cache-sexe
{{Short description|Item, often a small garment, that covers its user's genitals}}
{{Wiktionary|cache-sexe}}
File:Koteka.jpg or penis sheath is traditionally worn by male natives of some ethnic groups in New Guinea to cover their genitals.]]
A cache-sexe is an item, often a small garment, that covers its user's genitals."[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cache-sexe Cache-sexe]," Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7), via Dictionary.com. The most common style, seen in Western G-strings and Japanese Fundoshis, has a triangle of material (cloth, beaded strings, etc.) attached at the corners to straps or strings around the waist and between the legs, that fasten the triangle over the genitals.
Cache-sexes have various social intentions, including the wearer's practice of sincere or enforced modesty, legal and/or customary restrictions within the context of intentional eroticism, and adding fetishistic or playfully teasing aspects to intentional eroticism. In Western cultures, for example, G-strings appear as swimming attire; for many erotic dancing venues, as the final state of undress, set as the polite and/or legal limit; or as a garment whose removal is one of many steps of a striptease, each existing to provide an increment in the viewer's sexual arousal.
Cache-sexe is a loanword from French.
Cache-sexe is also an alternate term for modesty plate, sometimes caping, a small triangular or heart-shaped jewelry worn to hide the genitals, typically made of silver, gold, or brass.
Examples
The penis gourds of tribal New Guinea, and cache-sexes of some other tribal cultures, are often perceived by Westerners as self-evidently obvious forms of sexual display, but described by their wearers as a practice providing privacy.
The Brazilian Portuguese tapa-sexo is often used in samba school parades,{{cite web |title=Tapa Sexo: patch games |work=CarnavalCity.com |publisher=Carnaval.com |date=2010-04-11 |url=http://www.carnavalcity.com/Rio_de_Janeiro_Carnaval/Queens/Tapa_Sexo%3A_patch_games |accessdate=2010-07-07 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100219084316/http://www.carnavalcity.com/Rio_de_Janeiro_Carnaval/Queens/Tapa_Sexo%3A_patch_games |archivedate=February 19, 2010 }} where performers may parade their decorated but unclothed bodies,{{cite web |title= Nude Carnival Queen, Viviane Castro, Bodypaints Obama On Her Leg (NSFW PHOTO, VIDEO) |work= Huffington Post |date= 2009-02-22 |url= http://www.carnavalcity.com/Rio_de_Janeiro_Carnaval/Queens/Tapa_Sexo%3A_patch_games |accessdate= 2010-07-07 |url-status= dead |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20100219084316/http://www.carnavalcity.com/Rio_de_Janeiro_Carnaval/Queens/Tapa_Sexo%3A_patch_games |archivedate= 2010-02-19 }} exposing the buttocks and groin. The regulations in these parades generally prohibit people being completely naked. Thus, the tapa-sexo, a strip of tape or cloth that strategically covers a dancer's genitalia, prevents the school being penalised in such cases.