What exactly is it that tantalizes many men and women about certain selections of clothes, stripping, oil wrestling or those other things that aren't straightforward nudity? Alex Comfort, in the book The Joy of Sex, presents a very good theory why many men and women enjoy looking at the human form in states other than au naturale. Here's a brief description:

Alex Comfort lumps various types of clothing, wet skin, oily skin and several other variations under the term, "super skin." While women aren't immune to its effects, the fact is that men tend to be more visually stimulated in their focus. The basic idea is that the human form is retained, but the appearance is in one way or another amplified into the realm of fantasy by something that's beyond the normal, naked human form. In his time, the primary means of doing this was to make it shiny.

To this end, skin-tight leather, cat suits, oil, water and sweat were the main examples of how this was accomplished in his book. However, there have been many other ways to make skin shiny, such as latex clothing and body sparkles. Also, is it really necessary to just make the skin shiny to take it into the realm of fantasy?

Take, for instance, uniforms. There are a wide variety of uniform-based stripper clothes that aren't necessarily shiny and don't entirely conform to the human figure, but they seem to have a net effect of transcending normalcy.

The concept of super skin in these cases is more immediately obvious in police style uniforms. The police uniforms often have a shining emphasis to them, often leaving just the top being made of non-shiny material. Nurse uniforms, to a lesser extent, give a larger than life impression, and often are made of latex.

The super skin theory could also be attributed to cheerleader, farmer's daughter, French maid and schoolgirl uniforms in that there is a departure from normalcy into the fantasy world. The impression in these cases isn't so much that they're larger than life, such as a police officer, but that they're simply not a part of the viewer's ordinary world.

Now, taking this idea into the realms of strip tease, the stripper adds the element of the slow reveal. This is an application of the super skin theory. The imagination of the viewer is engaged, perhaps by the costume, and the idea is to maintain the fantasy state for an extended period of time. If the clothes are simply peeled off, the fantasy is cut off prematurely and it's nothing special to the viewer. Tips and repeat performances are less likely to be forthcoming.