need it to, and is alarmingly easy at other times.
• Parodied in the Sam and Max Season 2 Finale, when Max (a comically sociopathic lagomorph) tries to distract a villain using this:
  Max: (overenunciating) Oh, dear. I seem to be completely naked. Hope I don't have to bend over provocatively and—
  Sam: That's enough, Max.
• Shanghai.EXE: Genso Network: In a cutscene, Shanghai gets into the Border Concern servers by flirting with the male guard, along with some Sexual Euphemism:
  Shanghai: Oh....?
  Even for a lady like me?....
  Maybe it's closed to the public, but maybe we can go off somewhere private....?
  Guard: U - uh?!
  Shanghai: Teehee....
  Get over here....big boy.
  That is, if you're man enough to....come.
  Guard: G - Gulp!
  [Shanghai and the guard walk off screen]
  Shanghai: Closer....
  Almost there....
  Guard: A - Ah!
  Shanghai: Finally!
  What a clown!
  [Slam and digital violence sounds]
  [Shanghai walks back on screen]
  Shanghai: Honestly! Did he think that sort of thing happened in real life?
  Now that that's over with, I've got to save Alice!
  [Fade to Black and then unfade, to return player control.]
• In Tales of Vesperia there's a scene where you have to choose one of three party members to dress in a "sexy" outfit in order to seduce a guard. While two of the options play this trope straight, we also get a subversion with the third option, Karol. One of your male party members. It still works.
• In Trials of Mana, when your team is imprisoned, the third chosen party member (or an unchosen character if Carlie is third) will try to trick the guard into opening his or her cell door. Angela's method is to ask the beast man for help changing her clothes.
• Offered as a potential solution in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves:
  Nate: I just need a diversion. You give me five minutes in that tent, that's all it'll take.
  Chloe: Really, five minutes? Well that's great, I won't even have to get my top off.
  Nate: Chloe I was... thinking m-more like an explosion.
  Chloe: ...or that, can be arranged!
• The Succubus' Seduce ability in World of Warcraft "stuns" the target. Bonus points because the Succubus' has to channel the spell. Extra bonus points because it works on any humanoid that isn't immune to crowd control. Including women.
• Meta example: players in Team Fortress 2 using hentai/pornography sprays to distract enemies. Funnily enough, as of 2012-2013, poni sprays are more often used for this purpose. So many players are bronies, they get easily distracted by them. Bonus points if it's an image macro.
  • These two Nerf NOW!! comics are entirely Truth in Television.
  • A fine example in video!
  • Can happen at times at Half-Life and Counter-Strike also.
• Another Meta example: Theoretically, in Tournament Play, playing as a Ms. Fanservice character in a Japanese fighting game may give you an edge if you don't get distracted yourself. The fact that the average Fanservice character is no pushover doesn't hurt either.

Web Animation

• In If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, Kitten and his band of Custodes need to meet with the Fabricator-General of Mars, but the Skitarii guards deny them entry. After pulling rank doesn't work, Kitten orders the dreadnought (a half-dead Space Marine or Custodian on life support piloting/interred in a Mini-Mecha) Santodes to "convince" them. Santodes misinterprets the order and instead seduces the technophillic Skitarii by showing off his well-crafted, mechanical body, who promptly oil themselves and let them in.
• In Episode 17 of The Most Popular Girls in School, Cameron van Buren attempts this on a cashier (she flashes her boobs at him) in order to buy alcohol for her alcoholic mother (long story).

