Pearl-clutching Meaning

Example : 2007, Amanda Marcotte, It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments, Seal Press (2007), ISBN 9781580052269, page 141:  When John Kerry “outed” Mary Cheney in a 2004 presidential debate, it was already well known that Mary Cheney was a lesbian. You can't out the already out, no matter what pearl-clutching pundits would have you believe.2010, April Winchell, Regretsy: Where DIY Meets WTF, Villard Books (2010), ISBN 9780345523181, page 131:  Even the biggest doe-eyed, pearl-clutching Etsy muffin has to find some way to make it okay to be negative, because we have no choice.2013, The Best American Comics 2013, (eds. Jeff Smith, Jessica Abel, & Matt Madden), Houghton Mifflin (2013), ISBN 9780547995465, page 362:  There's something truly irresistible about the pearl-clutching cartoons that came out during the time people thought women on bicycles were single-handedly going to bring society to ruin.For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:pearl-clutching.