Handbra

A handbra (also hand bra or hand-bra) is a technique used by actresses, models and other entertainers to cover their nipples and areolae with their own hands or in some other way to comply with censors' guidelines, public authorities and community standards which require female breasts to be covered in film or other media. The technique can also be used by women to cover their private parts to maintain their modesty.

Social conventions requiring females to cover their breasts in public has been widespread throughout history and across cultures. Contemporary Western cultures usually regard the exposure of the nipples and areolae as immodest and is sometimes prosecuted as indecent exposure. However, the covering of the nipples and areolae in some manner is regarded as sufficient to maintain modesty and decency, at least within letter if not the spirit of the censors' guidelines.

Before toplessness and nudity became more common in cinema and other media after the 1960s, female models and actresses would cover their breasts, especially the nipples and areolae, with their hands, arms, towel, pasties or some other objects to remain within the censors' guidelines or community standards of decency and modesty.

The handbra technique became less common and an unnecessary pose in early 20th century European and American pinup postcard media as toplessness and nudity became more common. In America, after bare breasts become repressed in mainstream media circa 1930, the handbra became an increasingly durable pose, especially as more widespread American pinup literature emerged in the 1950s. Once bare breasts became a common occurrence in pinup literature, after the early 1960s, the handbra pose acquires less necessity in pinup media. As with pinup magazines of the 1950s, the handbra pose was a mainstay of late 20th century mainstream media, especially lad mags, such as FHM, Maxim, and Zoo Weekly, that prominently feature photos of scantily clad B-actresses and models, and which avoid topless and nude glamour photography.

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