Endangered Gestures

Disappearing along with hierarchies, order and politeness

It used to be ubiquitous, but today it’s only a curiosity in the high nobility or upper class circles, and in the Vatican. Its disappearance has as much to do with the deterioration of hierarchies and order, as with the loss of an elaborate politeness prepared to do more than the necessary. The demystification of the female sex in the past fifty years, promoted in particular by the women themselves, also manifests itself in the absence...