Reflections of a stormy petrel

Up to a point. This is a place where I really do think that there is a basic difference between the sexes. Modesty in a woman is an instinctive act of defence - apart from the psychic violation which I think is actually more important, there is the matter of her always being the loser as compared to the man, in the sexual exchange. She receives, he takes. I am not preaching coyness, which is infuriating, but coyness is something like a nasty caricature of the way that modesty is a specifically female defence. It means keeping one's self to one's own self. The gambling attitude to sex is of course bad for men as well as women, but, I think, in different ways: it inspires selfishness and lack of sympathy in men, and it tends to demolish the real self-respect of women. This is a very shortened view of what I would have to say properly on this subject, of course.