The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization / Translated from the Sixth German Edition

by Iwan Bloch

Havelock Ellis distinguishes an animal and a social factor of shame. The former is specifically of a sexual nature, and is the simplest and most primitive element in the sense of shame. It is unquestionably more strongly developed in woman than in man; originally, indeed, it was peculiar to the female sex, and was the expression of the endeavour to protect the genital organs against the undesired approach of the male. In this form we may observe the sense of shame in other animals.

The sexual sense of shame of the female animal, declares Havelock Ellis, is rooted in the sexual periodicity of the female sex in general, and is an involuntary expression of the organic fact that the present time is not the time for love. Since this fact persists throughout the greater part of the life of the females of all animals kept under man’s control, the expression of this sense of warding off becomes so much a matter of custom that it manifests itself also at times when it has ceased to be appropriate. We see this, for example, in the bitch, which, when on heat, herself runs up to the dog, but then turns round again and tries to run away, and finally permits copulation only after the most delicate approaches on the part of the dog. In this manner the sense of shame becomes more and more a simple manifestation of the proximity of the male; it comes to be expected by the male, and takes its place among his ideas of what is sexually desirable in the female. Thus the sense of shame would appear to be also explicable as a psychical secondary sexual character. The sexual sense of shame of the female, continues Havelock Ellis, is, therefore, the unavoidable by-product of the naturally aggressive demeanour of the male being in sexual relations, and of the naturally repellent demeanour of the female; and this, again, is founded upon the fact that—in man and in nearly all the species allied to him—the sexual function of the female is periodic, and must always be treated with circumspection by the other sex; whereas in the male any care of this kind in regard to the exercise of his own sexual functions is seldom or never needed.

Groos very rightly points out that the great biological and psychological importance of coquetry is dependent upon this protective nature of the sense of shame, coquetry arising from the conflict between the sexual instinct and the innate sense of shame. It is to some extent the turning to account of the sense of shame for sensual purposes, a seldom failing speculation on the sexual impulse of the male, and in this sense it is the outcome of a genuine gynecocratic instinct, which we shall again encounter in our study of masochism.

Since, then, it is no longer possible to question the data of the most recent researches, by which we are assured of the existence of a primitively organic animal basis for the sexual feeling of shame, it is quite as little open to doubt that the true psychic individual importance of the feeling of shame arises out of a second fundamental element of that feeling, out of the social factor; and this factor also affords an explanation of the origin of the sense of shame in man. This phenomenal form of the sense of shame is, moreover, specifically human.

This second social fundamental element of the sense of shame is the fear of arousing disgust.

In this connexion we must refer to the interesting and thoroughly naturalistic theory of Lombroso regarding the origin of the sense of shame. Lombroso starts from the observation that in many prostitutes there exists a kind of remarkable equivalent of the sense of shame—namely, the dislike to permit of an inspection of their genital organs when they are menstruating, or when for any other reason the organs are not clean. Now, the Romance term for shame is derived from “putere,” which indicates the origin of the sense of shame from the repugnance to the smell of decomposing secretions. If we connect with this the fact that the kiss was originally a smell, Lombroso declares that this pseudo-shame of prostitutes represents the original, primitive sense of shame of primeval woman—that is, the fear of being disgusting to man.[73] Sergi also accepts this hypothesis of Lombroso’s.

According to Richet’s studies regarding the origin of disgust, the genito-anal region, with its secretions and excrements, is an object of disgust among most primitive races, for which reason they carefully conceal it even from their own sex, but more particularly from the other sex. Later, quite commonly the fear of arousing dislike or disgust plays a prominent part in the production of the sense of shame. This fear relates not only to the actual sexual organs, but also to the buttocks. Among many primitive races the latter alone are covered.

The idea also of ceremonial uncleanness, aroused especially by the process of menstruation, and associated with ritual practices, plays a part in the genesis of the sense of shame.

Incontestably, however, the sense of shame has most intimate relations with clothing; but clothing is in part only to be referred to the above-described primary factors of the sense of shame. In the later course of the development of civilization, however, clothing has come to play a peculiar independent rôle in the further development of a refined sexual sense of shame.

Karl von den Steinen is led, as the result of his own observations among the Bakäiri of Central Brazil, to the most remarkable conclusions.