— Grace, A female character with no nudity taboo. This can be any number of ways, but nine times out of ten, it's for. A very common subtype is the creature that is ostensibly to supposedly not need clothing, like the Zora of the Zelda games, certain Furries or (with or without ), or of course, practically any kind of pixie. This subtype is so overwhelmingly commonplace with these inhuman characters that it usually does not come into play at all, making it an.Until they shape shift into a normal human shape for a while, that is.

At that point, the character's nudity is a very serious problem that must be addressed, immediately. In a more meta sense, this trope is also frequently used to reveal that the character has an entirely different, unusual mindset: • The and may genuinely not understand what everyone's getting upset about.

Aug 14, 2007. This game had it all: a big-time BCS power in Oklahoma versus an underdog Boise State squad that went on to win the game in dramatic fashion, a series. Johnson, who is black, received numerous racial threats on the eve of the wedding a few weeks ago from people who were upset that he was getting.

(Showing a lack of humanity.) • and characters will simply not understand why nudity is a problem for everyone else. Beechcraft Bonanza F33a Poh Pdf Download here. (Showing that she is.) • The may feel that people with a nudity taboo are backwards and primitive. (Showing a narrow-minded view of their norms and customs). Alternately, her people may have a.

(Showing a lack of cultural awareness.) • The might not fully understand why this 'nudity' thing is getting in the way of proper worship, but it had better stop. (Showing a loftier set of priorities.) • The and might not understand why the is getting upset — after all, they've been together for years, right? (Showing how close she considers the main character.) As a common evolution of this sub-trope, the first outward symptom of a growing attraction or romantic awareness is when she does start caring that they are watching, or when they begin to become flustered. • The character in question lived in a culture where there was. Often such characters are; it's not unheard of for a work to use the two tropes together to add a Fanservice Non-Sequitur (or to set up ) and then never mention it again. Special mention goes to ' stories — 's and 's being the biggest ones here, where a character is raised in a situation where they simply don't learn human body shame. In this case, it legitimately is innocent, is depicted for realism or for other reasons necessary for carrying the story, and neither nor Freud are anywhere in sight.

(Until Disney or other adaptors make them randomly decide to wear a loin cloth for censorship reasons.) Closely related to, a character without a nudity taboo but who still understands the concept, and, a character with a nudity taboo thrust into a universe that conspires to make her show as much skin as possible. Is when there is a nudity taboo, but it's different enough that the character is naked by the local standard. Is this trope applied to a society rather than an individual.

• Night Tenjo from is a rare male example, being an android sex doll he assumes his lover will want to see him naked and is programmed to enjoy being naked. Riiko has to explain to him that stripping off quite so often is considered at least a bit unusual. •: • Professor Kiyama Harumi has no hang ups about removing her clothes in the middle of the street for flimsy reasons. • Also, the Sisters. One of them is shown coming out of and making no effort to cover herself until given a hospital gown to wear.

One of the scientists present comments that her utter lack of embarrassment is embarrassing in the first place. Later, 10032 places Touma's hand on her chest to measure his heartbeat, seemingly clueless to the, and later is undisturbed when Touma walks in on her undergoing 'body adjustments' (which have her nude in a life support tank). This is justified in that their memories and knowledge have to be 'programmed' into their minds (they are a blank slate when created), and the scientists didn't consider modesty to be important enough to include, as the Sisters were only meant for getting killed by Accelerator. • In, after unexpectedly running to Su-Won, Yona went into a state of shock and after spilling food on herself, began to absentmindedly take off her clothes while in the presence of others. • Despite the fact that she is the only girl in a group of men, she comes to trust everyone enough that she has little problem of them seeing her topless (while being treated for a wound). Kija doesn't share this sentiment. •: The eponymous Nuku Nuku.

Since she has the brain of a cat and an android body, she qualifies for both the and subtypes. •: • North Italy is fond of getting some or all of his clothes off when he wants to sleep, which gets him often in trouble with others. • During a flashback, had no qualms about her Prussia seeing her with her shirt ripped to levels. Mostly because at this time in her life, • A certain portion of the fandom loves to peg Ukraine as this due to her status, but in-series this is played with. She is very prone to being the subject of and the, but she's shown to be and still dresses rather conservatively, even sewing on buttons that keep falling off of her shirt rather than showing much cleavage and politely declining to wear a dress.

