Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 | Page 7

This reversal of psychological laws
has, however, only been accepted by women with a struggle. Primitive
woman, proud of her womanhood, for a long time defended her
nakedness which ancient art has always represented. And in the actual
life of the young girl to-day there is a moment when, by a secret
atavism, she feels the pride of her sex, the intuition of her moral
superiority, and cannot understand why she must hide its cause. At this
moment, wavering between the laws of Nature and social conventions,
she scarcely knows if nakedness should or should not affright her. A
sort of confused atavistic memory recalls to her a period before
clothing was known, and reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal the
customs of that human epoch."
In support of this view the authoress proceeds to point out that the
décolleté constantly reappears in feminine clothing, never in male; that
missionaries experience great difficulty in persuading women to cover
themselves; that, while women accept with facility an examination by

male doctors, men cannot force themselves to accept examination by a
woman doctor, etc. (These and similar points had already been
independently brought forward by Sergi, Archivio di Psichiatria, vol.
xiii, 1892.)
It cannot be said that Madame Renooz's arguments will all bear
examination, if only on the ground that nakedness by no means
involves absence of modesty, but the point of view which she expresses
is one which usually fails to gain recognition, though it probably
contains an important element of truth. It is quite true, as Stendhal said,
that modesty is very largely taught; from the earliest years, a girl child
is trained to show a modesty which she quickly begins really to feel.
This fact cannot fail to strike any one who reads the histories of
pseudo-hermaphroditic persons, really males, who have from infancy
been brought up in the belief that they are girls, and who show, and feel,
all the shrinking reticence and blushing modesty of their supposed sex.
But when the error is discovered, and they are restored to their proper
sex, this is quickly changed, and they exhibit all the boldness of
masculinity. (See e.g., Neugebauer, "Beobachtungen aus dem Gebiete
des Scheinzwittertumes," Jahrbuch für Sexuelle Zwischenstufen,
Jahrgang iv, 1902, esp. p. 92.) At the same time this is only one thread
in the tangled skein with which we are here concerned. The mass of
facts which meets us when we turn to the study of modesty in women
cannot be dismissed as a group of artificially-imposed customs. They
gain rather than lose in importance if we have to realize that the organic
sexual demands of women, calling for coyness in courtship, lead to the
temporary suppression of another feminine instinct of opposite, though
doubtless allied, nature.
But these somewhat conflicting, though not really contradictory,
statements serve to bring out the fact that a woman's modesty is often
an incalculable element. The woman who, under some circumstances
and at some times, is extreme in her reticences, under other
circumstances or at other times, may be extreme in her abandonment.
Not that her modesty is an artificial garment, which she throws off or
on at will. It is organic, but like the snail's shell, it sometimes forms an
impenetrable covering, and sometimes glides off almost altogether. A

man's modesty is more rigid, with little tendency to deviate toward
either extreme. Thus it is, that, when uninstructed, a man is apt to be
impatient with a woman's reticences, and yet shocked at her
abandonments.
The significance of our inquiry becomes greater when we reflect that to
the reticences of sexual modesty, in their progression, expansion, and
complication, we largely owe, not only the refinement and
development of the sexual emotions,--"la pudeur" as Guyau remarked,
"a civilisé l'amour"--but the subtle and pervading part which the sexual
instinct has played in the evolution of all human culture.
"It is certain that very much of what is best in religion, art, and life,"
remark Stanley Hall and Allin, "owes its charm to the
progressively-widening irradiation of sexual feeling. Perhaps the
reluctance of the female first long-circuited the exquisite sensations
connected with sexual organs and acts to the antics of animal and
human courtship, while restraint had the physiological function of
developing the colors, plumes, excessive activity, and exuberant life of
the pairing season. To keep certain parts of the body covered, irradiated
the sense of beauty to eyes, hair, face, complexion, dress, form, etc.,
while many savage dances, costumes and postures are irradiations of
the sexual act. Thus reticence, concealment, and restraint are among the
prime conditions of religion and human culture." (Stanley Hall and
Allin, "The Psychology of Tickling," American Journal of Psychology,
1897, p. 31.)
Groos attributes the deepening of the conjugal relation among birds to
the circumstance that the male