Patricia, of course, represents frigidity in its most extreme form, the type in which there is almost a total lack of sexual feeling. To clarify this subject, recall our frigidity scale. On this scale total frigidity would needle around zero. A woman at the opposite end of this scale would experience a great deal of sexual excitement before and during intercourse but would be unable to have orgasm, or her orgasm would be so weak and unsatisfying that it would leave her very consciously unsatisfied. (Normalcy, of course, is a more or less absolute state and could not be described in terms of degrees.) We rate her near or at 100 on the frigidity scale, meaning she is close to normalcy. In between these two extremes there is every possible degree of sexual blocking. Women who suffer from some degree of frigidity (rather than from a type of frigidity, such as our “masculine type”) have personality problems similar to Patricia’s. These problems become milder as they go up the scale toward normalcy. The underlying structure of their problem is also similar to Patricia’s--it is based on a too strong and too early attachment to their fathers. This early attachment has survived into adulthood and, depending largely on its original strength, causes a greater or lesser degree of sexual and interpersonal problems in marriage. But as we go up the scale toward greater sexual responsiveness the difference in degree seems almost to become a difference in kind. From roughly the middle of the scale upward, the essential sexual problem has little to do with withdrawnness or unbridled or unrelenting hostility toward one’s mate, or a feeling of being exploited sexually. It is far more closely connected with direct sexual frustration, with a kind of Tantalus-like feeling that one is terribly close to one’s goal but cannot quite achieve it. Here is an example of what I mean. I shall call this patient Joan. She was twenty-eight years old when she came to me, a pretty woman with an upturned nose, a generally insouciant manner, and a pleased-with-life smile. She had been married two years, she told me, and came directly to her problem. During intercourse she would become tremendously excited most of the time. It took little to stimulate her, and as the intercourse continued she would maintain her high level of excitement. But on most occasions, no matter how long the love-making continued, she would reach no climax at all. She was left with a frustrated, almost frantic feeling.