• Kris Kristopher in comes from an isolated culture with little in the way of body-modesty or nudity taboos, and seems confused by those who are uncomfortable with nudity. Kris: you guys are weird. •: • Isma has no compunctions with walking around nude in front of others, due partly to being ostracized by the islanders, never learning modesty; and partly to the fact that she frequently goes swimming to fish.

This series taking place in a roughly Medieval time period, bathing suits did not exist. She still wears clothes most of the time but doesn't react to others seeing her nude. • Deconstructed in the case of Casca, who suffers enough in the series as it is. After being in a very heinous way and having her mind regress to that of a child, Casca also shows no compunctions about being naked — so long as someone isn't intending on having his way with her, which seems to be the only time that Casca. However, her current state of being has also been presented as a problem when it comes to, who is still very much in love with — — Casca. His KNOWS this and tries to take advantage of his male urges whenever he sees Casca indecent — and one time,. Having the mind of a, she sees nothing wrong in answering the door wearing nothing but panties and a towel casually thrown over her breasts.

• Chii from is a good example, specifically in the manga. It was a constant source of torment for, especially when she attempts to buy panties (even with her imperfect understanding of what panties are). • Choko of can behave this way at times. Especially early in the story where she sincerely believed a was something sisters were supposed to wear for their brothers.

• Though only lasting for a few episodes, C.C. From becomes this when she. During this period, in contrast to her usual personality of apathetic sarcasm, she reverts to the terrified, completely obedient slave-girl she was before she obtained Code, even taking Lelouch's joking command to 'dance around on one foot with [her] clothes inside out' completely seriously and without question. In a more uncomfortable instance, she continually asks Lelouch to take his clothes off when he says he has a pain that's not on the surface, leading to some.

•: • Papi frequently walks around with very little clothing and has. Her interactions with Kimihito make, though.

• Suu shares the same role. Being unable to wear normal clothing, not knowing much, and learning mostly through imitation, she's almost always nude or unknowingly being quite. She, and her outfit consists of.

The feathers covering her breasts aren't secured around the bottom end, and she's a very active harpy. • Ren in the anime starts out uncomprehending and only gains a partial understanding of it: 'I'm not naked,!' • This happens frequently with Goku in the series. Having been raised in the woods with the only other human he'd ever seen being his adoptive grandfather, the social taboos against nudity don't occur to him, so quite often he'll end up having his clothes destroyed or casually pulling down his pants, and not understand why everyone else is so concerned about him being naked.

• Both personalities of Lucy/Nyu from, though the show alternates this character trait from genuine, to deeply disconcerting. The Nyu personality lacks an aversion towards nudity because of her innocent and blissful ignorance of any such social taboos (due to amnesia), while the Lucy personality lacks such an aversion because of the extreme deprivation and trauma she suffered in the twisted research facility that she was imprisoned in for three years (). In fact, almost every diclonius on the show is an example, despite, though most of them. Considering the nudity is, it ends up as. • Eureka ended up naked in front of Renton in the movie ending which symbolises her rebirth.

She showed no shame or anger of being naked due to her mind being reduced to that of an infant when she is reborn, but she does constantly cover her chest area. • A male example with Gray in - though this is on a subconscious level, and a result of his training as a child.

• Sakuraba Yurika of is utterly clueless as to why her friend Akira-Chan (a boy who can change into a girl at will) often has nosebleeds whenever the two are naked together, which makes it double funny when the male Akira is called out on his perversion (even when he's being genuinely unperverse). • Parodied and gender-reversed in. Ranpha's unsolicited android 'boyfriend' comes shipped to the space station naked, and has no intention of putting on clothes. Ranpha finally forces him into one of her own dresses, and when that doesn't work out, she steals a suit of Volcott's. • Aisha from in at least two episodes of the series. During the fortress siege episode, Yellow rather poetically explains it as her being too innocent of the ways of the world to have a concept of modesty. • Miharu and every human resident of the alien world Seiren from have absolutely no restraint regarding nudity due to their planet being composed of () women.

