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.