the.com/striptease
Suspense monetized one garment at a time.
means A performance in which a person slowly removes their clothing, piece by piece, for an audience's entertainment.
from A straightforward compound of 'strip' (to remove clothing, from Old English/Germanic roots meaning to deprive or peel) and 'tease' (to provoke or tantalize). The word surfaces in English in the early 20th century, naming a theatrical act that had existed informally before it had a tidy label — the performance came first, and language simply caught up to describe what the audience was really paying for: not the nudity itself, but the delay.
- name origin
- first printed in 1930s American slang
- core trick
- the almost-reveal pays better than the reveal
- economic logic
- anticipation is the product, nudity is just overhead