by habit
and custom applies also to sexual matters. A girl who experiences
disgust at the sight of semen or the act of its ejaculation, may,
through habituation, cease to feel such disgust.

Similarly with the sentiment of shame, we find that in some persons it
is aroused by matters to which others are more or less completely
indifferent--and this is true no less of the sexual sense of shame than
of shame in general. We note the way in which habit or other influences
may diminish or even entirely suppress the sentiment of sexual shame,
from the fact that prostitutes willingly undress in the presence of a
strange man without any sense of shame (although it must be admitted
that some remnants of shame may remain even in many prostitutes).
Finally, the experience of the marriage-bed shows how rapidly the
sentiment of shame in respect of certain situations may disappear or
largely diminish. Although a refined woman may long, and in some cases
permanently, manifest a certain reserve towards her husband, still,
there is an enormous degree of difference between the intensity of the
sentiment of shame which a young bride experiences when undressing on
her bridal night and that which she experiences in the like situation
after a year of married life.

Other circumstances show that these sentiments are influenced, not
merely by individual habituation, but also by the nature of general
customs. A lady of the nobility, president, perhaps, of a Ladies'
Society for the Promotion of Public Morals, may regard the short skirts
of a music-hall dancer as the acme of impropriety, and yet will not
hesitate for a moment to go into society in the evening in a low dress,
with her breasts plainly visible to anyone standing by her when she is
seated. The same lady would probably be furious at the suggestion that
she should show herself to men in the dress of a ballet-dancer, but with
a high corsage. And yet, experience shows that in other circumstances
the short skirt is quite acceptable, inasmuch as when bicycling first
obtained a vogue among the upper classes, ladies of high standing were
to be seen in the streets with short skirts and visible calves. In
Germany, and in many other countries, it was for long regarded as
improper for men and women to bathe in common. The Americans, however,
saw no impropriety in mixed bathing, and of late years even the Germans
find it possible for the sexes to mix in bathing without any offence to
the sense