This lets the show completely indulge in every kind of imaginable. Heaven Benchmark Advanced Download Accelerator on this page. • The main female lead of, at least in the manga. The opening has her chasing down a spaceship that accidentally caught her (unworn, floating in the wind) panties on its wing. The second chapter is much the same. After a while, they just stop trying to justify it. At its most blatant (much like the ). • In The Melancholy of, Haruhi herself is a strange case.

She doesn't, strictly speaking, fit any of the accepted types, but is technically closest to an Emotionless Girl since, in Kyon's words, she seems to 'view guys on the same level as potatoes,' as evidenced by her beginning to change into her gym uniform before any of the boys have vacated the classroom. Later on, however, the feelings that she's developing (and trying desperately to pretend don't exist) for Kyon make her refuse to change outfits if he's in the clubroom, and in an even more drastic departure, after they get soaked by the rain in 'Remote Island Syndrome', she takes off her shirt and wrings it out, but changes her mind about doing the same with her bra. Even though they're seperated by a rock wall and he can't even see her. • Ranmaru, from the yaoi manga and OVA adaptation, is an Innocent Fanservice Guy, much to the delight of his love interest and the female audience.

• from is another. Justified in that he is a AND a, thus making it a case of., except. • In, it seems Mai has no idea how short her skirt is in the beginning of the first OVA - though she does get a taboo during her shower scene. • has Neko, a of sorts who wished herself into a cat and stayed that way until she encounters the main characters. She really sees herself as a cat, and hates clothes, as cats do, and the two main characters struggle to get her to put some on for the first few episodes. In one of the episode preview bonus dialogues, she notices that it's only a problem to be naked because everyone else has clothes on - •: A male example: Haruka Kokonose, resident and.

After falling into a fountain while petting a cat, he strips down to nothing (underwear aside) in the classroom. And doesn't seem to get why his friend (and only classmate) Takane is freaking out so much. Even when she has it spelled out for him, Haruka still seems oblivious to exactly what he did wrong. Did we mention that this scene is (in the novels)?

• In, protagonist Samataro's mom is the, shamelessly mixing it up with that adds to the plot of the series. She goes so far as to fall asleep in her son's bed nude and he wakes her up to chastise her, she is completely unashamed about it. • At the end of the first episode of, Hazumu, who has just been transformed into a girl, is naked when Tomari and Yasuna see him (or rather, her). Hazumu, however had no reaction to the fact that she was naked, because she just regained consciousness. In the next episode, the behavior is justified as she just turned into a girl and is therefore unfamiliar with how they should act, such as using her skirt to cool her legs, and asking Asuta to measure her bust size (as seen in the second episode).

• Military servicewoman Jodie Bakuryu-Karen from has no issue shown in her debut appearance. She attempts to take off her shirt in front her father and other men preparing for a shower and steps out of the door naked requesting a towel. Hard for Volvo for not being good with women always getting a nosebleed. •, a.k.a Innocent Fanservice Girl: the Anime. Asuka would probably be a saint. If she had any nudity taboo whatsoever.

The entire premise of the show is her lack thereof. • Late in, the girls try to cheer Keitaro up in the, which Kei initially thinks is going to be a trap to get him to peep at naked girls again. Though the plan had everyone in bikinis, foreigner Nyamo doesn't get it and is completely nude. • • In the anime version, Inaho isn't particularly bothered by the the idea of Takeru seeing her naked.

She even stripped and in episode 2 (season 2), when she overheard him and Haruko note Haruko was at the time in the bath together. • The anime also portrays Aki as being naively unaware of all the attention she gets from the male students. And because she wears with a skin-tight skirt, she usually ends up without realizing it. • Tima of frequently runs around with no pants, or even underwear for much of the movie, and makes no effort to hide this, but nobody seems to notice. • Dragons in don't have a nudity taboo (being and all) and they only really wear clothing to blend in.

This leads to a scene when Ilulu starts getting changed in the middle of a store and it's only after someone else starts freaking out that she remembers 'oh right, this is supposed to be embarrassing.' • Lacus Clyne from initially appeared to be this when she a. • In, Rosamia Badam (due to implanted in her through the process that made her an Artificial Newtype) had some, well, trouble keeping her shirt on when the AEUG doctors check on her, much to despair and Kamille's embarrassment. • The eponymous heroine of Nanako-san Teki na Nichijou (Translated as or Nanako-san's Daily Life) has little to any shame about her body, considering the very universe itself conspires to steal her clothing at every opportunity.

