Sexual frigidity

“ Family nudism, I firmly believe, tends to fixate children on parents permanently by causing unnecessary stimulation and hence strong guilt feelings. The result can be similar to a direct seduction of the child.
Psychic frigidity is often confused with a temporal emotional condition we call situational frigidity. A woman suffering from situational frigidity has no basic sexual problem. Her responses have always been normal and her orgasm is both frequent and satisfying. However, some severe reality problem has arisen in her life which has caused a temporary eclipse of her sexual responsiveness. ”

“ I will go even further and say that the facts about frigidity that I present here—its origins, its causes, and its cures—must be known by every woman with a sexual problem if she wishes to be cured.
Frigidity is always rooted in incomplete knowledge gained in childhood and adolescence. We are not, as I have pointed out, far from the Victorian age. Any woman of thirty or more had, in all probability, parents who were reared in the traditions of Victorianism, which denied the sexuality of woman, connived with every available force to deny it, repress it, stop it at its source. ”

“ From the immediate individual standpoint, probably no factor has been more responsible for the attempted dissociation of sex from life than frigidity, or sexual coldness. This statement is made with a full realization of the fact that frigidity, in certain cases, at least, is an effect of other more remote causes. ”

“ In hysterical women the sexual impulse is frequently excessive, and may increase to such a degree as to produce hallucinations of coitus; sometimes, on the other hand, the impulse is extinguished, or psychopathically metamorphosed, passing in a most paradoxical manner from sexual frigidity to lascivious reflections and continuous occupation with sexual affairs; not uncommon in such women are false accusations of indecent assaults of which they assert themselves the victims. ”

“ Since we have a name for the clitoridal type of sexual frigidity, let us, for the sake of clarity, also give a name to the form of frigidity first described, that which is characterized by a subnormal degree of sensation in the entire genital area and weak and infrequent orgasm. This form of frigidity is called sexual anesthesia in textbooks, and I will use that phrase here when I refer to it. The word “anesthesia,” as you probably know, simply means the absence, or relative absence, of sensation. ”

“ On the other hand, deficiency in moral sense and will may occur with sexual frigidity, and, as we have already seen, may lead to sexual excess without any voluptuous sensation, in accordance with the peculiarities of feminine sentiment. These facts show how complex are the causes of a given effect in the sexual domain. ”

“ It would generally be agreed that among men the strength of the sexual impulse varies within a considerable range, but that it is very rarely altogether absent, such total absence being abnormal and probably more or less pathological. But if applied to women, this statement is by no means always accepted. By many, sexual anesthesia is considered natural in women, some even declaring that any other opinion would be degrading to women; even by those who do not hold this opinion it is believed that there is an unnatural prevalence of sexual frigidity among civilized women. ”

“ It is a fair presumption that some examples of sexual frigidity and sex perversion may be explained by the possibility that the individuals concerned may possess sexual glands opposite in character to those indicated by the external configuration of their bodies. ”

“ I should like to emphasize that, in terms of the final resolution of her sexual frigidity, this masturbation is perfectly normal for this kind of woman—just as it is contraindicated for the masculine or clitoridal woman. The totally frigid woman is making up for phases of development she had missed in growing up. Guilt feelings about 229masturbation in such cases are harmful, and the ego of the individual can be put in the service of overcoming such emotions. ”

“ It is almost always wedded to the astounding doctrine that sexual frigidity, already disposed of, is normal in the female, and that the approach of the male is made possible, not by its melting into passion, but by a purely intellectual determination, inwardly revolting, to avoid his ire by pandering to his gross appetites. ”

“ Such prudishness, it is scarcely necessary to remark, whether found in women or men, indicates a mind that has become morbidly sensitive to sexual impressions. For the healthy mind embryological and allied facts have no emotionally sexual significance, and there is, therefore, no need to shun them.
Kolischer, of Chicago ("Sexual Frigidity in Women," American Journal of Obstetrics, Sept., 1905) , points out that it is often the failure of the husband to produce sexual excitement in the wife which leads to voluntary repression of sexual sensation on her part, or an acquired sexual anesthesia. ”

“ This then, is how, biology can represent destiny, with a helping hand from psychology. In a very real sense this dual potentiality of woman’s anatomy contains the seeds of sexual and hence personal tragedy.
Remember that the woman whose orgasm is confined to the clitoris is definitely frigid. Statistics on the prevalence of this kind of sexual problem are not available, but most psychiatrists and psychoanalysts agree that it is very widespread, may even be the dominant form of frigidity in our society. ”

“ Many men, and women too, take it to mean solely a duty-bound interval in which a man tries to arouse a woman by physically caressing and kissing her. This mechanistic interpretation is based on the oft-quoted statement that women are slower to respond sexually than men and that it is the man’s duty to arouse her.
I think it is absolutely necessary for this particular conception of foreplay to be expanded considerably where women who have had a sexual difficulty are concerned. As we have seen over and over again, frigidity in women is caused by psychological problems of a very specific kind. ”

“ In this all-important area she will react violently to punishment and even to verbal warnings. Often she will not only attempt to prevent her own masturbatory activity but will try to repress the whole of her sexual nature in an effort to keep her mother’s love. She may be quite successful in doing this, kill all her natural impulses in the bud. First experiences, as we know, are of great importance in development, and this early inhibition of her sexual nature can, and often does, lay the groundwork for sexual frigidity and a generally inhibited and circumscribed personality. ”

