Sexual ethics : a study of borderland questions / by Robert Michels.

  • Michels, Robert, 1876-1936.
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sexual ethics : a study of borderland questions / by Robert Michels. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    69/320 page 49
    These and similar reports give us little assistance in thè estimation of thè intensity of thè sentiment of shame in any particular people. In thè presence of a white man, thè negro is more reserved, more readily ashamed, than in thè presence of another negro. In thè writer’s view it is altogether impossible to effect a scientific analysis of thè sentiment of shame, unless among thè originating factors of this sentiment we give adequate weight to thè important elements of custom and strangeness. A professional practice, one of daily occurrence, of which habituation is thè necessary accompaniment, may in certain cases lead to thè complete exclusion of shame. Thus arise professional types of shamelessness. The female model poses for thè nude before young artists. The prostitute exposes her person and surrenders its use to every one who pays her thè necessary fee. The before Europeans is not invariably thè effect of true modest)’. Witness, for example, an experience in thè Cameroon hinterland, where thè negro indigens, when in thè presence of a European doctor, carefully hide thè penis between thè thighs—simply from thè fear lest thè “evil- eye” of thè white man falling on thè genitais should render them im- potent. (A. Plehn, “Beobachtungen in Kameruntiberdei Anschauungen undGebràuche einiger Negerstamme” [“ Observations in thè Cameroons on thè Views and Customs of certain Negro Tribes’’], Zeitschrift fùr Elhnologie, voi. xxxvi., p. 720, 1904). In this case, therefore, shame is merely a particular link in thè chain of negro superstitions. Among thè Singhalese thè women bave their breasts uncovered as long as they are in their houses, but veil them as soon as they go out ; thè genitais are kepi covered at all times, lest a devii should find his way in. (Havelock Ellis, Studies in thè Fsychology of Sex, voi. i. p. 56.) Beside this fact may be placed another, physiological this time instead of anatomical, in explanation of thè apparent shame of certain negro women. There are tribes in which thè women appear to exhibit shame towards white men because they know that thè narrowness of their pelvic outlet would put them in perii of their lives did they become impregnated by thè embraces of a white man. (Berkusky, op. cil., p. 726.) 4
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