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THE POWER OF SEXUAL SURRENDER
* * * * * *
By the same author:
THE DRUG ADDICT AS A PATIENT
* * * * * *
THE POWER OF SEXUAL SURRENDER
by
MARIE N. ROBINSON, M.D.
Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Garden City, New York
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 59-10687
Copyright © 1959 by Marie N. Robinson
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE
I believe that the problem of sexual frigidity in women is one of the
gravest problems of our times. Over 40 per cent of married women suffer
from it in one or another of its degrees or forms. And their suffering,
emotionally and physically, is very real indeed.
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.
Despite its extent and seriousness, women who suffer from frigidity
generally know very little about their problem. They do not know
its nature or its causes nor how or where to find help for it. No
adequate book for the lay reader, nor any popular magazine article
that indicates a real way out, has yet been written on this enormously
important subject. The problem has been surrounded by silence, and
this has engendered ignorance, misinformation, and has fostered
feelings of helplessness and hopelessness in the suffering individual.
I have written this book to break this unhealthy silence, to bring to
the individual woman what science knows about frigidity, to show her
that, no matter how much she may have despaired, her problem can almost
certainly be resolved.
MARIE ROBINSON, M.D.
_November 1, 1958_
_New York, N.Y._
CONTENTS
Preface 7
1 PARADISE LOST 13
SECTION I
_The Normal Woman_
2 THE NORMAL ORGASM 29
3 THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHE 41
SECTION II
_The Psychology of Frigidity_
4 WHAT IS FRIGIDITY? 59
5 THE WAR BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN 70
6 WHY WOMEN CAN BECOME FRIGID 83
7 ANATOMY AND DESTINY 96
8 THE GROWTH OF LOVE 106
9 DANGERS ON THE ROAD TO WOMANHOOD 120
SECTION III
_The Fear of Love--Case Histories_
10 TOTAL AND PARTIAL FRIGIDITY 131
11 THE MASCULINE WOMAN 147
12 PSYCHIC FRIGIDITY 159
SECTION IV
_The Bridge to Womanhood_
13 THE POWER OF LOVE 177
14 STEPS TO FREEDOM 182
15 THE MALE SEX: A NEW HORIZON 197
16 THE NATURE OF SURRENDER 209
17 SEXUAL SURRENDER 216
18 THE ROLE OF THE MALE 233
19 THE LORE OF LOVE 246
ADDENDA I 259
ADDENDA II 262
THE POWER OF SEXUAL SURRENDER
_Chapter 1_
PARADISE LOST
Happiness between men and women has never had such a radiant outlook
as it has in this decade. Perhaps for the first time in the history of
man the two sexes find themselves in a position to explore together the
infinitely varied and rich potentialities of real love.
I am not being a blind optimist in making such a statement. In
my profession as a psychiatrist I see enough of daily misery and
destructive misunderstanding between men and women to keep a healthy
skepticism very much alive in my mind about all human relationships,
particularly those that depend for their continued existence, at least
in part, on sexual love.
I can make such a statement about the potentialities of modern love
for one reason--that women today have, beyond the shadow of any doubt,
achieved complete equality with men. Above all, this equality can be
observed as fully operative in the realm of love, sexual love. In the
past thirty-odd years, and particularly in the last ten, the taboos,
ignorance, and misunderstanding which had obscured our visions for
centuries and prevented any real knowledge of feminine sexuality have
been washed away.
We have been through a sexual revolution of major proportions. In
the course of that revolution we have learned, through science, not
hearsay, the real facts. We know now that woman has the same need for
passion, the same capacity for sexual response that man has. We know
that, down to the last detail, she is the equal and fitting companion
for all his possible raptures, can know with her entire body and mind
and can share in vivid companionship the delighted storms of sexual
love that in the recent past were considered to be exclusively his
province.
Few, however, realize how recent and how revolutionary this view of
womankind actually is. The image of Victorian woman, that sexually
frozen, emotionally withdrawn vestal virgin, has faded quickly from
our minds. It is important, for many reasons, to recall her, however,
if only briefly. She dominated our whole view of womankind up to the
beginning of the 1920’s. By taking a quick look at her we can see how
far we have come in so short a time. And we can see why the prospect
for love has, in our time, brightened so considerably.
The prevailing attitude toward woman and her sexuality throughout the
nineteenth century and up to the end of World War I was that sex,
as we understand it today, did not exist for her. This belief was
held by virtually everybody, and it is nowhere more clearly stated
than by the medical authorities of that era. Thus Acton, a leading
medical specialist in the functions of reproduction, whose views
were widely influential, wrote: “The majority of women (happily for
society) are not very much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind.”
He also stated that people who believed differently were making “a
vile aspersion” against women. Two other doctors of the time agreed
completely (and presumably after checking their facts). Fehling held
that any appearance of sexual feeling in a young girl in love was
“pathological.” And Windschied stated that if a female showed any
innate or spontaneous sexual attributes “there is abnormality.”
These men were not crackpots. They were reputable and distinguished.
This was the “scientific” view of the matter, and it was shared
by most people, men and women alike. It throws into clear relief
the potentialities of the present. Woman’s new and revolutionary
self-awareness, her knowledge gained in the past thirty-odd years that
without guilt or inhibition she may function in an atmosphere of total
equality with men and eager acceptance by them, makes the past seem
like a nightmare. It is as though man and woman had emerged from a
long, long journey through a dreary jungle full of fear and shame to
the verge of a paradisal valley where they actually may live, as in the
fairy tales, happily ever after.
But now we come to the tragic flaw in this picture. For, though the
possibilities lie before them, millions of women find they must stay on
the verge of, never enter, the paradisal valley. They find themselves,
in an age where true womanhood is highly valued, sexually frigid.
What does sexual frigidity mean? I shall explain the matter in greater
detail later, of course, but I can give a preliminary, working
definition now. Sexual frigidity is the inability to enjoy physical
love to the limits of its potentiality. The frigid woman is, to a
greater or lesser degree, blocked in her sensual capacities. Generally
she cannot experience orgasm. If she has one at all it is weak and
unsatisfying. Many frigid women, however, not only do not have any
orgasm but may also lack the capacity to feel even the beginnings of
sexual excitement. To some the sexual act is painful.
The frigid woman has learned to fear physical love, to run from it, and
this fear has profound repercussions on her relationships with men. The
reasons for her fear are hidden from her, are locked in her unconscious
mind. Consciously she may wish, above all things, to achieve real
closeness with her husband, to give and receive the greatest of all
mutual joys between man and woman, sexual gratification. But she
has not the capacity to receive this joy. It is beyond her will and
control. It is as if she had a million dollars and could not spend a
cent of it; as if she were surrounded by the finest foods and must
starve. The very fact of the new equality she has won makes her problem
even more humiliating, bitterer, more frustrating.