Webcomics

• Gina once distracted someone holding her at gunpoint in Applegeeks by flashing her breasts. The gunwoman was stunned into submission.
• Parodied in this strip of Brat-Halla, where we see the Norse goddess Hel (who is a rotting corpse from the waist down) do this. Not a pretty picture. Of course, the intent in this case was to subdue Balder's Raging Stiffie...
• During the Crossover Wars, a flirty sexy witch from an adult comic was used to distract Deception so he could be blasted and taken out of the battle.
• In Ctrl+Alt+Del, Lilah uses this to make Ethan stop being obsessed with EverQuest II. She calls it a "level eighty female-only persuasion spell". (Which seriously overestimates the time and training it takes to pull it off.)
• Amusingly inverted in Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures when a guest at the inn says she can have any guy she wants and attempts to prove it by flashing Abel. Abel is instead "distracted by the large amounts of crazy they're attached to," so it doesn't quite work.
• One of the established military tactics on Erfworld is the "Flash"◊.
• How Death "cheats" a man trying to get out of being hauled away by playing Chess with Death, in this strip from Exiern.
• Subverted in Girl Genius, where Princess Zulenna attempts this (confidently saying "it always works"), only to find the one guard that isn't impressed. An annoyed Zulenna clubs him. Very hard.
  • Played mostly straight later when a Smoke Knight is sent to "distract" another Smoke Knight who's trailing Agatha which she apparently does by making out with him.
• In Impure Blood Elnor's means during the escape.
• The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: Molly, of all people, tries this once while hitchhiking. It fails because she's, well, furry. She naively assumes the problem is that she's naked.
• Seraphim pulls it on Asmodeus in this page of MegaTokyo.
• In Minion Comics, Dingus calls a prostitute to distract the guards while the base is on lock-down.
• In No Need for Bushido, Lord Masuhiro was captured by a largely female clan of ninjas. These ninjas deliberately dress in a way to use this to their advantage. Sure enough, every time Masuhiro attempts to escape, something happens to distract him, he gets hit with a knockout drug, and gets put back into his cell again.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • The comic subverts this often enough, it became a running gag. See strip #19 and #387.
  • Also attempted by Sabine on Roy in strip #355, but he's not stupid enough to get lured by a succubus.
  • Zigzagged in strip #66. It works for a different reason than expected.
• Orneryboy: Dirtygirl is losing a video game session, but finds a way to distract Orneryboy and turn the tables on him.
• In The Phoenix Requiem, Petria drapes herself on a soldier who's reluctant to say why the quarantine on Esk was lifted.
• Questionable Content: Raven does this to Sven in episode 519.
• It does always work in this strip of Shortpacked!.
• Sluggy Freelance:
  • Oasis uses this to distract Torg and Riff while she kidnaps them. Although, in her case, she might be enough of a Cloudcuckoolander not to realize the effect she has on them.
  • Riff has learned from this event, and created a machine to block "distracting nudity."
• Discussed in Spinnerette. Spinnerette wants to add a Cleavage Window to her costume to distract villains, but Sahira points out the idiocy of making a bulletproof costume and then putting a hole in it right over your heart.
• Distraction Damsel from Supermegatopia, whose only superpower was causing timely wardrobe malfunctions (usually her own) or otherwise distracting bad guys (and good guys, and Innocent Bystanders...) with her "assets".
• The Whiteboard: Pirta uses her looks to boost sales,◊ one time◊ managing to get a customer to spend $367.84◊ on paintball merchandise.

Web Original

• Agent Lux of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum has... interesting methods of getting the attention of a crowd. But very effective ones.
• Tori and Sonia, from The Saints, use magic to create this effect on a pair of police officers.
• Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG: Mr. Welch is not allowed to take advantage of this by sending strippers to the guardroom.

Web Videos

• In Bite Me!, Lauren breaks out of General McRuby's jail cell by tempting his teenage son Roger with her cleavage.
• Tess Masazza, creator of the Italian Web Series Insopportabilmente Donna tries this trick when the police pulls her over for running a red light and, again, with her boyfriend when she destroys his new car and forgets to pick up his mother at the railway station. Unfortunately, it does not work in both cases.
• In lonelygirl15, this is something of a specialty of Sarah's. Lampshaded in "Shop of Horrors!!!", when Jonas explains how Sarah is going to "distract the store owner with, uh, a long conversation", and the camera immediately pans to Sarah's breasts. Sarah responds, "What? I'm just doing my job!"
• Precious Plum: Plum (a parody of Honey Boo Boo) gets lost, so she flags down a car by pulling up her skirt to a driver.

