The point is not that British prudery represents an antidote to gender inequities. Modesty and propriety are not enough to make a magnanimous society, as contemporary Islamic republics demonstrate. But the relationship between a grounded, transcendentally moral sexual ethic and the protection of women from exploitation and abuse may not be the inverse relationship our twentieth-century sages believed it to be.
Just a year ago, protesting simulated sexuality in films and television was thought to be nothing more than anti-female fundamentalism. In the past year, however, Hollywood has yielded some of its non-secrets, and we know that the entertainment industry is littered with voyeuristic men in charge of screenplays and production companies. All that skin and coarse talk that befuddled audiences with its excessiveness now becomes explicable, and the explanation does not flatter those who cheered the naked bodies as victories over repression.