In my fifteen years as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst I have treated
many, many women who have come to me in despair because of their
partial or total inability to enjoy the sexual part of their marriage
and because of the repercussions from this inability. I and hundreds
of other psychiatrists have been fortunate in helping many of them to
overcome their difficulties. We have found that before a woman can be
expected to take full responsibility for reaching true sexual maturity
she must really know all about herself, her sex and her problem. Then
and only then has she the material in hand to start growing up, in all
pleasure, to her full feminine stature.
If a woman is willing to work in all seriousness with a psychiatrist
there is little question that she can be helped to overcome her sexual
difficulty. The information she receives, the insights she obtains into
the conditions which have kept her from experiencing real love can
sweep away her ignorance, her misunderstandings, her irrational fears.
Her experience with the psychiatrist may help her husband, too, for
with his wife’s consent the therapist will often see him for periodic
discussions. These talks help him to understand her problem, to see
deeply into the nature of his wife and therefore of all womankind.
This knowledge allows the husband to be of direct help in effecting
his wife’s release from the immobilizing grip of her frigidity. It
helps him to be patient where he might have been irritable, tender when
he might have been importunate; it keeps him from the major error of
believing that he is to blame for her underlying condition and thus
complicating the relationship by becoming defensive, as one unjustly
accused would become--indeed, _should_.
The question then arises as to whether the kind of information a woman
and her husband may receive during her therapy can also be helpful in
book form.
I have given much thought to this question and have had many
consultations with my psychiatric colleagues about it. We have come to
the positive conclusion that a book on this subject can be of direct
benefit to all women suffering from sexual frigidity.
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. These efforts were extraordinarily
successful. And, too, any woman now in her twenties probably had
parents who were deeply affected by the equally mindless and vicious
protest against Victorianism which characterized this country from,
roughly, 1920 to 1930--the period we now call the Roaring Twenties or
the Jazz Age.
This era, too, was full of destructive misinformation about sex and
love. A program of sexual promiscuity for women was openly advocated
and found far too many adherents in the younger generation after World
War I. The moral climate created in the Jazz Age was alien to the very
nature of truly feminine love. It led to serious sexual conflicts in
millions of individuals, and these conflicts were duly visited on their
offspring.
This book then, I firmly believe, can help the individual to undo the
early harm caused by improper upbringing. I have tried to design it
in such a manner that a woman who reads it completely may achieve a
deep understanding of frigidity, an understanding that can lead to a
profound inner change, a complete reversal of those attitudes that are
always at the root of frigidity.
I have designed it, too, to be read by the husband of the woman who
suffers from frigidity. It goes without saying that the success of his
marriage is dependent on the resolution of her problem. He can help
greatly to ensure this resolution by fully informing himself of the
nature of the problem and by discovering the most helpful role he can
play during her recovery.
But the problem of frigidity does not concern only the married. Thus I
have also aimed this book at those young people who are about to enter
their first love experience. We have found that this first experience
can be of vast importance for the further emotional growth of the
individual and of the relationship upon which she has embarked. Young
women who find they have problems in the sexual sphere may be spared
years of misery if they are given a real understanding of the matter in
the beginning. Many of my patients, had they been given an insight into
the nature of their difficulties at the start, might have avoided the
inevitable and innumerable poor choices and often disastrous decisions
which are so characteristic of the woman suffering from a sexual
problem.
Since I have designed this book to answer the needs of a specific
audience I should like to ask you to read it through and not skip
around trying to find the material that seems to apply directly to
you or to someone close to you. For, if you follow me as I go, you
will see that frigidity is not a single, simple, local symptom. It is
a complicated and profound problem involving many factors and having
profound consequences. One _can_ grasp the nature of this problem,
understand it, and cure it. To do so, however, you must have very
specific and complete knowledge of it in all its complexity. It may
take all your powers to master this complexity. To do so, however, will
be more than merely worth while. It can be the first great step toward
real love, upon whose threshold you have tarried already far too long.
Before we advance into the subject itself, I should like to dispose of
a few widely held and thoroughly incorrect notions about frigidity. I
do this to clear away some of the underbrush which can impede those of
you who are seriously seeking a resolution of the problem.
In the first place, let us look at this problem of a woman’s sexual
“responsibility,” as it has been recently called. Much has been written
about it and much of what I have read is pure nonsense, based on a
sort of mechanical conception of what love is and of what the act of
love means. I fear that such books encourage women who have deeply
rooted sexual difficulties to approach the problem from the wrong
direction and before they properly understand the real nature of
their difficulties. Such an approach leads them to attempt abortive
“solutions” which can only further discourage and disillusion them.
The basic error here is in trying to make the individual woman
“responsible” without giving her any real information about her
condition.
The fact is that no woman who suffers from frigidity consciously
desires to. Nor can she be, for a single second, held accountable for
the fact that the problem developed. The word “blame” cannot by any
stretch of the imagination be used in connection with her problem. I
strongly urge you to let that point sink deeply into your heart and
mind.
How could it possibly be that you had any responsibility in the matter?
This problem always develops in childhood or even infancy. It is partly
a product of early family and historical influences over which you had
not the slightest control, and it is partly a matter of the biological
heritage of all women everywhere. And you certainly can’t be held
responsible for that.
Here is the attitude I have found most helpful to take toward this
matter of sexual responsibility: You are not responsible for having
developed a difficulty; you are not responsible for the existence of
your frigidity any more than the stutterer is responsible for his
stutter. However, once you realize it is a problem, that it is having
repercussions on you and those dear to you, you are responsible for
finding out everything you can about the problem and then, on the basis
of this information, taking whatever action is necessary.
I have already mentioned another important misconception about
frigidity and should like to go into it a bit further now. 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 man she has done so because
she, all unknown to herself, was deeply afraid of true male virility.
In saying the husband is rarely if ever to blame for a frigidity
problem I am running counter to a vast body of information that has
been published; in the 1930’s in particular, book after book appeared,
each showing conclusively that a happily married sexual life depended
on the male’s skill in arousing the woman. In such books the husband
was instructed to manipulate or caress her for X minutes in Y number of
erotic zones. By then, presumably, she would have reached such a state
of excitement that true sexual satisfaction could not possibly fail
her. Any failure of a woman to respond adequately in the marital bed
was always supposed to be due to faulty technique on the husband’s part.
This is simply not true. Caressing or manipulating the genitalia or
secondary erotic zones of certain types of frigid women would only
result in exacerbated nerves or in a condition of inwardly screaming
protest. In other types, caressing might give temporary satisfaction
but in the long run could really be harmful from the psychological
standpoint, deepen or encourage immature methods of gratification.
In short, while a husband, through tenderness and understanding,
may help a woman face the true nature of her problem, he is never
responsible for the _existence_ of her frigidity and cannot, through
any mechanical means, get her over it.
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 that he has at least three women a week ask him to give
them hormones to step up their sexual responses. On the basis of his
statement I have checked with several other gynecologists and also with
five obstetricians. They all tell me that the request for hormonal
injections from women is a daily constant.
Let me say here that frigidity is rarely a problem of glandular
malfunction. Much work has now been done in this area and, unless your
case is relatively unusual, you may rest assured that your problem is
basically a personal and psychological one.
