PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



state which custom required, but because he appeared 

 with his organ unsheathed. This detail shocked them 

 extremely. A curious example of the localization of 

 shame: all parts of the body could and should show 

 themselves, all save this small surface. On reflection, 

 the modesty of Europeans at a ball or on the beach is 

 almost as absurd as that of the Maoris, or as that of the 

 fellaheen women who at the approach of a stranger re- 

 move their shirts, their sole garments, in order to cover 

 their faces. 



Sexual modesty, as one observes it today, among the 

 most various peoples, is utterly artificial. Livingstone 

 assures us that he developed modesty in little Kaffir 

 girls by clothing them. Surprised in neglige, they covered 

 their breasts and this in a race where the women go 

 wholly naked, save for a string round the middle, from 

 which another string hangs. Clothing is only one of the 

 causes of modesty, or of customs which give us the illusion 

 of it, and the sentiment of fear associated with the sexual 

 act does not explain all the rest. There is a shame par- 

 ticular to the female, an ensemble of movements, which 

 one can assimilate to nothing, which one can attach to 

 nothing. The gesture of Venus modest is not purely a 

 woman's gesture; nearly all females, especially mam- 

 mifers, have it; the female, who refuses, lowers her tail 

 and clamps it between her legs ; there is here, evidently, 

 the origin of one of the particular forms of modesty. 

 We have given characteristic examples in an earlier 

 chapter. 



Man is un-get-at-able; the slightest of his habitual 

 sentiments has multiple and contradictory roots in a 

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