A man married to any woman who is in better control of herself than he is of himself is married to (but not mated with) a woman who is to him a prostitute by whatsoever proportion of control she exercises over herself more than he does over himself or over her. This is true both of the negative control of repression on her part and of the positive control of expression. For evidently if her repressive control makes her cold to his advances she is of the common prostitute type as far as he is concerned. He evokes no more real response from her than from the casual woman of the street. However much simulated responsiveness the prostitute may show, he knows unconsciously its unreality, and feels proportionately disgusted. In the wife who is cold because of environmental influences in her youth which the husband has not removed by his wholesome treatment of her, the objective result is the same as in the prostitute who is unresponsive from indifference or fear, or from the repression referred to. § 68 Quite as obviously if the wife shows a greater control over the erotic situation than the husband, a control through expression, he will be unconsciously repelled by this unnatural factor in the situation, no matter how much pleased he may be consciously by the rich, warm femininity he has discovered in her. It is this positive or expressive control of the erotic factor which gives to some women the reputation of being designing, gives them the appearance of being more erotic than the husband or lover, and in some instances repels the man. The possibility of greater erotic control on the part of the woman than the man possesses should be a provoking thought to all husbands who are overhasty in their handling of the love episode. Any husband controls his wife erotically, if he actually does, only by means of controlling himself. At minimum his control of himself is just enough to secure his wife’s erotic acme preceding or at least synchronizing with his own. That is the one and only way by which he can attain and maintain marital success. § 69 The love drama is the term that applies to the relations of one man and one woman for the time when they devote themselves to each other. It may be an hour or a lifetime, but the hour-long period surely is a pitiful experience, a one-act farce, compared with the grandeur of the lifelong relation. A man who thinks he prefers a succession of short periods with different women condemns himself unnecessarily to a course of action which resembles the career of a tea-tester. He may become a connoisseur in various flavours but he cannot learn much about women. He is a narrow specialist with really no wide knowledge. Moreover such a man almost never tests his own effect on women, but merely the different effects of women on himself; and is therefore merely autoerotic, merely playing with himself; and his various instruments are virtually impersonal. § 70