We may see this again
illustrated in the bitch, who, when in heat, herself runs after the male,
and again turns to flee, perhaps only submitting with much persuasion to
his embrace. Thus, modesty becomes something more than a mere refusal of
the male; it becomes an invitation to the male, and is mixed up with his
ideas of what is sexually desirable in the female. This would alone serve
to account for the existence of modesty as a psychical secondary sexual
character. In this sense, and in this sense only, we may say, with Colin
Scott, that "the feeling of shame is made to be overcome," and is thus
correlated with its physical representative, the hymen, in the rupture of
which, as Groos remarks, there is, in some degree, a disruption also of
modesty. The sexual modesty of the female is thus an inevitable by-product
of the naturally aggressive attitude of the male in sexual relationships,
and the naturally defensive attitude of the female, this again being
founded on the fact that, while--in man and the species allied to him--the
sexual function in the female is periodic, and during most of life a
function to be guarded from the opposite sex, in the male it rarely or
never needs to be so guarded.[11]
Both male and female, however, need to guard themselves during the
exercise of their sexual activities from jealous rivals, as well as from
enemies who might take advantage of their position to attack them.
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