How can I be so certain of that last statement? Because real frigidity
reacts to psychological treatment; it can generally be cured in a
psychiatrist’s office without the use of any drugs whatsoever.
If you reply: “Well, perhaps the mind has caused a glandular shutdown
in women with a frigidity problem,” we would answer: “Even if that
were true the mind would still be the ‘cause,’ and a real cure can be
effected only by getting at the cause.”
A far more serious misunderstanding of the nature of true feminine
sexuality and of the nature of frigidity is shown by the following
case, told to me by a psychiatric colleague.
A pretty young woman came to him stating that she had been unable to
have sexual satisfaction in intercourse. She had told her physician
of her problem two years previously. He had examined her and told her
that her clitoris was too far from her vagina. He informed her that
this biological fact made it impossible for her husband to contact the
clitoris with his penis during intercourse and that this was causing
her frigidity. The physician advised an operation which would bring the
clitoris and the vagina closer together, thus allowing the penis to
contact the clitoris during intercourse.
The woman, in all good faith and with a laudable desire to be a
good wife, had gone through with this grotesque surgical procedure.
After the operation, when she was able to have intercourse again,
it had apparently worked. For two months she had had orgasms during
intercourse. Then slowly but surely her ability to respond disappeared.
Within three months she had become totally frigid.
Nothing could be more mistaken than such an approach to the solution
of a sexual problem in a woman. In the first place, surgery performed
on the genitalia of a woman who is already sexually disturbed can
cause profound shock to her psychologically, deepen her disturbance
immeasurably--such was the case with this woman, my colleague told me.
Second, the fact that the clitoris and not the vagina is responsive
is a form of frigidity in itself. Even if this maddeningly ridiculous
operation had worked in the manner the physician had hoped, it would
only have perpetuated a situation that was in itself, psychologically
speaking, pathological.
The psychiatrist did not have an easy time with this patient. The
traumatic experience caused by the operation and its failure had
taken a toll, and it took several months for her to recover from the
psychological effects. But she was a determined young woman.
When she became convinced that the solution of her problem lay in
discovering the hidden misunderstandings about sexuality that had
occurred earlier in her life, she set about this task with a will. In
a relatively short time, through insight and understanding, by getting
the entire picture of frigidity and its meaning, she began to undo the
Gordian knot that even the surgeon’s keen knife could not cut. At the
root of her problem lay a totally hidden fear of pregnancy which she
was able to face and dispense with. Today she has two children and,
according to my colleague, is not only sexually normal but very happy
in her marriage.
Let me make myself absolutely clear, even at the risk of repeating
myself. Frigidity is in the vast majority of cases, essentially a
psychological problem. The _only_ way it can be approached with any
hope of resolving it is through the mind, by understanding it. Anybody
who tells you differently is, to put it plainly and simply, wrong. And,
if you have a real frigidity problem and try to ascribe other than
psychological reasons for it (such as that your husband is the cause
of it), you are doing your cause (that of getting over the problem) a
grave disservice.
When I say that the problem of frigidity is a psychological one
I am not overstating the case; I am, to simplify matters, rather
understating it. The greatest contribution of psychiatry in the past
sixty years has been the discovery of the central importance of
sexuality in the development of the individual.
Dr. Therese Benedek in her classic work, _Psychosexual Functions in
Women_, states the whole matter succinctly when she says: “ … The
sexual drive … is the axis around which the organization of the
personality takes place.”
When all goes well in the development of the young girl, both her
personality and her sexual passions will flower, she will achieve
a beautiful and integrated maturity. But if, as so often happens,
thwarting or blighting experiences take place, the development of her
personality and her sexuality will be frozen at their sources, and
maturity will remain a never-never land whose very existence she will
come to doubt.
If she wishes to resume her growth she must be fearless, she must find
out and face the events that blocked her growth, the misunderstandings
and ignorance that prevent her from reaping the rewards of true
womanhood. She must insist, deep within herself, on achieving that
true and passional relatedness with her man for which there is neither
simulacrum nor substitute in woman’s journey through life.
The bridge to emotional and sexual maturity is built of many
facts--hard, scientific facts. Master these facts, gain information on
this subject, and you can pass from a land of bitter deprivation to the
richness that is your due, your heritage. It is waiting for you on the
other side of your fear.
SECTION I
_The Normal Woman_
_Chapter 2_
THE NORMAL ORGASM
The first thing I am going to do on this, so to speak, journey with you
is to give you a view of your destination. I am going to describe an
orgasm to you. I am going to describe it in detail.
We occasionally do this in psychiatry when dealing with a frigidity
problem, and sometimes it has astonishing results. I have seen women
who, after hearing for the first time a complete description from an
authoritative and objective person of what to expect of themselves in
the act of love, almost immediately win through to the sensual goal
they had been deprived of.
On one occasion a patient of mine, who over a period of months had
worked through a rather severe frigidity problem, detailed to her
younger sister the wonderful sexual experience she was now able to
have. The younger sister had been married only two months and had not
once reached sexual climax. She had seriously contemplated consulting
a psychiatrist about her “problem.” The very night her older sister
described true orgasm to her she was able to achieve her own first
complete satisfaction with her husband.
However, my chief motive in approaching the subject of frigidity
by describing the normal orgasm is not to try to bring about a
sudden or miraculous cure. In cases where such a sudden release of
mature sexuality is achieved and thaw comes like a sudden spring,
the frigidity problem is generally, even though it may appear to be
deep-seated, a superficial one, lightly rooted in the personality.
The real reason I start with the orgasm is that a picture of the normal
is an absolute necessity if you are to understand deviations from it
with any real clarity. It is a truism that in order to understand
illness in the body it is first necessary to understand health. Every
doctor knows this and so do his teachers, for in medical school he
first learns, through classes in anatomy and physiology, the structure
and functions of the healthy body.
I think you will understand frigidity more thoroughly if we pursue the
same technique here, first describing the genital anatomy of woman and
from there proceeding to a description of the normal orgasm, what it
is, where it is located, its function in the healthy man and woman, and
other pertinent material.
Despite the wide dissemination of sexual information in our time, many
women often show an astonishing ignorance of their own genital region
and of the character and meaning of sexual response, including orgasm.
I have had patients who did not know that they possessed a clitoris,
others who made no distinction between their urethra and their vagina;
some have not known of the existence of the uterus as a separate organ,
and some, in confusion about their uniquely feminine secretions, have
believed that women can have a seminal ejaculation as men do. Perhaps
most of the readers of this book will have no such misinformation, but
nevertheless I feel it is wise to review the simple facts pertaining to
the feminine genitalia.
