Enemies of the State: the Films and Filmmakers of the Underground — Part 8 “Nunsploitation”

Sexy Nuns, the subject is barbed with taboo. It’s easy to understand why. The two things seem to be mutually exclusive. Of course this doesn’t prevent people from creating a genre of erotic content around the subject. As we will see today, nuns and nunneries have been the subjects and settings of many works of erotic film deemed Nunsploitation.

Why Nuns?

Nun-garb is decidedly an item of fetish. The provocation and taboo inherent in its many connotations is the genre’s primary allure, after all. The conservative design, covering the entire body in a way that disguises any sense of figure or shape, makes the reveal of such suddenly more erotic. Many exploitation films can be so fraught with teases (skimpy outfits, for example), that by the time we are presented with a nude scene, a sense of erotic desensitization has already occurred. The constant full-body concealment of the characters within Nunsploitation cinema rejuvenates a sense of shock within erotic scenes, especially when they involve some of the genre’s more sadistic, perverse elements. This garb works as the ultimate representation of Nuns and the Vow of Chasity, that being the promise to no longer partake in any sexual experience. The appeal of Nun iconography as a fetish item, isn’t so much in the idea of their purity, so much as it is in the idea of succumbing to sexual temptation. The idea that lust can be such a powerful force it makes one break a promise to their god.

Fig. 1 “True Story of the Nun of Monza” (1980)

Fig. 2 “True Story of the Nun of Monza” (1980)

Fig. 3 “True Story of the Nun of Monza” (1980)

Fig. 4 “True Story of the Nun of Monza” (1980)

Fig. 5 “True Story of the Nun of Monza” (1980)

Fig. 6 “True Story of the Nun of Monza” (1980)

Fig. 7 “True Story of the Nun of Monza” (1980)

Criteria and Tropes of Nunsploitation

As can be guessed, the Nunsploitation film takes place within a convent setting. Much like Women in Prison films, the bottle-location of the convent serves to trap our main cast of characters within a rigid power hierarchy (which they are often at the bottom of). Much like the W.I.P films’ warden, the Nunsploitation film features its own martinet in the form of Mother Superior, an often sadistic older woman who sexually punishes those lower on the hierarchy when they succumb to temptation. Said temptation is — given all-female convent regulations — often of the lesbian persuasion, marking one of the very obvious thrills and selling points of the genre. The narrative scene-by-scene formula of attractive, young, habit-clad nun submitting to sexual impulse — masturbation, lesbianism — being found by Mother Superior, who then punishes the dilettante for her sexual deviance with a no less sexual plethora of sadistic tortures (like flagellation), proved to be a success. While it may seem objectifying — as is the pattern with exploitation cinema — laying beneath the sexualization was, ostensibly, the voice of feminist consciousness.

Fig. 8 “Christiana Devil Nun” (1972)

Fig. 9 “Christiana Devil Nun” (1972)

Fig. 10 “Christiana Devil Nun” (1972)

Don't miss out on the extended Premium edition of this publication including more on the feminist undertones, extensive reviews + pictures of nunsploitation classics The Nun of Monza,  Killer Nun,  Images in a Convent, and the legacy of nunsploitation; death of exploitation.

Click HERE for the depraved nuns as portrayed in the shocker The Devils

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