e
urethral orifice. Again, women associate the vulva with the anus,
and so feel ashamed of it; even when speaking to their husbands,
or to a doctor, or among themselves; they have absolutely no name
for the vulva (I mean among the upper classes, and people of
gentle birth), but speak of it as 'down below,' 'low down,' etc."

Even though this feeling is largely based on wrong and ignorant
ideas, it must still be recognized that it is to some extent
natural and inevitable. "How much is risked," exclaims Dugas, "in
the privacies of love! The results may be disillusion, disgust,
the consciousness of physical imperfection, of brutality or
coldness, of aesthetic disenchantment, of a sentimental shock,
seen or divined. To be without modesty, that is to say, to have
no fear of the ordeals of love, one must be sure of one's self,
of one's grace, of one's physical emotions, of one's feelings,
and be sure, moreover, of the effect of all these on the nerves,
the imagination, and the heart of another person. Let us suppose
modesty reduced to aesthetic discomfort, to a woman's fear of
displeasing, or of not seeming beautiful enough. Even thus
defined, how can modesty avoid being always awake and restless?
What woman could repeat, without risk, the tranquil action of
Phryne? And even in that action, who knows how much may not have
been due to mere professional insolence!" (Dugas, "La Pudeur,"
_Revue Philosophique_, November, 1903.) "Men and Women," Schurtz
points out (_Altersklassen und Maennerbuende_, pp. 41-51), "have
certainly the capacity mutually to supplement and enrich each
other; but when this completion fails, or is not sought, the
difference may easily become a strong antipathy;" and he proceeds
to develop the wide-reaching significance of this psychic fact.

I have emphasized the proximity of the excretory centres to the sexual
focus in discussing this important factor of modesty, because, in
analyzing so complex and elusive an emotion as modesty it is desirable to
keep as near as possible to the essential and fundamental facts on which
it is based. It is scarcely necessary to point out that, in ordinary
civilized society, these fundamental facts are not usually present at the
surface of consciousness and may even be absent altogether; on the
foundation of them may arise all sorts of idealized fears, of delicate