Before making a detailed description of woman’s sexual apparatus, I
should like to make a preliminary observation which can help you to
understand the sexual nature of woman. It is this: that while women
are capable of having true sexual gratification in the same sense and
with the same intensity as men, they have one important difference
in their responses. The man, when he is aroused, feels the sexual
desire directly in his genitals. A woman’s first sexual sensations
are not usually genital but are felt over her entire body, on her
skin surfaces, everywhere; _this_ is followed by sexual excitation
in her genitals, and this is an important fact for both men and
women to understand. Ignorance of this fact has given rise to many
misunderstandings between the sexes, for of course it makes the
woman somewhat slower in reaching the moment when she is ready for
intercourse than the man is. It _must_ be taken into consideration by
both parties to an act of love.
A woman’s genital apparatus is both internal and external. The external
genitalia are called the vulva when they are referred to all together.
The most obvious part of the vulva is the part we called the major (or
sometimes outer) lips, which enfold the rest of the genitalia. If these
lips are parted we see two smaller lips; these are called the minor
lips and have a very high degree of sexual responsiveness. Even in
books for laymen the Latin words are often used for these two organs:
_labia majoris_ and _labia minoris_, which mean, simply enough, the
major lips and the minor lips.
The labia majoris also contain within their folds the rest of the
external genital structure of woman. Here we find the clitoris, the
vestibule, and the urethra, or opening to the bladder.
The clitoris is by far the most important and most widely misunderstood
part of the external genitalia. It lies immediately above the top fold
of the labia minoris and is a little piece of tissue slightly less
thick than a pencil. This organ is enormously important to the whole
psychological and sexual development of the individual woman. It is
often called the “homologue of the male penis,” and this simply means
that in the embryo the cells which form the penis in the male are the
same cells which form the clitoris in the female. Thus the two organs
have the same cellular derivation.
The clitoris, like the male penis, is made up of erectile tissue, and
when a woman is sexually excited it becomes erect in the same manner
that the penis does. It also has a head and a foreskin covering it,
and the head of the clitoris, at least in children and adolescents,
is generally extremely sensitive to stimulation. In the fully mature
female this sensitivity often diminishes, giving way to the vagina as
the primary source of the greatest sexual pleasure. However, many women
who become fully mature sexually maintain much of the original sexual
responsiveness of the clitoris.
The remainder of the external genitalia is contained within the
vestibule. This is the entrance proper to the vagina and is very
susceptible to sexual excitation. The vestibule lies between the minor
lips and is directly beneath the clitoris. It contains the hymen, the
urethral opening, and the openings of the glands of Bartholin.
The hymen is generally referred to as the maidenhead. It is a thin
membrane which partly covers the entrance to the vagina. There is no
direct sexual sensation on the hymen, and sometimes pain is experienced
when it is perforated, usually during the first intercourse, although
the hymen can be broken by an accident in childhood, through the
insertion of surgical instruments, etc. Because of the pain associated
with its perforation and the stories that a young girl often hears
about this pain, it can be a source of much anxiety to her and
condition her attitude toward sex in general.
The glands of Bartholin are of great importance to the act of love.
These glands discharge a thin colorless mucus in sexual excitation,
and this lubricates the vaginal opening and canal during intercourse.
The amount of secretion varies greatly with each individual. Sexual
frigidity often affects these glands adversely, causing the secretions
to be inadequate or nonexistent. However, the amount of secretion will
also vary rather dramatically at times in the individual who has no
basic sexual blocking, and therefore the glands of Bartholin cannot be
taken as a final criterion of sexual adequacy or inadequacy.
And now we come to the most important part of a woman’s anatomical
sexual equipment: the vagina. This is a passageway of some three to
three and a half inches which extends from the vestibule on the outside
of the cervix, which is the bottom end of the uterus. The vagina is,
of course, the canal which accepts the penis, and it may interest you
to know that in Latin the word literally means “a sheath for a sword.”
The sexual act in its purest form expresses the essential passivity
associated with women and the aggressiveness of the male, the actor and
the acted upon. The Romans understood this basic difference at least
linguistically.
It may have surprised you to learn of the relatively short length of
the vagina. The tissue of its walls are extremely elastic, however, and
not only can it contain a penis of virtually any thickness or length,
but it can stretch enough to allow the newborn infant to pass through
it. The penis presses against the cervical end of the uterus, which may
be forced upward until the penis gains full entrance. Contact with the
soft tissue of the cervix is a source of great pleasure for the male,
and the pressure can be an equal pleasure for the woman.
The vaginal walls are lined with a soft skin, not unlike mucous
membrane, but it does not secrete as mucous tissue will. A secretion
is, however, released from the cervix, and this also helps to lubricate
the vaginal canal during intercourse.
I have said that the vagina is the most important part of a woman’s
sexual equipment. This is so because it is within the vagina that the
orgasm of the truly mature woman takes place. Upon it and within it she
receives the greatest sensual pleasure that it is possible for a woman
to experience.
And this brings us to the subject of orgasm. I think you will
understand it more fully if I describe it in the context of the sexual
experience as a whole.
The sexual instinct in both men and women is marvelously complex. When
it is unencumbered by neurosis it gives color, shape, brightness,
charm, vividness, and direction to the entire personality, and the
mechanisms by which it operates encompass both body and mind.
Desire can be set off in a woman either in response to a touch or by
some act, sight, or thought which she has been exposed to. One of the
chief things to which a woman responds is a cumulative tenderness
expressed in words or in acts.
Whatever the stimulus, however, the brain receives the signal and,
through the nervous system, sends out preparatory reactions throughout
the body. The response of men to stimuli perceived by the brain as
sexual is amazingly fast; some men arrive at full sexual preparedness
for intercourse within three seconds--that is, their penis becomes
fully erect and ready to enter the vagina within that time. Women
react, on the whole, somewhat more slowly, though full preparation for
intercourse, under the best of conditions, is often only a matter of a
few more seconds than the man’s.
As the sexual excitement increases, tremendous changes go on throughout
the body, changes that might frighten you if they occurred under other
circumstances.
The pulse rate goes up astonishingly. There are records of its reaching
150 and more as the individual approaches and then reaches the sexual
climax. Such pulse rates generally occur, in health, only in athletes
who are performing prodigious tasks of speed or endurance.
The blood pressure, too, goes up precipitately. In a matter of a few
seconds it can rise well over 100 points. Breathing also becomes much
deeper and swifter. With the approach of orgasm the breathing becomes
interrupted; inspiration comes in forced gasps and expiration occurs
with a heavy collapse of the lungs. It is as though the sexually
excited person had been in a race.
As the sexual act continues there is a general shortage of oxygen
throughout the body, which accounts for the unusual breathing. This
gives rise to a tortured expression on the face, as if the person
were undergoing severe pain. This fact has been observed by Kinsey in
his famous study of female sexuality, and I quote here an interesting
paragraph on the phenomenon:
“ … Prostitutes who attempt to deceive (jive) their patrons, or
unresponsive wives who similarly attempt to make their husbands believe
that they are enjoying coitus, fall into an error because they assume
that an erotically aroused person should look happy and pleased and
should smile and become increasingly alert as he or she approaches the
culmination of the act. On the contrary, an individual who is really
responding is as incapable of looking happy as the individual who is
being tortured.”
