Question

Hello Rabbi.
 
There is Professor Nadav Sneharb's famous (?) article about modesty… ( https://bmj.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/29.2.Snerb_.pdf )
Among other things, he points out a contradiction between two Talmudic passages, offers some answer, and says the matter does not sit so well with him.
 
The first passage is in Sanhedrin (45a). There the Talmud notes a contradiction in the words of Rabbi Yehuda, who supports stoning a woman while naked, yet is careful not to strip the sota if her bosom was beautiful; and a similar contradiction
in the view of the Sages, who are not concerned about causing improper thoughts in the spectators at the
sota-drinking ceremony, yet hold that a woman is not stoned naked. To resolve Rabbi
Yehuda's view, Rabbah says that it is important to preserve the sota's modesty, since it is possible that she will be found
innocent in the ritual, and then the young priests who saw her exposed flesh may be provoked by her; but there is no such
concern with a woman being taken out to execution, since she certainly will not be an object of harassment
afterward. Likewise, there is no concern that spectators at the execution of the woman will be aroused toward
other women, because the evil inclination has power only over what its eyes see. Rava resolves the words of
the Sages by saying that part of the purpose of the sota-drinking ritual is to afflict her, and therefore
they expose her body, but execution itself is such a great affliction that there is no room
to add to it;
 
For nowhere in the give-and-take of the Talmud is any reservation expressed about revealing a woman's flesh
in public because of "laws of modesty" that forbid such a thing. The only problems that arise over the course of
the passage are disgrace (and therefore, according to the Rabbis, they do not strip a woman being executed) and improper thoughts
(and therefore, according to Rabbi Yehuda, if her bosom is beautiful they do not uncover it). It is clear that if there are intrinsic laws of modesty
that forbid exposing a woman's flesh before men, there is no difference between an old woman
and a young one, nor between "her bosom is beautiful" and an ugly bosom.
Also with regard to causing sinful thoughts in the spectators, an interesting conception is expressed here,
namely that exposing a woman before men creates sinful thoughts only toward that particular woman
assuming that male human nature has not changed drastically since the days of the Sages until
now, one may reasonably guess that the Talmud does not mean to claim that seeing a naked woman will not arouse
a man's inclination, but rather that the Talmud does not see a problem with arousal without an 'address'—that is,
in a case where there is no concern that the man will be aroused by a particular woman.
 
But on the other hand, in tractate Avodah Zarah (20b) it says: "And keep yourself from every evil thing"—
that a man should not look at a beautiful woman, even if she is unmarried; at a married woman, even if she is ugly; nor
at colored garments… lest a man entertain thoughts by day and come to impurity at night. So we see
that the very arousal of the inclination is forbidden;
 
Do you have some reconciliation of these passages?
 
Thank you very much