"
The importance of the blush, and the emotional confusion behind it, as the
sanction of modesty is shown by the significant fact that, by lulling
emotional confusion, it is possible to inhibit the sense of modesty. In
other words, we are here in the presence of a fear--to a large extent a
sex-fear--impelling to concealment, and dreading self-attention; this fear
naturally disappears, even though its ostensible cause remains, when it
becomes apparent that there is no reason for fear.
That is the reason why nakedness in itself has nothing to do with modesty
or immodesty; it is the conditions under which the nakedness occurs which
determine whether or not modesty will be roused. If none of the factors of
modesty are violated, if no embarrassing self-attention is excited, if
there is a consciousness of perfect propriety alike in the subject and in
the spectator, nakedness is entirely compatible with the most scrupulous
modesty. A. Duval, a pupil of Ingres, tells that a female model was once
quietly posing, completely nude, at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Suddenly she
screamed and ran to cover herself with her garments. She had seen a
workman on the roof gazing inquisitively at her through a skylight.[66]
And Paola Lombroso describes how a lady, a diplomatist's wife, who went to
a gathering where she found herself the only woman in evening dress, felt,
to her own surprise, such sudden shame that she could not keep back her
tears.
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