Within seconds after sexual arousal the blood supply in the veins and
arteries lying close to the skin increases, causing the body to become
flushed and the temperature to rise slightly. Certain areas of the body
are engorged with this blood, become swollen and erect, notably the
penis of the man, which swells, often to twice its size. In women, this
also happens to the clitoris, which becomes firm, and to the nipples
of both sexes. The firmness of these organs increases as the sexual
climax approaches.
Muscles throughout the body begin to tense at the onset of sexual
excitement, and this tension increases as the excitement grows.
Certain glands and tissues also increase their secretions as the
sexual act commences and moves closer to completion. The salivary
glands and the nasal mucosa flow freely, and it is this latter fact
which causes, in conjunction with the engorgement of the surface blood
vessels, the characteristic nasal stuffiness so many people notice
after intercourse. In some women the secretions of the glands of
Bartholin and the mucus from the cervix of the uterus become amazingly
copious as sexual excitement rises, and particularly during orgasm
itself. This profuse flow may have given rise to the widely held and
entirely mistaken idea I have mentioned--that in orgasm women have an
ejaculation similar to the male’s. There is no such ejaculation--nor
indeed any female organ that could make one possible.
One of the most amazing aspects of sexual intercourse is the fact
that all five senses become extremely dulled as the act increases in
intensity. The ability to feel hot and cold, to feel pain, or to hear
sounds becomes almost nonexistent. The eyes take on a characteristic
trance-like stare, and vision becomes constricted. The entire mind and
body are concentrated fully on the mounting sexual feeling and exclude
all else. In orgasm itself the anesthesia of the senses is almost
total. Indeed many people experience a temporary loss of consciousness
for a matter of seconds. Some, according to Kinsey’s findings, remain
unconscious for two or more minutes.
This last fact brings us to our examination of the experience of orgasm
itself. If you are to understand frigidity in women it is of tremendous
importance to grasp the nature of orgasm and what it means physically
and psychologically. The importance of such understanding is due, of
course, to the fact that orgasm, of the type described here, is the
very thing the frigid woman is unable to have. In fact, its absence
from her experience is the usual definition of frigidity. Certain
kinds of frigid women may experience one, two, or all of the physical
and psychological reactions described above, which normally would
terminate with orgasm. But the final experience eludes them; at the
vital juncture the body, despite an agonizing need to come to a climax,
refuses to respond; it draws back, goes dead.
Orgasm is the physiological response which brings sexual intercourse
to its natural and beautiful termination. It is preceded by a very
dramatic increase in all of the phenomena noted above. In the moment
just preceding orgasm, muscular tension suddenly rises to the point
where, if the sexual instinct were not in operation, it would become
physically unendurable. The pelvic motions of the man and the movement
of the penis back and forth within the vagina increase in speed and
in intensity of thrust. The woman’s pelvic movements also increase,
and her whole body attempts with every move to heighten the exquisite
sensations she is experiencing within her vagina. According to many
women with whom I have discussed this experience, the greatest pleasure
is caused by the sensation of fullness within the vagina and the
pressure and friction upon its posterior surface.
At the moment of greatest muscular tension all sensations seem to take
one further rise upward. The woman tenses beyond the point where, it
seems, it would be possible to maintain such tension for a moment
longer. And indeed it is not possible, and now her whole body suddenly
plunges into a series of muscular spasms. These spasms take place
within the vagina itself, shaking the body with waves of pleasure. They
are felt simultaneously throughout the body: in the torso, face, arms,
and legs--down to the very soles of the feet.
These spasms, which shake the entire body and converge upon the vagina,
represent and define true orgasm. At this moment the woman’s head is
thrown back and her pelvis tips upward in an attempt to obtain as
much penetration from the penis as is possible. The spasms continue
for several seconds in most women, though the time varies with every
individual, and in some women they may continue though with decreasing
intensity, for a minute or even more.
Many women can repeat this performance two or more times before
their partner has his orgasm. The pathway, neurologically and
psychologically, has been set for orgasm and, if her partner continues
she can respond. I have had women report that the last orgasm is
sometimes more intense and satisfying than the first.
If the woman is satisfied by her orgasmic experience she will discharge
the neurological and muscular tension developed in the sexual build-up.
When satisfaction has been achieved, her strenuous movements cease
and within a short period blood pressure, pulse, glandular secretion,
muscular tension, and all the other gross physical changes which
characterize sexual excitement return to normal, or even to subnormal,
limits.
There have been detailed studies made of the physical reactions of both
men and women during intercourse. I think it is important to realize
that in almost every detail, including orgasm, these reactions and the
subjective experience of pleasure parallel each other in the sexes. The
major differences are that the woman is slightly slower to respond at
the outset than the man, and the orgasm of the man is characterized by
the ejaculation of sperm into the vagina.
Full sexual satisfaction is followed by a state of utter calm. The
body feels absolutely quiescent. Psychologically the person feels
completely satisfied, at peace with the world and all things in it. The
woman in particular feels extremely loving toward the partner who has
given her so much joy, such a transport of ecstasy. Often she wishes to
hold him close for a while, to linger tenderly in the now subdued glow
of their passion.
As you can see from this description, orgasm is a tremendous
experience. There is no physiological or psychological experience that
parallels its sweeping intensity or its excruciating pleasure. It is
unique.
There are many who take a mystical view of this ecstatic coupling of
man and woman in love. They think of it as a symbol of a lost unity
between the sexes that strives to reassert itself in the act of love.
Others see in it a foretaste of heaven, the carnal representation of
endless spiritual delights for mankind. Many who are able to experience
orgasm in intercourse find it difficult not to ascribe some purposive
intent on the part of the Creator; the experience is that profound.
The individual perceives orgasm as a reward equal to none. It puts the
sacrifices and compromises necessary to an enduring marriage into their
proper perspectives, makes the constant giving done by the woman seem
not only worth while but highly desirable. It is the strongest link in
the unbreakable bond between two who love.
Do you recall Tennessee Williams’ play _A Streetcar Named Desire_?
In one of its most famous passages the frigid (and promiscuous)
older woman attempts to break up the marriage of her younger sister,
appealing to a spurious pride of class, pointing out that the younger
woman has married beneath her, married a beer-drinking, poker-playing
common day laborer. The younger woman is almost convinced that she
should act on the false values of her sister. After all, these values
had been inculcated in both women by the same parents and they went
deep. The young girl’s husband saves her, however; he simply reminds
her of the pinwheels she sees, of the high music of the bells she
hears when they embrace in love. It is enough. She returns to him
without a word. The bond of their wonderful sexual life is unbreakable,
far stronger than the powerful and subtle assault the envious and
destructive sister can make upon the marriage.
The ability to have a full orgasm is, in most cases, the hallmark
of the psychologically mature woman. It is the sign that she has
successfully weathered the storms of childhood and youth and come,
unscathed, into full womanhood, with all that it implies.
_Chapter 3_
THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHE
What _is_ the mature woman? Who is she? What are her characteristics?
