Studies in the Psychology of Sex

to the average and normal man. The two primary factors in modesty, he considers to be the sexual and social; the former involved in the defensive attitude of the female in sexual relationships (itself dependent on periodicity of function), the latter consequent on the attempts to avoid creating disgust by public performance of acts considered useless or disagreeable. Mr. Ellis shows that modesty is in its origin independent of clothing, anatomical modesty succeeding to physiological. When the danger of offensive action by the male no longer exists, clothing is adopted as an attitude of defence against his eyes. Yet further displacing ideas of disgust, it eventually becomes a means for heightening attraction; the civilised European woman, naked in the presence of others, feels mainly ashamed because revealing herself deprived of her weapons of seduction. This segment of the book is full of interesting matter. The second section deals with phenomena of sexual periodicity; it would be impossible to epitomise the views