A History of Sex and Fashion

John Singer Sargent's 1884 painting "Madame X" caused a stir for a number of reasons, namely that the model was an American expatriate known for her rumored infidelities and that in the original painting her strap had fallen down over one shoulder. John later fixed the sexually suggestive dress by painting the strap further up on her arm.

In the 18th and 19th centuries it wasn't a plunging neckline that could get you in trouble, it was lipstick. There was even a British law that said a marriage should be annulled if the woman wore makeup before her wedding day. Respectable ladies didn't wear makeup; it was reserved for prostitutes and actresses. French actress Sarah Bernhardt brazenly wore lipstick, even calling it a stylo d'amour or "love pen."

Before bikinis were mainstream, Aussie swimmer and performer Annette Kellerman was arrested in 1907 for showing off her body at a beach in Boston in this snug one-piece swimsuit.

With the arrival of the 1920s came flappers, who were known for their short skirts, bobbed hair, made-up faces, and sexually liberated behavior. After all those corsets and WWI ending, these women were ready to do more than just dance in their new loose-fitting frocks!

The popularity of clothes that show off a woman's assets can be traced in part to the pinup models of the '40s, who flaunted their legs and cleavage all in the name of duty for World War II soldiers. Pinup girls and famous actresses who adopted the look like Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe really welcomed in a new era of sexy fashions.

France was the place to be at the beginning of the high-fashion industry, thanks to designers like Coco Chanel. But Italian fashion came to make a name for itself in the '50s with sexier looks by the likes of the Fontana sisters, who famously designed Anita Ekberg's revealing fountain gown in La Dolce Vita.

The fashion industry's history is riddled with underage scandals, but one of the most famous modern ones involved Miley Cyrus. The Disney star sparked controversy when she posed topless at just 15 years old for a Vanity Fair photo shoot in 2008.

Now she's swinging naked on wrecking balls, so there's that.

Another controversial figure in the world of fashion is American Apparel's founder and CEO Dov Charney. The label's grossly sexualized ads often feature naked or seminaked women in sexual positions, and even worse, many of these models and other female employees have filed sexual-harassment lawsuits against Dov.

And then there was that whole exposed butthole situation . . .