Her personality? Her role in life?
It is of vital importance to an understanding of the frigid woman to
answer these questions, for again, only by understanding what health
is, can we truly grasp the meaning of any departure from it.
There have been great arguments about what the word “normal” means.
Millions of words have been written about it. I fear that most of them
have only clouded the issue. Odd definitions of normalcy have led
millions of women down very odd and unhappy paths. You will recall, for
example, that Victorianism elevated frigidity to the position of the
norm for all womankind--with disastrous results.
At the start of my practice I encountered another strange and tragic
view of the normal that has had a powerful influence on American women.
This view, which we will encounter in more detail when the feminist
movement is discussed later, still has wide repercussions and is
intimately bound with the subject of frigidity and divorce.
In my introduction to it a lovely woman of forty came to consult
me. She was deeply disturbed and could hardly speak, she wept so.
Somehow I felt at once that there was a deep rage behind those
tears. I recognized her name when she was able to get it out; she
was a successful lawyer whose name many would still recognize in all
probability.
In her thirty-ninth year she had fallen in love for the first time with
a fine man, another successful lawyer. Her dormant sexuality and true
femininity had been awakened completely in her since their marriage
a year before, and they both now wanted children badly. However, a
physical examination had indicated (as unhappily it so often seems to
do for women who postpone their first pregnancy for too long), that she
would have to have a hysterectomy, for she had developed a tumor in the
wall of her uterus.
She felt cruelly deprived, and I saw her for several sessions. During
these periods she told me of her background. Her father had died
when she was an infant and her mother had been a militant leader of
the movement for women’s “rights.” The whole emphasis in her early
upbringing had been on achievement in the male world, and in the male
sense of the word. She had been taught to be competitive with men, to
look upon them as basically inimical to women. Women were portrayed as
an exploited and badly put upon minority class. Marriage, childbearing,
and love were traps that placed one in the hands of the enemy, man,
whose chief desire was to enslave woman. Her mother had profoundly
inculcated in her the belief that women were to work in the market
place at all cost, to be aggressive, to take love (à la Russe) where
they found it, and to be tied down by nothing, no one; no more, as her
mother put it, than a man is.
Such a definition of the normal had, of course, made her fearful of
a real or deep or enduring relationship with a man. For years she
sedulously avoided men entirely. Gradually, through her grown-up
experiences, she learned of other values, but by the time the right
man came along it was too late to have children.
I was right that her tears had been tears of rage. They were directed
at her mother’s authoritarian but totally mistaken view of the feminine
role in life and were, to my mind, justified. When she had sufficiently
vented her righteous anger, but not until then, we were able to move on
to more practical matters. Her marriage was a happy one, and finally
she adopted two children. With some of her values revised she made a
wonderful mother for them. I visited this family only recently, and
it seems to be one of the happiest and healthiest, psychologically
speaking, I have ever seen.
Most women who have been reared with such ideas of what is normal
are not so fortunate, however. They cling to their defensive and
self-destructive values to the end, which is often bitter.
And there are, still, passionately convinced and often eloquent
purveyors of these ideas. After reading the brilliant best seller,
_The Second Sex_, by Simone de Beauvoir, the French authoress, I was
saddened to see such clarity and brilliance in the service of such a
mistaken cause. Her tacit conclusions seem to be that woman’s historic
role of wife and mother are degrading to our sex, have kept woman from
her true destiny. As she describes what that true destiny is, however,
her clarity departs, and the role and function of this woman of the
future become more than merely vague. Their foggy contours remind me of
the glamorous-sounding but totally evanescent and mist-enshrouded goals
that many of the frigid and lonely women I treat have when they first
come for help.
There is _no_ vagueness about the goals, functions, and needs of the
normal woman. Science in recent years has thrown a bright light on
her, and that is why we can be certain of many fundamental details
about her. She is a mature, fully functioning woman, a woman who
has realized the better part of her potentialities, who knows how to
achieve and handle love and happiness, who has won through to a fully
satisfying mental and sexual life.
I very frequently draw a word portrait of such a woman for patients
who come to consult me about their sexual problem. It often makes them
angry, and they deeply resent some of the characteristics of this
idealized woman. They call her all sorts of names: “a victim of the
male,” “an impossible ideal.” One eloquent younger woman called her “a
faceless tramp,” and I have heard older women, brought up under a more
inhibited code than exists now, call her “a shameless hussy.”
And yet despite the hostility that my portrait is often greeted with
there is soon other evidence in my troubled listeners that they have
been touched deeply by the idea that such a picture of womanhood might
conceivably be a possibility for them. “Do you really think I could
ever get to be anything like that?” The yearning question, phrased in
any number of wistful ways, will inevitably come, despite the obvious
hostility, the bristling defenses, the fact that the speaker is scared
blue of sex and motherhood and all they mean.
You see, women want to find themselves, desperately want to. And in
this portrait they get a hint, often the first they have ever had, of
what to aim for, of the real potential inside themselves.
I call this subject of my sketch “idealized,” and she is. But I want to
emphasize that she is not a personal idle daydream of my own, based on
airy nothingness; very much the contrary. Her characteristics are based
on exact and thoroughly checked psychological and biological facts,
facts upon which the leading scientists in this field are in general
agreement. And she is a composite based on observations of women I
have known, and not always clinically. If you stop to think as you read
about her, you may realize that you have known such women too.
What, then, is she like? First of all to give us a frame for our
portrait so that we can see what we _do_ know more clearly, let me
state what we cannot know about her; what, in fact, is irrelevant.
We don’t know what she looks like. She may be tall or short,
red-haired, blond, or brunette. She may have large breasts and round
hips and sloping shoulders, or she may be small-breasted (or even
flat-chested), have wide shoulders and narrow hips. She may have a
career or not have a career, be more intelligent and better educated
than her husband or less intelligent and less well educated. She may
have children or be unable to have children. She may be rich or poor,
come from the “400” or from the slums. She may be a bit shy or quite at
ease socially. She may be athletic or totally unathletic. These things
we don’t know about her and, for our purposes, they do not matter.
Here are some of the things we do know.
In the first place, she is very much “at home” in the world. Deep
inside herself she feels profoundly secure, safe, both with herself and
with her husband. She is very, very glad to be a woman, with all the
duties, responsibilities, and joys it entails. She can’t imagine what
it would be like to be a man and has no interest in imagining it as a
possible role for herself. She feels that the very existence of her
husband makes the world safe for her.
This feeling may seem unrealistic, in view of the very clear
insecurities in the world today. As you will discover, however, it is
based on a far deeper understanding of reality, on a far deeper reality
than the one reflected in the alarums published in the daily newspaper.
This sense of reality almost invariably leads her to select a husband
who is good for her, often near perfect, in fact. He might not be
perfect for another woman, nor perfect in any ultimate sense, but he
is near perfect for _her_. He loves her and intends to go on loving
her. He may be a carpenter or an architect, a lawyer, a dock hand, or a
poet, but he, with her, is passionate and loyal, a good companion and
a good father for her children. She has an infallible sense about this
matter, and though she may have had an adolescent or college crush on a
no-gooder, she simply never will marry him.