• Mamiko Kuri from prefers to be naked while she's indoors, to the shock and amazement of her visitors. Outside she wears little more than a flimsy dress (or on rare occasions, her school uniform).

She's actually 'closer to nature' in a way, since the Earth itself is one big for her and her, Shiina; furthermore, while the nudity may be innocent, Mamiko's personality. •: • Rei appears to have no nudity taboo thanks to a lifetime of scientific experiments. Her reaction to Shinji walking in on her naked, falling on top of her, and was limited to politely asking him to get off her without a hint of embarrassment or annoyance, let alone asking him to leave the room while she dressed.

• Kaworu is a male example, being seen fairly often without anything on, or with only pants. He doesn't really seem to mind, probably because he isn't exactly human. • Luffy from doesn't mind showing his naked body to a huge group of girls and even bluntly answering their questions about his genitals (because the girls in question have never seen a man before).

Of course, that scene could be interpreted as him being proud of his manhood, but since Luffy is an extreme, it is for sure just a child-like lack of body shyness. • Ria, Kirino's track rival in, has a with Kyousuke and doesn't even seem to care. Later, she tries to take a bath with him. Especially awkward because she's twelve, and under the influence of a. • Two examples pop up in: the first is Melfina, who is not only but also has to be nude when she's plugged into the ship because..

Those times aside, she's usually fairly well covered up, and only gets when her nudity is bluntly pointed out. On the other hand, Aisha Clan-Clan of the Ctarl-Ctarl is the resident member of a whose particular is near-invulnerability; as such her race has few compulsions against showing some skin, up to and including going to a hot-spring and never caring about covering up with a towel. • Mashiro in is enough of an that she clearly doesn't have an idea about when would nudity—or at least, wearing underwear—be acceptable. • Mokuren in has her shower interrupted by Shion, who needs to update her security card. She lets him into her quarters, and searches frantically around the room for her security card, in the nude.

This is because Mokuren was raised as a nudist. When she discovers her mistake she's embarrassed; not because Shion saw her naked, but because she embarrassed him. •: • Y has no issue with nudity around her friends, whether it be her or with them, much to their chagrin. She has attempted to strip her friends in public at one point, and she once was about to take off her flight suit in front of them before she was pushed into a tent. Keep in mind in takes her at least twenty minutes to change in or out of that suit. She reasons that there's nothing to be embarrassed about since they're all. • Her spiritual predecessor,, is toned down in comparison, but has absolutely no compunctions about stripping in front of Flannery at a hot spring, and prior to meeting Ruby went around in a leaf bikini and naught else.

• Thanks to being an due to a, Mytho from spends a lot of the first season wandering around in nothing but a long, baggy loose shirt. And it doesn't help that her.

•: • Ranma himself frequently runs topless in girl form, especially in the early episodes. For he lacks feminine modesty.

Though later on s/he seems to cross over into as he is aware of social taboos, but just doesn't care enough to cover his/her chest. • A monkey tossed into the Spring of Drowned Girl comes out as a naked girl who looks. She, being a monkey and having no knowledge of any nudity taboo, is unashamed of her unclothed state. Her nakedness for the prince who did the tossing, resulting in him suffering a himself — and getting stuck in female form. •: Hyouka's stems directly from Japan's ever increasing censorship laws, which have prohibited the teaching of even basic Sex Ed for the last 16 years.

Which combined with her scientific curiosity, has left her with or feminine modesty. So she finds nothing unusual about approaching her classmates from beneath their desks whenever she has a question. And she was just as nonplused while naked, in front of Tanukichi.

• features a cast of scantily clad women, mostly at the behest of the show's red-blooded namesake, Space Dandy. The most notable of which is Honey, a waitress at the intergalactic breastaurant Boobies, and Dandy's personal favorite of the lot. In the episode The Gallant Space Gentleman, Baby, it is revealed that Honey is half descended from an alien species known as Cloudians, a race that travels around the galaxy in their, tracking down and seducing the most desperate people they can find (well, not exactly seducing so much as, showing them a nice night of dinner and conversation, which is apparently still considered pretty pathetic by most people). This would help explain why she is so fond of Dandy, as he is shown to be one of the most desperate people in the galaxy. Note When talking about Space Dandy, the editor suddenly cares.

