"[61] In civilized countries the
observances of modesty differ in different regions, and in different
social classes, but, however various the forms may be, the impulse itself
remains persistent.[62]
Modesty has thus come to have the force of a tradition, a vague but
massive force, bearing with special power on those who cannot reason, and
yet having its root in the instincts of all people of all classes.[63] It
has become mainly transformed into the allied emotion of decency, which
has been described as "modesty fossilized into social customs." The
emotion yields more readily than in its primitive state to any
sufficiently-strong motive. Even fashion in the more civilized countries
can easily inhibit anatomical modesty, and rapidly exhibit or accentuate,
in turn, almost any part of the body, while the savage Indian woman of
America, the barbarous woman of some Mohammedan countries, can scarcely
sacrifice her modesty in the pangs of childbirth. Even when, among
uncivilized races, the focus of modesty may be said to be eccentric and
arbitrary, it still remains very rigid. In such savage and barbarous
countries modesty possesses the strength of a genuine and irresistible
instinct. In civilized countries, however, anyone who places
considerations of modesty before the claims of some real human need
excites ridicule and contempt.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Fliess (_Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und weiblichen
Geschlechts-Organen_, p.
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