Of course marrying a good husband adds to her sense of “at-homeness”
in the world. Related to this feeling in her, to her sense of
security, seeming almost to spring from it, indeed, is a profound
delight in giving to those she loves. Psychiatrists, who consider this
characteristic the hallmark, the _sine qua non_, of the truly feminine
character, have a name for it: they call it “essential feminine
altruism.”
As you will see, it too has its roots in woman’s biology, is, on its
deepest level, a need in her that must have expression. The finest
flower of this altruism blossoms in her joy in giving _the very best
of herself_ to her husband and to her children. She never resents this
need in herself to give; she never interprets its manifestations as
a burden to her, an imposition on her. It pervades her nature as the
color green pervades the countryside in the spring, and she is proud of
it and delights in it.
It is this altruism, this givingness, that motivates her to keep her
equilibrium, to hold onto her _joie de vivre_ despite whatever may
befall. It stands her in marvelous stead for all the demands that life
is going to make on her--and they will be considerable. When a woman
does not have this instinctually based altruism available to her, or
when she denies that it is a desirable trait, life’s continuous small
misfortunes leave her in a glowering rage, helpless and beside herself
with self-pity.
Another fact about her which you may be surprised to learn is that
she is deeply religious--though not officially or even consciously.
In fact, if her husband’s background has been antagonistic to formal
religion and he is still reflecting his background, she may pay lip
service to his agnosticism or even atheism. But that doesn’t mean a
thing. Just beneath the surface is an absolutely firm belief in the
existence of a Creator and in some form of heaven. She’s not so clear
about hell.
She also believes firmly in the fact that marriage is a sacrament,
binding forever. Given the slightest encouragement or support, she
will formalize these beliefs, join a church or develop a kind of
personal pantheism. Why? Biologically speaking, she is the carrier
of immortality, of the generations of man. This gives her a close
affinity to and appreciation of the awesome and creative mysteries of
the universe: moonrise, tidal flow, the growth, death, and rebirth of
things.
Sexually she almost always reaches a climax during the act of love.
Sometimes she reaches two or, if she and her husband are feeling
particularly lusty, even three. But the number of times is unimportant,
despite the Kinsey report.
What _is_ important is the _kind_ of orgasm she has. It is of the kind
described in the previous chapter, of course; the kind that starts deep
within her vagina and extends to all parts of her body. She doesn’t
talk about it very often, but when she does it is always poetically.
I have heard one woman refer to it as “a sensation of such beauty
and intensity that I can hardly think of it without weeping”; of it
another said, “It’s like a mounting symphony, rising in tremendous and
irresistible rhythms till your whole being feels as though it has been
swept away.” One woman, less lyrical but still exact, said, “It’s like
going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.” Nobody can ever _quite_ evoke
the exact sensations in words, but, as one woman told me, “Nobody who
has ever had it will doubt whether her experience is the real thing.”
What else characterizes her sexually? Well, she’s not very modest, I’m
afraid. In fact, she’s quite a show-off and likes sexual compliments
from her husband, dressed or undressed, verbal or otherwise. Her
nineteenth-century sister would have been vastly shocked by her whole
attitude in the bedroom.
She’s not sexually shy at all. She wouldn’t demur a moment at
initiating love with her husband, though she will immediately change
her amorous direction if she finds he is too tired or is preoccupied,
without feeling the least bit rejected. Don’t forget that, for one
thing, just under the surface (and sometimes on it) she considers her
marriage a heaven-made arrangement that is going to last forever, and
she need not look upon any one experience as too important in itself.
However, there is another very important point. I have indicated that
sexually she takes her cue from her husband. What does she know, do you
suppose--know deeply and instinctively--that makes her do this, while
other women refuse to?
She knows this: that it is the man who, from the purely physical
viewpoint, has to be ready before sexual intercourse can take place.
No matter how many books have been written that ignore the fact, it
is nevertheless true that, if the man does not have an erection,
love-making cannot take place.
Just think about it for a moment. A woman _can_ make love at any time;
a man only when he is ready. There may be psychologically preferential
circumstances for a woman, but there is no physical prerequisite.
That is why (by virtue of that deeper sense of reality we spoke of)
when her husband is ready to make love our lady is nearly always
willing, barring sickness or certain difficulties that may come up
during pregnancy. And that is why she is always willing to forgo
love-making if he is not ready. Her deep altruism makes her extremely
sensitive to his moods, and she will not find it in herself to treat
him as if he were a robot, become angry or feel rejected when, if the
button is pushed, he doesn’t respond.
On this same point: she knows how much store men put on their potency,
how vulnerable they can become if they are made to feel inadequate to
the needs of a wife. She would die a thousand deaths rather than have
her husband gain any such inference from her actions. It’s her altruism
again.
Her eternal acquiescence, her ever-readiness, never lets her in for a
painful sexual experience, however. She knows that ninety-nine times
out of one hundred even negative sexual feelings in herself will soon
turn to eagerness, and eagerness to desire. And even if that once in
a hundred times occurs, she will still get a profound satisfaction
from the pleasure she is able to give her husband, the very obvious
pleasure. Once more that deep altruism.
But she not only takes the lead from him about _whether_ they are
going to make love--the _kind_ of love they are going to make is also
usually his decision and, in pure delight, she follows him completely.
If he feels purely lusty, soon she does too; does he feel gentle and
tender, then she picks up that mood. Experimental? Let’s, by all means,
experiment. Passive? She’ll be active. It takes her little time to find
out that a geisha has the tremendous disadvantage of believing that
techniques are more important than love and the love of following one’s
partner.
Despite her very pronounced wantonness with her husband, however, she
has no promiscuous urges whatsoever. She is realistic about other men
and finds them attractive or unattractive, as the case may be. But she
neither desires them nor has any fantasies of a sexual nature about
them. One woman put it this way to me: “I like other men if they’re
attractive,” she said. “Their attractiveness does honor to the sex my
husband belongs to.”
Nor is she ever tempted to indulge in self-masturbation, at least not
after one or two tasteless and pointless experiments she may make
during her first absence from her husband. To her, sexuality is devoid
of any meaning whatsoever if there is not mutuality, if it is not
shared.
Lest you think that our paragon’s altruism could end up by making her a
martyr, a person without any real regard for herself, I must hasten to
nip that idea in the bud. In her quiet way she is quite self-centered.
In the first place, she’s contented with all aspects of her body, all
the details of a female anatomy that gives her so much pleasure. If in
her cultural background there were influences which tended to inculcate
disgust with certain natural functions, she finds herself rejecting
them. For example, I have had several patients who, during the course
of their therapy and as they found a new maturity developing in them,
find themselves ruminating on the word “curse” as it is used to
describe the menstrual flow. Reflection almost always makes them drop
the word from their vocabulary entirely. In the end they are far more
likely to call it a blessing.
