ENF-000 - MODESTY

Item #: ENF-000
Object Class: Uncontained

Containment Procedures: no procedures are currently possible or necessary. Research of the hypothetical anomaly and its effects is entrusted to team ETIQUETTE-PARADOX.

Description: ENF-000 is the designation of a hypothetical anomaly, of a memetic, probabilistic, or ontokinetic nature.
The effect of the anomaly is the preservation of the concepts of "shame" and "dignity" among women, for the entire course of human history, despite all the factors that would make such a result impossible.

Excerpt from a lecture by Dr Emma Barrass.

Even after a short time in the Foundation, you will see a lot of unpleasant, shameful things. The amount of threats to our dignity, of anomalous ways to get stripped, spanked and humiliated, is just staggering.
And we keep finding even more.
Of course, not all anomalies are like that. Some anomalies are just things that weight too little or too much, or break the laws of physics in other ways.
But most anomalies are. Whatever their primary function or nature, they are guaranteed to have at least some effect or side effect that will make you blush and shriek.
No one knows why. Some theorize that this might be related to ENF-001…but that is completely classified, and also beside the point.

Ask yourself – if such threats are everywhere, why do we keep being surprised by them? If all my friends saw me naked 8 times already, why is losing my clothes in front of them for the ninth time so mortifying?
Embarrassment is a cultural thing, right? Different cultures consider different things embarrassing. Then why don’t they change? Why don’t we just get used to it?
The Foundation does a good job of keeping anomalies secret, and wiping the memory of anyone who does encounter them. But not a perfect job. Even our containment has breaches, and while keeping the Foundation itself secret is a success, and covering up the anomalous reasons for events, the frequency of skirts hiked up by wind, or shirts tearing, is easily observable by anyone.
Don’t even get me started on other Groups of Interest using anomalies.
And the Foundation didn’t always exist. Anomalies fill the world for a long time now. Some evidence suggests that anomalies are becoming more common, and harder to control, in recent days. But even so, people encountered them. Maybe everyone in your village knew what measures you can take to protect yourself from demons, but that doesn’t disprove the fact that having your breasts bared or panties stolen by demons happened to every girl at least once.

So why is it still embarrassing? If every woman in 5 was naked in public at some point, often several times, so it must have happened to your sister, or mother, or your friends, and all of the above…and that was true about every culture…then why do all cultures still consider it shameful? Shouldn’t they have adapted to the circumstances? Or to be more precise, shouldn’t they have learned different social rules and expectations, living in those already existing circumstances?
Exposure-based shame is different across cultures. But it always follows the same principles.
The Christian approach says that women are sexy and desirable, evoking sexual urges in men with their bodies, and sexual desire is sinful, therefore women should be ashamed of exposing their bodies.
In ancient Greece, the belief was the opposite – male bodies are beautiful and worthy of admiration, while women aren’t desirable…but the result was still the same! Female exposure is shameful.
In China the main desirable part of the female body was feet. But again, the attitude of the society towards to feet was the same.
Even in cultures of barely civilized tribes living on hot islands, where no one wears almost any clothes, there are still ways of behavior and appearance, like losing your extremely small loincloth, that embarrass and shame a woman just like being naked and unable to cover myself on stage was for, ahem, I mean WOULD have been for me. I mean anyone else!

The obvious hypothesis is, something is behind it. Maybe some naturally occurring probabilistic anomaly. Maybe some immortal person or organization, manipulating humanity.
We don’t know. We might even be completely wrong! But the probability of that is negligible.
ENF-000 is our designation for whatever-it-is that might be doing it. 000 because, symbolically, we don’t know if it really exists, and because our observation is the absence of anomalous effects, rather than the anomalous effect itself.
I am leading team ETIQUETTE-PARADOX, a group of scientists, mostly physicists and sociologists, trying to figure out the methods by which ENF-000 might exist and/or operate.
It is not, I admit, the most important job in the world. We are not visibly saving anyone’s life. But understanding the world is the key to controlling it. And also, if we figure out the thing that is making us ashamed, maybe we could make it stop! It is not a common philosophical position, but I believe that things are fine if you are fine with them, and just as changing laws frees people from slavery and oppression, changing our norms and expectations can free us from anxiety and shame.

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There was another file there. Hidden. For those who have the rare, near-legendary, level 5 clearance.

Open document ENF-000-Procedure-L, 5/000 clearance required

Object Class: Pudicitia

Containment Procedures: the true nature of ENF-000 must be kept secret not just from the public, but everyone without 5/000 clearance, including members of team ETIQUETTE-PARADOX. Procedure Eternal Modesty must always be in action, modified by the latest breakthroughs provided by team ETIQUETTE-PARADOX research.

Description: ENF-000, like other objects of class Pudicitia, is created by the Foundation as a tool for the goal of protecting humanity from the anomalous, and preserving normalcy.
ENF-000 is a comprehensive project to ensure that female Homo Sapiens react to nudity, and other circumstances typically considered humiliating, with the same emotional and physical response, despite cultural and psychological factors that would reduce their reactions.
ENF-000 currently uses memetics, psionic manipulation, social engineering and genetic engineering as methods of maintaining female shame and desire of dignity. Temporal and ontokinetic manipulations are being considered as additions to Procedure Eternal Modesty, to be implemented with the help of team ETIQUETTE-PARADOX. Indirect evidence suggests that temporal manipulations undertaken by the Foundation in the future have already influenced the past.
ENF-000 achieved all of the set goals from the moment of inception. The specific manifestations of shame grow in variation, but the core remains the same.
Prevalence of sexual arousal resulting from shame and humiliation might be an unintentional side effect of ENF-000, but is not a failure of the project and should not be corrected.

If you are reading this, you are one of the few who are cleared to know about our greatest secret.
The Foundation constantly battles many phenomena that seek to humiliate women. And yet, the ability of women to be humiliated is itself a work of the Foundation.
Why? The answer is very simple. Our goal is not to make humanity happy, or satisfied. Our goal is to protect humanity from anomalies, and to maintain normalcy.
What is an anomaly, what is normalcy? Those questions do not have a simple answer. Many scientists try to construct a unified theory of anomalies, but they did not succeed yet. It was certainly not available when the Foundation was created. Or when those who came before the Foundation carried out the mission.
So the mission defines normalcy in colloquial sense – that which is normal. An anomaly then, is something which is abnormal. **** is normal, disease is normal. They are not the concerns of the Foundation. Sudden changes are, such as asteroids close to impacting Earth, or the awakening of ancient gods
We protect the world from the anomalous. This does not mean just containing the anomalies themselves. It also means maintaining the world as close as possible to appearing as if nothing anomalous exists at all.
If anomalies did not exist, did not strip and bind women with great frequency, women would not become used to exposure, would not willfully wear revealing clothes, would not abandon their modesty and shame.
When a woman is stripped by a cloth-eating cloud, tied by the vines of a sentient tree, and tickled by wild fairies, this is abnormal.
When a woman is willfully exposing her nipples and genitals (or even thighs and cleavage), or willfully performs oral sex, without shame or distress, that is equally abnormal.
Blushes and shrieks are normal. Shamelessness and wantonness are not.
Examine, Neutralize, Forget. That is our duty.