Chapter 17SEXUAL SURRENDER
The ability to achieve normal orgasm can be called the physical counterpart of psychological surrender. In most cases of true frigidity it follows on a woman’s surrender of her rebellious and infantile attitudes as the day the night. It is the sign that she has given up the last vestige of resistance to her nature and has embraced womanhood with soulandbody.
The achievement of orgasm, usually, is thelaststep in the process of growing up. If one reviews in one’s mind the actual orgastic experience it is not difficult to see why this is so.
For a woman orgasm requires a trust in one’s partner that is absolute. Recall for a moment that the physical experience is often so profound that it entails the loss of consciousness for a period of time. As we know, in sexual intercourse, as in life, man is the actor, woman the passive one, the receiver, the acted upon. Giving oneself up in this passive manner to another human being, making oneself his willing partner to such seismic physical experiences, means one must have complete faith in the other person. In the sexualembrace any trace of buried hostility, fear of one’s role, will show clearly and unmistakably.
But there is even more to the psychic state necessary for orgasm than faith in one’s partner and readiness to surrender. There must be a sensual eagerness to surrender, in the woman’s orgasmthe excitement comes from the act of surrender. There is a tremendous surging physical ecstasy in the yielding itself, in the feeling of being the passive instrument of another person, of being stretched out supinely beneath him, taken up will-lessly by his passion as leaves are swept up before a wind.
There can, it is clear, be no crossed fingers about such yielding, no reservations in such surrender. As one thinks of it one can certainly feel why, of all the steps in the process of yielding, of surrendering, the orgasm should be last. To those who are moving toward it the experience often remains for a time elusive because its very totality, its uncompromising demand that the whole being be swept up in the experience, remains somewhat frightening.
Orgasm, as I have said, is the physical aspect of surrendering. However, while there are similarities between the physical and the psychological experience, there is also an important difference between the two.
The difference is that orgasm cannot be sought entirely rationally. It will arrive when it will arrive, as the end process of a total change in a frigid woman’s deepest psychological attitudes. It cannot be sought separately or as an end in itself. Indeed, to seek it directly, to wait upon it, to try to force it are the surest possible ways of postponing its arrival.
The idea that orgasm can be forced is typical of the thinking of a frigid woman. We have seen that, because she is basically frightened, basically mistrusts her husband’s love of her and her own femininity, she has to feel that she is “in control” all the time. The trouble with that standpoint isthat in real orgasm a woman must be out of control; must willfully, delightedly desire to be entirely so.
The delusion that the orgasm can or should be sought as an end in itself and not as the result of a deep inner change of the kind discussed in the preceding chapters of this section has been fostered by many of the books which have dealt with the problem of frigidity or with the role or responsibility of woman in marriage. One recent book counseled the conscious contraction of certain muscles during intercourse, holding that this would heighten sexual pleasure. Other books emphasize the importance of position during intercourse. Their tacit or stated contention is that orgastic potency can be achieved by mechanical means.
The simple fact is that concentrating on one’s sensations during intercourse, wondering if one is feeling the “right” feeling, can destroy real sexual passion more completely than any technique I can think of. We know this from scores of patients. Such a clinical and objective attitude toward local sexual sensations merely reflects the frigid woman’s need to be in control of a situation and her fear of surrendering herself to her man. She can get little more from this obsessive scrutiny of her sexual reactions than an even more frustrating experience than usual.
Is there, then, an attitude one can take toward orgasm before one has achieved it? Yes, there is, and we have found it a helpful and productive one. This attitude may be summarized in this fashion: If one has truly pursued the goal of self-surrender, uprooting and exposing attitudes left over from childhood and youth, the ability to achieve orgasm must inevitably arrive. Until that time, and particularly during intercourse,one must put the matter out of one’s mind entirely.
The growth of a woman’s ability to have orgasm is a natural growth. It has been impeded by her psychic attitudes;it resumes its development when these attitudes change. It is as natural a move as the move from winter to spring. Gradually she finds herself allowing her new tenderness and concern for her husband to become a part of the meaning of her sexual embrace. She sees and feels the pleasure her sexual thawing brings him, and this process becomes circular, his increased pleasure giving her more pleasure. And with his pleasure in mind she now seeks out more and more those things that please him, and her exploration leads inevitably to the discovery that what pleases him most, outside of his own sensations, is her pleasure. This mutual spiraling of feeling ultimately climaxes in her unconscious decision to give him the greatest psychological pleasure of all, her total surrender to the delights he can bring her.
For many women the ability to surrender physically comes rather swiftly; to others it is a very gradual process, as though the unconscious mind needed to build up a reserve of reassurances before it felt perfectly secure. In either case, but particularly in the latter, they can be forewarned of one important thing: sexual thaw will not proceed uninterruptedly; there is no straight line from frigidity to true womanhood. I should like to explain this more fully.
When, in the sexual embrace, a woman allows herself to experience more pleasure as her physical sensations increase, a part of her unconscious mind very frequently takes alarm and causes her to draw back from any further immediate advance.
If you stop to ponder this point you will find it readily understandable in terms of our former discussions. The experiences and relationships upon which frigidity is based took place a long time ago, often in very early childhood. They occasioned fear in the child, fear of sexuality, of surrender to one’s sensual impulses, or powerful guilt. Now, as one starts to move toward a resumption of one’s sensuality,it is almost certain that these irrational, buried fears will try to reassert themselves.
In most cases it is not necessary to uncover the childhood incidents upon which these fears were based. If one will insist on pursuing the techniques for inner change I have described here, these fears will finally become inoperative in the sexual area. It is, however, necessary to know that youareexperiencing such fears. Generally speaking, they do not show themselves directly. A woman will not say to herself: “That new sensual experience I had last night is causing me alarm.”