Western Animation

• This was attempted by Æon Flux in one of her original shorts, "War". It doesn't work on the realistic mook at all, and he blows her brains out.
• Camp Lazlo: In "Squirrel Seats", Scoutmaster Lumpus and Miss Doe are accidentally left behind while at a rest stop during a Bean Scout/Squirrel Scout field trip. At the end of the episode, they are seen trying to hitch a ride back to the camp and Jane suggests that Lumpus show some leg.
• Gadget used this in an episode of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers to cause a thug who was controlling a tank with a neural interface helmet to lose control and allow them to escape the villains death trap.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog: In "Courage Meets the Mummy", the mummy tries to hitch a ride to Courage's house, and lifts the bandages on his leg, revealing an actual female leg with high heel included.
• The entire point of Catwoman's "dance" in DC Showcase: Catwoman.
• In a flashback in Ducktales 1987, Scrooge, having freshly moved to America, is shown having little luck hitch-hiking. So he hitches up the hem of his kilt and extends his leg. Seconds later, a lady pulls her stagecoach over to pick him up.
• Done in the Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "If it Smells Like an Ed", where the Eds use a picture of Nazz in a bikini to distract Kevin while measuring his shoe size.
• Futurama: Attempted/parodied in the movie Into the Wild Green Yonder. When Bender is breaking the Feministas out of prison, they don't know how to get past the armed guards. Leela says that the one thing men can't resist is hookers, and tells two of her fellow Feministas, "You know what to do." They proceed to put Bender in a skimpy outfit, a wig, and lots of makeup. He goes out where the guards can see him and says; "Hello, boys!". The guards just start shooting at him.
• In a fourth season-episode of Kim Possible, Shego does this to distract Martin Smarty while Dr. Drakken carries out his plan of creating a legion of robotic soldiers. This episode also proves that she's a Gold Digger, as she considers marrying Martin Smarty just to get in on his wealth, only changing her mind when she realized he had a kid.
• Looney Tunes: Fairly common in Golden Age cartoons. Bugs Bunny and various other Warner Brother's characters would do this, while crossdressing.
  • Hatta Mari does this to lure avowed woman-hater Daffy Duck to her lair in "Plane Daffy". It works a little too well as Daffy who has flown about a half a mile away returns to look at her leg up close and whistles at it.
  • A gorgeous red headed duck called "The Body" also does this to Daffy in "The Sooper Snooper". While sitting down, she hikes up her red dress to expose her long curvaceous crossed legs. Next she turns out the lights and starts kissing Daffy like crazy. At first it might seem that she is trying to distract the detective that Daffy is portraying from finding her guilty of murder. But all The Body wanted to do was seduce Daffy who she fell in love with instantly.
• The Terrytoons' Mighty Mouse'' short "Wolf!, Wolf!" has a male example with one of the wolves dressing up as Litte Bo Peep showing off his leg with a garter on it, and the wolves laugh in retaliation.
• The Penguins of Madagascar:
  • During "Needle Point", Skipper attempts to use this against the other penguins by performing a sultry dance with two large leaves. Lampshaded by Kowalski when the penguins aren’t affected.
    Kowalski: You really don’t want that shot, do you?
  • Another example of this comes in "Mental Hen" — the penguins encounter an evil hen who is able to predict their every move. Kowalski's solution? Perform a strangely suggestive song-and-dance routine where he shakes his bottom and flirts with her while Rico switches her bowls.
• On The Simpsons, Marge once distracted Chief Wiggum by flashing her (temporarily surgically enhanced) breasts. Which Krusty referred to as "Mugumbos". Which happened to be the control word for Stampy the Elephant.
• In the South Park episode "Asspen", the Jerkass skier is distracted, allowing Stan to win the race, when a girl flashes her breasts at him. However, it later reveals that her breasts are two hideously mutated heads, a Shout-Out to the film Total Recall.
• Raven does this for Beast Boy in Teen Titans Go! at the end of episode "Legs".
• Who Killed Who?: While escaping, the killer sees a pair of attractive, feminine legs behind a curtain. He lets out a Wolf Whistle and pulls up the curtain, only to find out that it was the (male!) detective, who promptly bops him on the head with a mallet.
• The Superman: The Animated Series crossover "World's Finest" has a male example played for laughs. Harley Quinn, chauffeuring a limo, picks up Lex Luthor. She then goes into "hubba hubba" mode when she sees the Joker at a curb, hitching a ride and rolling up his pants leg, showing off his gam.

Real Life

• Mata Hari, a spy during World War I, is rumored to have attempted stripping when she was in front of the firing squad for her execution, apparently on the belief that no one could shoot a body like hers. It didn't work, but it's not like she had a better option at that point.
• According to naval folklore, Royal Navy bosuns would wake crews up in port by ordering them to show a leg. If the leg was female (i.e. a whore), she was left be.
• The pirate Mary Reade once won a duel by ripping open her shirt just as her opponent had lost his balance, and giving her the chance to kill him in a single strike.
• A "dumb crook" anecdote involved shoplifters using a scantily clad accomplice for this purpose. What made them dumb crooks was that the store personnel couldn't describe the actual thieves at all... but were able to give a very detailed description of the girl who'd helped them. Though in another such tale, the trick works because the female criminal in question has amazing breasts which is the only detail anyone remembers.
• NFL legend Lawrence Taylor was notorious for hiring several prostitutes and sending them to visiting teams' hotels on the night before a big game.
• Apparently used during training of British special forces personnel. Accounts of SAS trainees tasked with staying alert on a stake-out, often in a cold uncomfortable place where nothing really happens for several hours at a stretch, refer to women throwing off their outer clothing without warning — just as the incident happens they have been tasked with observing and accurately reporting on. If they are distracted by the sexy and fail to notice (for instance) the person they have been sent to observe leaving his home and getting into a car, or the handover of weapons/explosives — they've failed. And then learn that failure is not a desirable option.
• A popular bathtub soap game in Brazil which exploded through expansive daytime TV coverage in The '90s involves this as a possible tactic. The game features two contestants at a time, usually of opposite genders, inside a custom pool or Jacuzzi-style bathtub filled with a substance and a set of items, usually water and soaps; the object being for one player to get as many soaps as they can into a bucket held just outside the pool within a set amount of time (usually one minute) while the other person tries to stop them. Since the men are usually stronger than the women, the women can't really stop them from moving around—and frequently, nor can the men, since they often aren't allowed to hold the women in place too tightly. Thus, the defensive player tends to have the unenviable task of keeping a very mobile offensive player from grabbing the soaps. Between that and the fact that this involves two scantily clad, usually attractive people of the opposite sex in close quarters^note women tend enter the pool/tub in bikinis while men enter in boxer shorts or speedos, and the TV shows made it clear attractive people are preferred for this game, it was only a matter of course that particularly nimble or sensual defenders would sometimes shave seconds off the clock, or on rare occasions even outright stall their opposition for half the segment, by carefully maneuvering to draw said opponent into an embrace.

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