In the second place, clothing plays a central role in modesty. They aim to hide the body, to conceal it by wrapping it in textiles in order to put verbal communication and reflection before instincts. The sight of primary and secondary sexual characteristics (genitals, buttocks, female chests) often provokes a desire, an attraction; to hide these organs allows to see in the other a social being before seeing a potential sexual partner. This is the reason why the sexual organs must not be visible in many cultures where it is frowned upon to reveal one's body. The management of "primary" human reactions is therefore facilitated: erection and goosebumps are, for example, subtracted from the eye. The relationship between respect for modesty and the development of clothing remains complex and difficult to date historically. Sexual gorillas of almost naked ethnic groups, such as Oceanian penises or loincloths, might suggest that modesty preceded clothes. On the other hand, one can also wonder about whether modesty would not result rather from the masking of the body, making the vision of the body unseemly even when time allows to discover it - see for example the municipal decree Deauville from 1996 banning the naked torso outside the beach, or the testimonies of practitioners of nudism (the emotion is created by lack).

Once again, the work of Marc-Alain Descamps brings us an excellent synthesis of this aspect: "In fact, sexuality is much more important for accounting for clothing, the first and last of the clothes being always the sex-cache. Modesty inclined men (and even more women) to hide their reproductive organs so as not to excite envy. Then, by proximity of the organs of elimination, there is added shame. So our body is cut in two: the noble or demonstrable parts and the "shameful parts". But modesty is not a stable reality, for there is nothing more erotic than modesty. Also its location varies according to the times and places. The role of the clothes is finally to hide to give price by exciting the desire, and afterwards, to reveal the hidden in an endless striptease. Thus we hide the neckline by a modesty, which is then made of lace and we wear a miniskirt but being careful to put under a tights that hide what we have just revealed7. "

display
If clothing can be used to hide the body, it can also play the opposite role: to enhance it for seductive purposes. Indeed, we can hardly correct our physical appearance while the clothing, it is easily modifiable. By playing with the clothes we wear, we can easily highlight our physical assets ... and make sure that our defects are as visible as possible. Merging with the carnal envelope, some clothes can have a partially "mechanical" role: corset, strapless, sheath, shirts epaulettes ... This phenomenon is not new and, since antiquity, women were bandaging their breasts with a material to meet the aesthetic criteria of the time. Some clothes are expressly designed to direct the glance towards the sexual attributes, to value them or simply to let them show through, to suggest them. The article on the necklines or the one on the tight-fitting clothes will be read on this subject.