“ Those who are most closely related to the frigid woman—husband and children—suffer too. This is so because frigidity is an expression of neurosis, a disturbance of the unconscious life of the individual destructive to personal relationships. No matter how much she may consciously wish to, the frigid woman cannot protect her loved ones from the effects of her problem. Thus frigidity constitutes a major danger to the stability of marriage and to the health and happiness of every member of the individual family. ”

“ Now that we have named names I should like to say that I wish the problem of frigidity were as uncomplicated as this description makes it sound. If it were we’d simply have the problem of a large number of women who weren’t getting all the pleasure out of life that is possible. ”

“ I have heard the therapy for total frigidity described as “a problem in rerearing.” Recalling the case history of Patricia Agnew, one can easily see why this phrase is so apt. 228 The causes of this kind of frigidity go back to infancy. Punishment for infantile masturbation and/or an overly strong early fixation on the male parent causes the child to repress her sexual feeling entirely. She does not go through, in any complete way, the normal stages of psycho-sexual development; a part of her, the sensual and sexual part, remains frozen in the bud. ”

“ I have said that it is highly unlikely that the husband of a frigid woman is responsible for her frigidity problem. I can’t emphasize that enough. Of course if he is impotent, was when his wife married him and has continued to be, she might have a case. But true sexual impotency in the male is quite rare. Even, however, if he were truly impotent, the fact remains that this particular woman did marry him—we have found that when a woman marries an inadequate 21 man she has done so because she, all unknown to herself, was deeply afraid of true male virility. ”

“ He has been the chief recipient of her very strong negative feelings toward life, people, love, and sex.
As we have seen, the frigid woman has a strong tendency to blame others for her difficulties. Her husband, doubtlessly, has received his full quota of such irrational blame from her. He has also been the main victim of all the other neurotic components of frigidity—the envy and mistrust she has of the entire male sex, the endless complaints she directs against her household duties, her general inability to handle even the trivia of every woman’s everyday life with any grace or ease. ”

“ The problem of sexual promiscuity in women suffering from frigidity is a common one. Speaking in very general terms, it can be said to emanate from a desire to be sexually awakened. Women who seek a solution of this type feel that the next man will somehow break through the barrier that separates them from true sexual satisfaction, true relatedness, restore them to their erotic birthright. They are doomed to disappointment, of course, for an exterior solution of any permanent kind to this interior problem does not exist. ”

“ There is generally little reason why the all-mother type of woman should seek to change herself in any way. I must emphasize the fact again and again that the reason frigidity presents a problem that must be solved is that it has harmful 69 repercussions on the woman and on those close to her. It causes acute misery to her, causes personality damage to the children, and tends to destroy her marriage. The all-mother type of frigidity does none of these things, and I see no reason, if the woman doesn’t, why she must contemplate changing herself. ”

“ I might add that neither can any man other than her husband.
Another misconception about frigidity: Women who suffer from a greater or lesser degree of frigidity often come to believe that there is something wrong with them glandularly. Through a misunderstanding of something they’ve read or heard, they get the idea that somewhere, somehow, there is a drug that will cure them. A gynecologist I know tells me 22 that he has at least three women a week ask him to give them hormones to step up their sexual responses. ”

“ This type of woman is not, however, to be confused with the nymphomanic woman, who, in my experience, is generally seriously mentally disturbed and for that reason is not included in this book. The woman with psychic frigidity usually has sexual affairs with one man at a time; her neurosis is usually based on sexual seduction in early childhood. ”

“ And, most importantly, the frigid woman’s neurotic behavior is in direct proportion to the degree of her frigidity. I have found it to be true that, the more frigid a woman is, the more neurotic her behavior becomes, the more inimical to her own good and to the good of her family.
It is these psychological repercussions that make the problem of frigidity a serious one for the individual and society. The frigid woman’s often grossly neurotic psychological traits are raising havoc with our marital institution in the form of unhappiness, divorce, and maladjustment in her children. ”

“ Women who suffer from frigidity often have, in addition to negative feelings toward the male sex, another very marked characteristic. They are subject to powerful fantasies which militate against the recovery of their lost sexuality and their psychological maturation. It is extremely important that these fantasies be ruthlessly explored and exploded. If they are not, they serve the unhappy function of preserving the unhealthy conviction that one deserves a far better fate than that of being a beloved wife and mother. ”

“ For, though every case of frigidity represents a psychological problem in the individual, we have found that, sociologically speaking, frigidity is rooted in certain destructive events that have occurred to woman in the past two hundred years. If you grasp them you will begin to get a picture of the over-all problem that has beset woman, of how she lost her direction, her sense of self, and what she must do to find them again. ”

“ Now that we have seen the real potential of woman, how she can flower and blossom in the climate of love, what she can be like when she embraces her true destiny, we may turn to an examination of frigidity with some perspective. This section will deal with what frigidity is, specifically, and why it can and does occur in women, blighting their capacities, stunting their personality, chilling and killing their ability to love at the heart’s deep core. When a woman gets a clear picture of such matters, and only when she does, can she find her way back to the highroad of real womanhood. ”

“ Why is frigidity so widespread among women and sexual impotency so rare among men? We saw that under the adverse conditions caused by the Industrial Revolution women could, by the millions, abandon sexual gratification, convince the world and themselves that, biologically speaking, they were asexual beings. There was never the faintest suspicion that man, on the other hand, would or could abandon his sexual nature, no matter how difficult the going became. Men might develop neuroses, they might even take odd sexual directions, develop perversions, if their parents were sufficiently neurotic. ”