Many animals seek safety and seclusion when performing certain important functions of their life, nutrition, reproduction and defecation, which naturally place them at a disadvantage in emergencies requiring flight or fight. Even the boldest among the carnivorous animals, lions and tigers, drag their prey to a cave or into the depths of the bush before devouring it.
Naked and otherwise shameless and "indelicate" savages will often walk a considerable distance from their village to satisfy their natural needs, and then hide behind bushes or trees.
Many birds and animals pair off and isolate themselves at mating time.
Races and nations differ greatly in their degree of modesty in relation to nutrition, reproduction and defecation. European races dine in the open, are more or less "shameless" in their love making, they talk freely on sexual topics and erect urinals and comfort stations, designated by their exact name, in many public places. Anglo-Saxons hide themselves while eating, are very silent about the processes of reproduction, seldom indulge in public kissing and designate urinals and toilets, which are very scarce in their lands, by cover names such as lavatories, smoking rooms, etc.
=Normal Modesty= may then be a survival of the fear which the primitive men and women experienced of being surprised and overpowered by hostile animals or tribesmen during an embrace or when unprotected by garments or armor.
In fact, modesty seems to disappear as soon as safety reigns or when no hostile element may be suspected of lurking in the environment.
A woman strips without shame to undergo a medical examination, men and women appear naked in public baths where only one sex is admitted at a time, etc.
Then also normal modesty must be considered as an offgrowth of the unavoidable repressions of modern, civilised life. Like the incest taboo, it has been cultivated for reasons of convenience.
Modern community life having placed a thousand restrictions upon the age at which we can marry and the conditions under which we should marry, in other words, having delayed considerably our normal sexual gratification, an effort has been made to "repress" erotism by concealing "suggestive" parts of the human body.