• Holo in, being a wolfy goddess of the harvest and not bound to human conventions, spends a good portion of the first episode in the nude. She does get dressed by the end of the episode: human bodies don't have fur, so without clothing she's cold. • is very well-known for its characters running around without any pants, by it making it easier to connect to their Striker Units.

None of the girls seem to have any problem being bare-legged. Not that any of the few non-Witches seem to care, either. It's explained that Witches came to be seen as an example of female empowerment in the of their world, so women going about bare-legged in emulation of witches (who do it for practical reasons) became fashionable.

•: • Niche often goes commando, and she also tends to leap around a lot (), leaving for gratuitous bare-bottomed upskirts. • Her older twin sister is much worse. • Hikari from unzips the jacket Takeru gives her upon, prompting him to rezip it.

Her sister Akari is a little better, stealing a sun dress as her before she joins Ryou's family. • Lala from has no qualms about walking around naked. Her excuse is that as a princess, she's always had servants help her bathe, dress, etc. So she's used to being nude around other people. Other people of her race (including her family members) do not seem to share this lack of a nudity taboo.

• Kokuyou from doesn't mind enduring things describable as sexual harassment. • In, Marin's skimpy clothing is commented on when she first comes ashore, though Kanon eventually gets her and Urin to wear something a little less revealing. • Amuro Ninagawa of, who has no shame around someone she likes. Swimming naked is a hobby, and she considers taking a shower to be using a garden hose in the backyard of the male lead. • Several examples in • Zigzagged with Iris. She is initially embarrassed when Yuu sees her naked.

But after she learns to trust him, she doesn't seem to mind trying to get more intimate with him, such as trying to wash his back while he's taking a bath. • Played straight with Tear, who seems quite comfortable being Yuu's 'wife' in episode 4. In one instance, she declares his seat to be hers as well, and is seen sitting on his lap in class.

This doesn't 'sit well' with at all. • In, Yuzu suggests to Serena that they change their outfits as a disguise. Serena agrees and starts disrobing even though there is a man present. Yuzu freaks out and drags her behind a large rock, while Serena asks what the big deal is. • of the comes from an African tribe with aplenty; in fact, in her very first appearance, she was topless (her breasts covered by her ) and wore a sort of long loincloth.

Not only that, but her mutant powers included a physical immunity to weather extremes, so she had no qualms going naked in New York in the dead of winter. However, she eventually grew accustomed to Western norms, so the issue never comes up anymore.

Except for the time when she was sunbathing topless and Gambit's students were trying to get a look. It's hard to change old habits entirely. •: it's not played up, but he has no problems with stripping off and showering while discussing his next move with his (female) chief of staff on Providence Island. In the he grew up in, people had more important things to worry about than modesty. Irene.does it make sense for you to be always shedding your clothes around me? Cable: I'm sorry.

In my future, soldiers of both sexes fought, bathed and dressed side-by-side. Irene: Well, let's hope the evangelicals win this one. • comic: • In her earlier appearances would often appear with nudity, due to both her time as a slave and her society's lack of nudity hangups.

She still likes to shuck the clothing, but now she does it in (what is usually) private. • Prysm (a character from Dan Jurgens' '90s run) had her nudity on display as her default appearance, due to the mutation from her alien blood causing her to appear as an abstract, vaguely humanoid figure made out of translucent crystal.

• Near the end of the eighth issue of, the comic book adaptation of, Starfire does not notice that she is naked after Cyborg uses a sonic blast to destroy Mad Mod's hypnotic clothes and is even oblivious of Cyborg and Robin leering at her in amusement. • Male Example: Doctor Manhattan from. He looks like a very tame biology class drawing of the human body. That was done intentionally to make it pass the censor board. On the other hand, in the film adaptation, obviously the CGI artists were taking great pride in their work on Lower Manhattan. • The comic features an, Sung 'Girl One' Li, who can precisely alter the color of her skin at will, doing so to create. Subverted, however, when it is revealed that she doesn't particularly like that people can see her naked, but had an aversion to wearing clothes implanted in her by her horny teenage creators.

