Through the keyhole: A history of sex, space and public modesty in modern France

In 1857, a group of young people who had participated in an orgy in a private mansion was sentenced for contempt of public decency (outrage public la pudeur) because a curious voyeur was able to watch them from the outside through a keyhole. In 1893, students who organised the Quat'z'Arts ball declared a 'war of the nude' against the courts by demanding that certain forms of public nudity be considered chaste. In the 1960s, a passionate debate ensued on whether women bathing topless on Fren...