The Power of Sexual SurrenderRobinson, Marie Nyswander
Science
The Power of Sexual Surrender
Robinson, Marie Nyswander
Frigidity (Psychology); Sex (Psychology); Women -- Sexual behavior
This unconscious anger at her frustration may also cause her to quarrel
with her husband or to take out her rage on the children.
I should like to emphasize that she usually does not see any connection
between these symptoms and her frustrated sexual experiences. When her
anger at her frustration does become conscious, she usually blames her
husband for her lack of satisfaction. As I have pointed out, he is
rarely to blame.
Purely physical symptoms not connected with repressed anger may also
follow upon sexual excitement which has not been released through
orgasm. These are somatic and can probably be traced to undischarged
neuromuscular and glandular energy. Such symptoms include low back
pain, general restlessness, and very often acute insomnia. Several of
my patients have complained of severe vaginal pains which have lasted
several hours. Gynecologists report that abdominal cramps, probably
emanating from contractions of the uterus, are frequent.
As you can see from this recital of symptoms and my preliminary
descriptions of personality disorders, women may pay a very high price
for their frigidity. If the condition were relatively rare, we could
take some comfort from _that_ fact at least.
But frigidity is not rare; it is one of the commonest and most serious
chronic ailments that beset society today. Conservative estimates
indicate that 40 per cent of all American women suffer from some degree
or kind of sexual frigidity. No other public health or social problem
of our time even approaches this magnitude.
* * * * *
I have now told you about the degrees and psychological consequences of
frigidity and described one basic type. There are, however, two other
types of frigidity which, because they have certain confusing elements
in them, I have reserved until now to explain. Psychologically and
sexually both of these types seem to run counter to the generalities I
have made about frigidity so far.
The first type, though we consider her definitely frigid in the wide
sense of the word, is able to have full and complete orgasm practically
every time she has intercourse. This is really quite an astonishing
fact, considering the usual close connection between personality and
sexuality. Actually one could not distinguish in any way the sexual
reaction of this type from that of the perfectly normal woman described
in Chapter 3.
However, this kind of woman is totally unable to build a relationship
with any man. For that reason she generally becomes, in the end,
sexually promiscuous. Somehow and somewhere along the line a wedge
has been driven between her sexuality and her ability to relate
psychologically in a love relationship. Her sexuality has come to
apparent maturity while her character has remained infantile. We call
this psychic frigidity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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