This is, no doubt, correct, and I may add that
Babylonian figurines of Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, represent her as
clasping her hands to her breasts or her womb.
[10] When there is no sexual fear the impulse of modesty may be entirely
inhibited. French ladies under the old Regime (as A. Franklin points out
in his _Vie Privee d'Autrefois_) sometimes showed no modesty towards their
valets, not admitting the possibility of any sexual advance, and a lady
would, for example, stand up in her bath while a valet added hot water by
pouring it between her separated feet.
[11] I do not hereby mean to deny a certain degree of normal periodicity
even to the human male; but such periodicity scarcely involves any element
of sexual fear or attitude of sexual defence, in man because it is too
slight to involve complete latency of the sexual functions, in other
species because latency of sexual function in the male is always
accompanied by corresponding latency in the female.
[12] H. Northcote, _Christianity and the Sex Problem_, p. 8. Crawley had
previously argued (_The Mystic Rose_, pp. 134, 180) that this same
necessity for solitude during the performance of nutritive, sexual, and
excretory functions, is a factor in investing such functions with a
potential sacredness, so that the concealment of them became a religious
duty.
[13] _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1878, p. 26.
[14] _Essais_, livre ii, Ch.
Pages:
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150