This self-love, her pride in and love of her body, is reflected in
her outward appearance. She likes to be as clean as a cat and as neat
as a pin. She enjoys dressing well. She is very aware of the things
that bring out her special attractiveness. She also knows how to make
herself up to the very best advantage. But she does not spend hours
daily on her toilet in front of the mirror. She is far too confident
of herself, has too much self-love, to feel that such a production is
necessary.
Here’s the way I’d put it. She accepts and is pleased with the way she
is and the way, as time passes, she is going to be. This is true of her
mental capacities as well as of her physical attributes, but we can see
it most clearly in her attitude toward her physical self. As I said at
the beginning, we don’t know whether she has small breasts or large
breasts, rounded hips or narrow hips. We only know that, whatever she’s
got, she enjoys.
You see, she knows perfectly well that it is passion and response which
spin the plot of love and not, ever, fetish or fashion. She really
feels sorry for women who worry about what they haven’t got or the
effect of growing older. If she were small-breasted she would never
disguise that fact, and you can be certain that her husband, at least
after the relationship had got under way and he’d had a chance to
experience her pleasures, would soon drop any adolescent predilections
he had imagined he possessed.
The husband of one such woman said to me: “When I was in college I had
a conviction that really beautiful women had to be redheads. I can’t
imagine now _what_ made me believe such a thing.” I know his wife well;
she’s a brunette, and you and I might not be the least bit impressed by
her looks. But he knows better; he knows her real beauty. And, I happen
to know, so does she.
The confidence and pleasure our fair lady has in her person and in her
other attributes (her self-love) have one very odd quality. And it is
an all-important one. This self-love is _detachable_.
With a flick of her psyche she can project practically all of it onto
her children, take as much joy from their beauty, achievements, and
pleasures as she ever got from her own. She detaches it, too, on behalf
of her husband, often will exaggerate his good qualities and minimize
any weakness he might have, as long as the weakness is not a danger to
family and home.
Her detachable self-love and her need to give unrestrainedly are
two chief components of the maternal instinct. To put it mildly, as
perhaps you have noticed, she is pervaded with this instinct. To her
the fulfillment of it is the most central and all-important function
of her life. It colors and deepens and enriches her sexual life with
her husband. Her unconscious fantasy with every intercourse is that
he might make her with child, and her psychological and biological
gratitude to him for this richest of all potential gifts is boundless.
Her fantasies about becoming pregnant may excite her directly.
I have paid particular attention to this connection between the sexual
instinct and the maternal instinct in many patients of mine who have
come to therapy because they were afraid of childbirth. When they have
been able to rid themselves of such fears they are almost always struck
by the new dimension that is added to their sexual life. The things
they say about it are often poetic or even mystical.
One woman, who because of childhood experiences had been scared
to death of bearing a child and whose fear was causing a partial
frigidity, said to me of her new sexual experience: “I was living in
one room of a whole mansion, and now I have the whole mansion for my
own.” Another woman, who had believed her love life complete despite
her deep fear of pregnancy, said of the change in her feelings during
love-making: “Oh, it was fun before, but now the idea that I might
become pregnant makes me feel at one with the whole universe. It’s
strange. There are almost no words to express it.”
Our ideal woman carries this characteristic feeling of a deep
identification with nature, with all things that grow and bud and
blossom, through her pregnancy and long thereafter. Childbirth had no
real terrors for her; she sails through it proudly, like a clipper made
especially for such weather.
And she usually wants to nurse her child at her breast. She does, too,
unless a breast abscess or some other unforeseen difficulty arises.
And, though I have no statistics to prove it, I would bet that her milk
is both plentiful and good.
I know that today there is a tremendous emphasis on the importance
of careers for women, but I am afraid that our mature woman cannot
get terribly excited about the subject. I don’t mean that she’s
antagonistic to this whole modern movement. She may be a career woman
herself, a nurse, a doctor, a lawyer, a fashion designer, whatever. But
now, happily married and with children in the offing or already here,
she can’t feel that its of central importance. If it’s necessary for
the family welfare she will keep her job, but any drive she had after
high school or college to go far in it is sacrificed, if necessary, to
her love-making and homemaking instincts.
She is not the least bit jealous of her husband’s work. As I pointed
out earlier, she may be smarter than her husband or may basically
have a much higher intelligence quotient, or she may be far more
thoroughly educated than he is. Or she may be highly talented in some
art form--writing, music, painting, sculpture. You will never, however,
hear her complain that she gave up a career for her family, or angrily
envy the daily adventures of her man in the market place. Her joy and
satisfaction in the fulfillment of her own biological destiny make all
other personal achievements pale for her, any other considerable use
for her energies almost a waste.
As she grows older and her family grows up and the children learn to
stand on their own feet and use their own wings, she may return to
work. However, even then, interest in her now-grown children and their
children will be far greater than any she can summon up for her job.
As you might expect, our paragon ages very gracefully. Those sure
instincts which led her to successful love in marriage and to success
in rearing her children stand her in good stead now. She still loves
to give, and she perceives the right time to give her children up,
to let them stand on their own, learn the difficult uses of freedom.
Admittedly this is a great sacrifice for a mother, but she is deeply
pleased to make it. And in doing so without fuss or feathers, she wins
her children’s regard and love forever.
I am very pleased to say that the menopause brings no diminution in her
ability to enjoy her husband sexually. Contrary to what many people
still think, her orgasm does not decrease in intensity or in kind.
Increasing age and the absence of children in the home now bring her
and her husband closer together again and, great companions, they
develop a whole series of shared pleasures consistent with their years.
As she goes down into the other side of her middle years, she is not
troubled with regrets for things left undone. She has a deep sense
of fulfillment, of life lived rightly. And, whether she has become
consciously religious or not, she is still, basically, a believer in
immortality, for she has served it with her whole being. She looks on
death totally unafraid, wondering perhaps what the Creator who has made
her life such a marvel is like on an even closer view.
* * * * *
This, then, is the idealized picture of the truly feminine woman. While
granting that the plane of maturity she has achieved is rather too
exalted for most women to attain, I have given her to you for some very
concrete reasons.
With merely this ideal to follow, I have seen many women reap immediate
rewards some time before they were able to come to grips with their
frigidity per se. The characteristics and neurotic goals that accompany
frigidity often cause obvious domestic frictions that can be greatly
reduced when the woman begins to see new horizons for herself--that
she need not be blaming others. Her grateful husband will reward her
at once for her change, with renewed affection and tenderness, a new
solicitude, a new caring.
Our idealized portrait can help you, too, to grasp more thoroughly the
rest of this book. We have found, in psychiatry, that when a goal has
been clearly defined half the battle has been won. As we come now to
the chapters on frigidity, its history, its whys and wherefores, kinds
and causes and cures, you will have before you a picture of what the
potentialities of women are, a landmark to show you how far our sex can
stray from real femininity, a guide to keep you from confusion, from
ever subscribing again to false and destructive ideas of what it is
that constitutes real womanhood.