• Similar to Girl One is Batman D-List superheroine, 'Birthday Girl', in.

AP Photo/Idaho Press-Tribune, Greg Kreller Chrissy and Ian Johnson hired security for their wedding after receiving threats. Johnson, who is black, received numerous racial threats on the eve of the wedding a few weeks ago from people who were upset that he was getting married to a white woman, so much so that they had to hire security for their wedding. The societal fear connected with the black male/white female union and the threat of miscegenation consistently has generated a great deal of racial animosity throughout the history of this country, in sports and in the culture at large.

Though there are many people who seem to think that racism of this sort is dead, I was not at all shocked or surprised by these threats. Even though we live in a time when the overt expression of racism doesn't always take the openly egregious form of the threats received by Johnson these days, there are still many subtle, coded, and nuanced incidents of racism remaining that are very lethal in their own right. The image of an interracial relationship between a black man and a white woman, particularly a black athlete whose fame and wealth afford him access that is not as available to the common man, still touches a raw societal nerve for some people in spite of what racial progress people might assume has been made. On the surface, some might assume that if ever there were an area of the society where it appeared that black people were being readily accepted it would be in the way that sports fans have embraced black athletes. For many people, loyalty to their alma mater and/or favorite professional team tends to supersede all else. When you factor in the money and success that so many black athletes experience these days, such accomplishments and the attendant visibility often lead people to believe that all must be well in the world of race relations.

Further, it is really hard to watch a football game these days, even in Boise, without reconciling the fact that a large percentage of the players, and in many cases the best players, are black. Yet Ian Johnson stated that he assumed that some of the same people who directed their hatred at him probably were cheering him on while he was playing football. Apparently, some people's racial tolerance is limited to what takes place between the white lines. It is this incredible hypocrisy that says that 'you're OK to serve as my sports entertainment on the field, but stay away from my women' that exposes the fallacy about sports being color-blind once again, though. In 2003, it was reported that several professional athletes and other prominent African-American males had received hate mail complaining about relationships between black men and white women. Some athletes who received these letters were Derek Jeter, Jason Taylor, former Philadelphia Eagle Freddie Mitchell and the mother of former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and the parents of tennis star James Blake were among others who also received the letters.

The hate mail contained threats of castration and death and prompted an FBI investigation. The image of the black male/white female has become a cultural stereotype even. Discussions of this stereotype come up often in an African-American woman's magazine like Essence, where conversations about the dearth of eligible black men are often attributed to black athletes and other successful black men choosing to date white women. A fictional, though cinematically charged version of such black female conversations is highlighted in Spike Lee's film 'Jungle Fever' (1991). I am not saying that these black women's conversations are the same as the racist threats, but it does demonstrate the controversy that still exists in relation to the black male/white female union from multiple parties. What makes this situation even more difficult is the fact that certain people start to get real uncomfortable when such a topic comes up, because at its core we are talking about a black man's sexuality, and this threat has long rendered otherwise talkative people speechless. Boxer Jack Johnson was the prototype for the modern black athlete.

With his larger-than-life style and colossal indifference to the restrictive dictates of an immensely oppressive era, Johnson flaunted his relationships with various white women during a day and time when people were getting lynched for far less. Johnson, a master provocateur who was keenly aware of his ability to incite the worst fears of his detractors, is said to have wrapped his penis with gauze bandages while training so as to enhance the appearance of its size for the sportswriters and other whites who were watching him train. This gesture, of course, played on one of the oldest stereotypes in the book. Johnson recognized early on that there was something potentially profitable about being the black villain with accentuated sexuality in an otherwise white sport and society. He knew that because of his image, people would be that much more inclined to pay to see him possibly defeated by one of the many 'white hopes' who had been nominated to bring down the black 'menace to society' that he had become.

Jack Johnson consciously worked at exploiting all the sexual myths about black masculinity for the purpose of enhancing the threat he posed to America's racist conventions with a huge smile on his face. This is why he was so hated a figure at the time, why he was convicted on trumped-up charges of violating the Mann Act and why his utter defiance of the dominant white social order would make him a legend for future generations of black men. I was reminded of Johnson's tendency toward sexual provocation in the aftermath of Randy Moss' imitated mooning of the crowd in Green Bay during the 2004 playoffs. After being fined $10,000 for the gesture, Moss told a group of reporters that he wasn't fazed; 'Ain't nothing but 10 grand. What's 10 grand to me?

