26o THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
modesty, and in this second form of the sex dance we have what may be called an immodest employment of it.
Another suggestive use of clothing is the use of just a sufficient amount to call attention to the person, without completely con- cealing it. I need not refer to the fact that in modern society this is accomplished by, or perhaps we should better say tran- spires in connecticn with, diaphanous fabrics and decollete dresses, and the same effect was doubtless accomplished by a typical early form of female dress, of which I will give one instance in Australia and one in America: "Among the Arunta and Luritcha the women normally wear nothing, but amongst tribes farther north, especially the Kaitish and Warramunga, a small apron is made and worn, and this sometimes finds its way south into the Arunta. Close-set strands of fur-string hang vertically from a string waist-girdle. Each strand is about eight or ten inches in length, and the breadth of the apron may reach the same size, though it is often not more than six inches wide." ' "A fashionable young Wittun woman," says Mr. Powers, "wears a girdle of deer skin, the lower edge of which is slit into a long fringe, with a polished pine-nut at the end of each strand, while the upper border and other portions are studded with brilliant bits of shell." "
When habits are set up and are running smoothly, the atten- tion is withdrawn ; and nakedness was a habit in the unclothed societies, just as it may become a habit now in the artist's model. But when, for any of the reasons I have outlined, women or men began to cover the body, then putting off the covering became peculiarly suggestive, because the breaking up of a habit brings an act clearly into attention. And when dress becomes habitual in a society whose sense of modesty has also developed to a high degree, the suggestive effect is so great that the bare thought of unclothing the person becomes painful, and we have the possibility of such a phenomenon as mock modesty. But, so far as sexual modesty is concerned, the clothing has only
' Spencer and Gillen, loc. cit., p. 572. 'WesTERMARCK, History of Human Marriage, p. 189.
