Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 - The Evolution of Modesty; The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity; Auto-Erotism by Havelock Ellis
page 20 of 511 (03%)
page 20 of 511 (03%)
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should or should not affright her. A sort of confused atavistic
memory recalls to her a period before clothing was known, and reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal the customs of that human epoch." In support of this view the authoress proceeds to point out that the _décolleté_ constantly reappears in feminine clothing, never in male; that missionaries experience great difficulty in persuading women to cover themselves; that, while women accept with facility an examination by male doctors, men cannot force themselves to accept examination by a woman doctor, etc. (These and similar points had already been independently brought forward by Sergi, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xiii, 1892.) It cannot be said that Madame Renooz's arguments will all bear examination, if only on the ground that nakedness by no means involves absence of modesty, but the point of view which she expresses is one which usually fails to gain recognition, though it probably contains an important element of truth. It is quite true, as Stendhal said, that modesty is very largely taught; from the earliest years, a girl child is trained to show a modesty which she quickly begins really to feel. This fact cannot fail to strike any one who reads the histories of pseudo-hermaphroditic persons, really males, who have from infancy been brought up in the belief that they are girls, and who show, and feel, all the shrinking reticence and blushing modesty of their supposed sex. But when the error is discovered, and they are restored to their proper sex, this is quickly changed, and they exhibit all the boldness of masculinity. (See e.g., Neugebauer, "Beobachtungen aus dem Gebiete des Scheinzwittertumes," _Jahrbuch für Sexuelle |
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