Strip poker is a perennial favorite of adult video game makers. Pictured here is a 1986 Amiga version.

Strip poker is a variant of the card game of poker, in which the rules require players to remove articles of clothing in response to various events.

Rules

The game can be played based on any variety of poker, with the same number of players, dealing and betting rules, etc. There are a number of ways in which the rules can then be developed into strip poker. For example, at the end of each hand:

• The player with the worst hand must remove a piece of their clothing; or
• The player who loses the most money in that round must remove one; or
• The player with the best hand may remove it from them; or
• The player with the best hand may choose which player must lose an article; or
• All players except the winner of the hand lose an article. Note that this makes for an extremely brief game, unless fully-nude players are required to perform some action when they lose a hand, in which case it may even continue after all players are nude.
• Alternatively, whenever a player runs out of chips, they must trade a piece of clothing for a new (usually fixed) number of chips.
  • If players are then allowed to "buy back" clothing when they have won more chips, this can result in a zero-sum game, where there is no long-term net loss of clothing. (With two people, this will have the consequence that only one of them is missing clothing.) (Note that "buying back" may be disallowed, so that the aggregate nudity is always increasing.)

As a further variant, players who have lost all of their clothing, achieving nudity, must perform sex acts.

Popularity

There are no known professional associations. The U.S. TV show Strip Poker is in fact a general knowledge quiz, albeit one where contestants take (some of) their clothes off; though it involves cards in poker hands, the resemblance to the actual game is distant.

The prefix "strip" can be added on to a game title with a subsequent nudity-inducing adaptation of the rules (examples: strip Candyland, strip chess, strip solitaire).

While a popular subject for pornographic fantasy and video games, genuine research into strip poker as a form of sexuality is lacking. The element of risk and of (mock) coercion fits in with a general sexual approach of domination and submission and/or humiliation.

Strip poker and other sexual games can occur:

• as part of a mature sexual relationship, where the objective is to provide variety alongside intercourse (possibly introducing more adventurous/deviant forms of intercourse)
• as a ritual of courtship (in some circumstances it may be more acceptable for partners to enter intimate situations as part of a game)
• as recreation amongst adults with no intention to move towards sexual intercourse
• as part of a pornographic display (whether as part of prostitution or not) which combines sexual titillation with the normal interest of seeing a game played
• as a party game for youth
• as the basis of television game shows such as Räsypokka (Finland - 2002) and Strip! (Germany - 1999)

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