Ain't s--- next time I might shake my d--.' Moss, like Johnson, was well aware of what he was doing and how his over-the-top embrace of the black male sexual threat would only add to his already controversial image. This image works both ways, though. Sometimes black men embrace it -- like that old Richard Pryor joke in which he boldly asks, 'where the white women at?'

-- and at other times, the image can be used against them. There was the controversial political commercial from last year's senatorial campaign in Tennessee when Republican Bob Corker used such an image against his Democratic African-American opponent, Harold Ford. The provocative and extremely outlandish commercial featured a bare-shouldered blonde saying that she had met Congressman Ford at the Playboy Mansion. At the end of the commercial she suggestively asks Ford to call her. Some people credit the commercial with being the deciding factor in Ford's defeat. This was also the case a few years back with the sexually suggestive skit featuring Terrell Owens and Nicolette Sheridan of 'Desperate Housewives' before a 2004 'Monday Night Football' telecast.

In the skit, Sheridan, playing her character from the popular show whose rampant sexuality is a big part of its appeal, dropped her towel and jumped naked into T.O.' S arms, causing him to forsake the game he was about to play in.

Sheridan was shot from behind and from the waist up after dropping the towel. No matter, the skit prompted cries of indecency and pornography, from both black and white constituencies, even drawing complaints from the FCC. While the innocuous skit was especially corny and T.O.' S acting skills beyond reprehensible, the societal backlash to it was even more outrageous than the actual skit itself. Talk about an incredible overreaction. In a world where Internet porn is only a keyboard stroke away, where someone like Jenna Jameson can write a New York Times best-seller entitled 'How to Make Love Like a Porn Star' and where there are far more extreme representations of sex visible all across television now, the interracial nature of this especially pale-by-comparison farce still managed to open up those old racial taboos once again.

Underneath all of this social discomfort is the prevailing image of the 'black buck,' an image that Eldridge Cleaver once labeled as the 'super masculine menial' in his landmark book 'Soul on Ice.' This is the stereotype that defines the black man as an unbreakable sexual stud who is to be feared as he is often cited with using his immense physicality for physicality's sake. The most extreme representation of this stereotype was embodied in the character played by former heavyweight boxing champion Ken Norton in the 1975 Blaxploitation slave melodrama 'Mandingo.' The film's title says it all.

Jimmy 'The Greek' Snyder's comment about blacks being bred to be athletes, which eventually led to his being fired in 1988, is but another example of how such thinking has manifested itself over time relative to the black male athlete. This particular racial imagery helped to inform people's reactions, good, bad or otherwise, in both the O.J.

Simpson ordeal and Kobe Bryant's more recent troubles in Eagle, Colo. This convoluted racial history notwithstanding, it is still depressing that in 2007 some people are still overly concerned with whom someone else dates or marries. How ridiculous is that? Nonetheless, from the days of Jack Johnson to the more recent saga of Ian Johnson, the image of black men with white women still holds the potential to start a Southern California-sized dry brush canyon fire of controversy.

Though buried deep in America's closet, it doesn't take much to expose the festering wounds of a racial history that has yet to be fully reconciled. Some things just never change, it seems. Rest assured that even today successful black athletes are most certainly not immune from the contradictions of this retrograde thinking, in spite of how many touchdowns they score, how many baskets they make, how many jerseys and sneakers they sell and how many games they help their respective teams win. This being the case though, to all those whose heads are hopelessly stuck in the racial sands of time, who hate having to see a black man and a white woman together, they simply need to get over it by now, because as The Blind Man says in 'The Mack' (1973), 'It's been goin' on since the beginning of time and it's gonna continue straight ahead, until somebody up there turns the lights out on this small planet. Can you dig it?' Todd Boyd, a columnist for Page 2, is an author, media commentator, and professor of critical studies at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

His next book, 'The Notorious Ph.D.' S Guide to the Super Fly '70s,' will be published this month.