maiden-modesty

Updated: July 12, 2026

Cole herself, and introduced into her bedchamber, where, in an old-fashioned bed of her's, I lay, fully undressed, and panting, if not with the fears of a real maid, at least with those perhaps greater of a dissembled one which gave me an air of confusion and bashfulness that maiden-modesty had all the honour of, and was indeed scarce distinguishable from it, even by less partial eyes than those of my lover: so let me call him, for I ever thought the term "cully" too cruel a reproach to the men, for their abused weakness for us.

John Cleland - Memoirs Of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)