Is it the uniform? The skimpy gowns they make us wear? The phallic syringes they wield so efficiently? Or that coldly competent, mother-meets-dominatrix attitude?

Who knows? But one thing is clear: nurses are sexy. When it comes to Halloween costumes, they rank just below cats and witches on the Slut-O-Meter. Nurses are experiencing a television renaissance right now, from the no-nonsense, screw-you-in-the-stockroom sex appeal of Edie Falco’s Nurse Jackie, to Jada Pinkett-Smith’s beautiful and beatific HawthoRNe, to the fresh-faced innocence of young actresses Michelle Trachtenberg and Taylor Schilling on Mercy, debuting this week on NBC. But they’re far from the first to work the naughty nurse angle. Here is a list of the ten sexiest nurses of all time. — Hugh Ryan

Florence Nightingale — “The Lady with a Lamp,” immortalized in a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nightingale broke with the tradition of forced uselessness that characterized upper-class women in England in the mid-nintenteenth century. Made famous for her daring work in the battlefields of the Crimean War, Nightingale was the recipient of numerous marriage proposals, all of which she refused. Because she was devoted to her work? Perhaps. Or perhaps because she was a lesbian with an incest fetish. In her letters, Nightingale described her relationship with her aunt, an early supporter of hers, as “like two lovers.” Of her cousin, Marianne Nicholson, she wrote “I have never loved but one person with passion in my life, and that was her.” Celibate to the end, Nightingale often described herself in male terms, frequently referring to herself as “a man of action.”

“Hello, Nurse!” — From naughty balladeers to burlesque performers, beautiful women were a common sight on the vaudeville stage of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Often there was a hot young thing in a nurse’s uniform, whose appearance would cause all the men to stop and stare, like a turn-of-the-century Benny Hill sketch. Said nurse became an archetypal character in the vaudeville form, and eventually, the unexpected appearance of any beautiful woman would be greeted with the catcall “Hello, nurse!”

This phrase was brought back to popular usage by Yakko, a character in the mid-nineties cartoon Animaniacs. Eventually, Hello Nurse became an actual character in the show, a stacked blond pursued by brothers Yakko and Wakko to the best of their pre-pubescent ability.

The Anonymous Nurse — Perhaps the classiest entry on our list. Taken on August 14th, 1945 (A.K.A. V.J. Day) Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous Life Magazine photo of a nurse and sailor kissing in Times Square is one of the most iconic images of World War II. It spawned dozens, if not hundreds of parodies and recreations — including this year’s lesbian redux in the credit sequence for the movie Watchmen. To this day, the identities of the two people captured in the photo remain unknown, but the beautiful and courageous war nurse is a staple of every World War II movie.

Linda Lovelace — In 1972, Deep Throat revolutionized the world of hardcore pornography, bringing it to the middle-class masses and creating the genre of porno-chic. Linda Lovelace starred as an inorgasmic young woman whose doctor discovers that her clitoris is in her throat — leading to the movie’s signature move. She goes on to become a “physiotherapist” (in a white nurse’s outfit) and assist the doctor in his practice, deep-throating his eager patients in her quest for love and sexual satisfaction. The movie has been controversial ever since, and not just for its X rating. Lovelace would later accuse Chuck Traynor, her husband and the dirty mind behind Deep Throat and the rest of her porn career (as well as that of his second wife, the recently deceased Marilyn Chambers), of rape, kidnapping, and physical and sexual abuse. While no one may ever know the truth behind the movie, many of those on the set agreed that Traynor seemed to hold power over Lovelace, and he has admitted to slapping “his women” when they didn’t behave. Still, Lovelace changed the world of porn forever, and for her deep contributions, she deserves a place on the list.

Loretta Swit — For members of the post-Korean War generation, the concept of a sexy nurse calls one person to mind: Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, played by actress Loretta Swit on the television show M*A*S*H. Her abrasive, competent, and sexual nature made her a role model for a whole generation of women, as well as characters like Falco’s Nurse Jackie. In the final episode of the show, Hot Lips and Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) shared a famous passionate kiss.

So completely did Swit embody the essence of Hot Lips, few remember that another actress (Sally Kellerman) originally played Hot Lips in the Robert Altman movie. Both women were based on a real life Korean War MASH head nurse, Hotlips Hammerly.

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