=Prudery. Modesty.=--The sentiment of modesty originates in the fear of everything which is novel and unusual, and is complicated by natural timidity. This sentiment is especially strong in children. The sentiment of sexual modesty in man thus rests on timidity and on the fear of not doing as others do. It betrays itself toward women by awkwardness and bashfulness behind which eroticism is often ill concealed. The timid and bashful man carefully endeavors to hide his sexual feelings from others. The object of modesty is in itself immaterial to the psychology of this sentiment, and shame is sometimes inspired not only by very different things but even by opposite things. One youth is ashamed of appearing erotic, another of appearing too little erotic, according to the opinion of his neighbors.
Modesty depends on the custom of covering or exposing certain parts of the body, and people who live in a state of nature are as much ashamed of clothes as we are ashamed of nudity. Moreover, man soon becomes accustomed to fashion, and the same English girl who blushes at the sight of a few inches of bare skin in her own country, finds it quite natural to see naked negroes in the tropics.
The artificial and systematic cultivation of an exaggerated sentiment of modesty produces _prudery_, the bad results of which are, however, less than those of pornography. There are young people so modest that the simple thought of sexual matters overexcites them terribly. By associating their own erotic feelings, of which they feel ashamed, with sexual ideas, they invest these with terrifying attributes, and become quite unhappy; in this way they are often led to masturbation. They are, however, excessively frightened at this also and imagine its effects so terrible that they think themselves lost. Their exaggerated feelings of modesty often prevent them confiding in some charitable person. However, they rarely find reasonable consolers; some ridicule them, while others regard them as iniquitous, which only increases their terror and drives them to extremes.
The sexual sentiment of modesty very often becomes unhealthy, and is then easily combined with pathological sexual conditions.
Prudery is, so to speak, sexual modesty codified and dogmatized. It is indeterminate, because the object of modesty is purely conventional, and man has no valid reason to regard any part of his body as shameful. Normal man ought only to be ashamed of bad thoughts and actions, contrary to his moral conscience. The latter should be based on natural human altruism only, and not artificially misled by dogma.