In the case of charming, however, the initiative may be taken by the woman, who can, of course, imagine that she has been charmed, and then find a willing aider and abettor in the man, whose vanity is flattered by the response to the magic power which he can soon persuade himself that he did really exercise.[248]

If this attempt at suggestion failed, we should have a case of lively embarrassment in the woman, and her discomfiture would be heightened if the other women and men of the community were aware of her attempt.  Similarly on Jervis Island in Torres Straits, if an unmarried woman was interested in a man, she accosted him, but the man did not address the woman “for, if she refused him, he would feel ashamed, and maybe he would brain her with a stone club, and so ’he would kill her for nothing.’"[249]

A wholesale unsettling of habit is seen when a lower culture is impinged upon by a higher.  The consciousness of other standards of behavior causes new forms of modesty in the lower race.  Haddon reports of the natives of Torres Straits: 

The men were formerly nude, and the women wore only a leaf petticoat, but I gather that they were a decent people; now both sexes are prudish.  A man would never go nude before me—­only once or twice has it happened to me, and then only when they were diving....  Amongst themselves they are, of course, much less particular, but I believe they are becoming more so....  I have not noticed any reticence in their speaking about sexual matters before the young, but missionary influence has modified this a great deal; formerly, I imagine, there was no restraint in speech, now there is a great deal of prudery;... and I had the greatest possible difficulty in getting the little information I did about the former relationships between the sexes.  All this, I suspect, is not really due to a sense of decency per se, but rather to a desire on their part not to appear barbaric to strangers; in other words, the hesitancy is between them and the white man, not as between themselves.[250]

Bonwick says also: 

I have repeatedly been amused at observing the Australian natives prepare for their approach to the abode of civilization by wrapping their blankets more decently around them and putting on their ragged trousers or petticoats.[251]

There are numerous cases found among the lower races where the wearing of clothing and ornament are not associated with feelings of modesty.  Von den Steinen reports that the women of Brazil wore a small, delicately made and ornamented covering or uluri, which evidently had an attractive as well as protective value; but the women showed no embarrassment, but rather astonishment, when he asked them to remove them and give them to him.  When they understood that he really wanted them, they removed them and gave them to him with a laugh.[252] This is a case, in fact, of the beginning of clothing without a beginning of modesty.  But while we find cases of modesty without clothing and of clothing without modesty the two are usually found together, because clothing and ornament are the most effective means of drawing the attention to the person, sometimes by concealing it and sometimes by emphasizing it.