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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.
In the media
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.
Examples include Brigitte Bardot (1955, 1971), Elizabeth Taylor in a Playboy magazine pictorial from the set of Cleopatra, Peggy Moffitt modeling Rudi Gernreich's topless maillot and how Life magazine handled the story (1964), and the emergence of handbras in publications such as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue by model Elle MacPherson (1989).
Toward the end of the 20th century, the handbra gained exposure with numerous celebrity magazine covers. These include Janet Jackson's appearance on the September 1993 cover of Rolling Stone, which later named it their "Most Popular Cover Ever". In Bikini Science terms, the second pair of hands in this image significantly advance the cases of the handbra beyond what is possible by a single poser. The hands may may operate alone or in conjunction of the wearer of the bra, and themselves have a wide range of differentiation, e.g., by sex, age, color. A second pair of hands accelerates the image to not just a costume or a pose, but also a situation.
In July 1994, Ronald Reagan's daughter Patti Davis appeared on the cover of Playboy with another model covering her breasts. Photographer Raphael Mazzucco created an eight-woman handbra on the cover of the 2006 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and a photo of Marisa Miller covering her breasts with her arms and her vulva with an iPod in the 2007 Swimsuit Issue.
The handbra was the subject of a pointed parody advertisement for Holding Your Own Boobs magazine performed by Sarah Michelle Gellar and Will Ferrell on the May 15, 1999 episode of Saturday Night Live. The infamous braless pose was featured in raunchy music video "HandBra" performed by Sensual Sutton.
There is a brassiere named the "handbra" that is fashioned in the shape of hands as a parody of the technique. Lady Gaga wore one in the music video for her 2013 single "Applause".