The fear separates itself from the sensual experience and expresses itself indirectly. The woman may find herself once again becoming quarrelsome, critical of her husband; old feelings of deprivation or of inferiority may reassert themselves with apparently new vigor. And the new sensual capacity may retire once more from view. The reason: the old defenses are protecting one against the new femininity.
Such anxiety reactions, I wish to make clear, should not give any real cause for concern. Indeed, one does not have to analyze them or to investigate them. One merely has to beawarethat theyarethe result of the new advance in sensuality, the new ability to surrender oneself a bit more completely than formerly. Advance of this kind is never lost in any final sense.
Let me give you an example of a typical reaction to such an advance. The patient was of the type I call the clitoridal woman. Her orgasm had been exclusively clitoral. Together we had covered the ground that I have presented in this section. She had been able to air her feelings about men and about woman’s lot; she had corrected her view of men and, in a very real way, had begun to view her husband with the eyes of a loving woman. Then one day she came to me in great excitement. It was unmistakable, she told me; duringlast night’s love-making she had felt, for the first time in her life, distinctly pleasurable vaginal sensations.
But in the next session her attitude was entirely different. She had had a quarrel with her husband over some trivial matter, and she forthwith launched into the kind of tirade against men I had not heard from her for several sessions.
After letting her air her feelings, I pointed out to her the possible connection between her new sensual experience and her regression to her old defenses. She was incredulous and remained so until, a week later, the episode repeated itself in its entirety: vaginal sensations and delight, followed quickly by a quarrel and ill feelings toward her husband. Forewarned, she was now on guard for such negative reactions, and when they did appear, knowing their significance, she was able to handle them, prevent herself from actually acting out her irrational feelings by quarreling with her husband.
In making the above point I do not wish to be misunderstood or thought to be contradicting myself. I am not advising women to fixate obsessively on their new sexual sensations. However, noticing such new experiences will be unavoidable, and I am simply saying that it is helpful to know that they may be followed by minor neurotic regressions.
The above observations now lead me to a closely related matter which I consider to be of central importance.
In the move toward womanhood there comes a juncture in most cases which can be called “the danger point.” When a woman is working with a therapist on her problem, the danger when she reaches this point is minimized by the fact that her therapist is aware of the problem and can usually help her to handle it when it arises. If a woman is working on her problem by herself, however, she should be strongly forewarned of her potential reaction.
This danger point generally comes when a woman who has suffered from frigidity has at last allowed herself to experience orgasm for the first time. Her immediate reaction is one of tremendous relief. But this is almost always followed by the same kind of regression I have described above; only this time the pull-back from her own advance and from her husband is far more powerful. We have seen in some of the case histories in the last section just how dangerous this period can be to the entire relationship. Indeed, the wife may at this point precipitate a crisis of such severity that the marriage itself is endangered.
The form the difficulty takes is always individual; it is usually an exaggerated version of the particular woman’s most typical neurotic characteristic. If she is argumentative, she is apt to start a fight of proportions heretofore undreamed of. If her tendency is to become depressed, her melancholy can become very, very profound indeed. If she is critical and carping, she can make Craig’s wife appear to be a normal, healthy woman.
I am not exaggerating. It is not impossible that many divorces are caused by wives who, by the natural reassurance that marriage to a tender husband often brings, have moved close to their true natures all unwittingly. They achieve orgasm; and then, without the benefit of any insight, the intense anxiety reaction sets in, causing a powerful desire to flee from the frightening situation.
The pull-back, of course, is caused by an exacerbation of early fears brought on by the orgasmic experience. But again I must emphasize that the chief danger during this period of reaction lies in the fact that the woman sees no connection between her emotional upset and the successful sexual experience she has just achieved. Why should she see such a connection? Orgasm is what she has been consciouslywaiting for, has it not? It would only be surprising if she did see a connection between the two experiences.
Her emotional outburst represents, at this point, an inner panic. Consider this: in the course of growing up it took her years to construct a defensive system against a feminine sensuality which she had learned was dangerous or wicked. Though this defensive system (her frigidity, her psychological rejection of men, etc.) had deprived her of much, it had at least allowed her to feel secure in some deep manner; she has maintained her defenses in order to hold onto her feeling of unconscious security.
And now, with orgasm, she feels all these defenses swept away in a moment. She feels exposed, guilty, naked to her imaginary enemy, tempted to surrender to him completely. In her panic she forgets the advance she has been making, the revaluation of her attitude toward men, children, womanhood.
She cannot admit the irrational nature of her unconscious fear, even to herself, so she represses it and creates an exterior diversion. Real trouble is always an excellent defense against insight.
In the case histories I have given of frigid women you will recall that the discovery of true feminine sexuality within her often brought a woman to therapy. In a sense the therapist, at the beginning, represents a safe harbor, a protection against the woman’s frightening femininity. Coming for help is, in part, a kind of flight in itself; a search for a place to hide.
When women do not understand the nature of their actions in such cases, the flight can take a potentially harmful direction. I have known some who “fall in love” with another man at this juncture. Others feel that they have really discovered just how incompatible their husbands are and think seriously of divorce. Still others develop somaticdifficulties, sometimes serious ones. I know two women who had had tuberculosis during adolescence and who both broke down again during this “danger point.” In both cases their disease had been considered totally arrested.
I realize, of course, that such reactions sound alarming to a reader. However, my intention in stating the facts here is not to frighten but to forewarn. There is nothing inrealityto be alarmed about. Feelings are not reality. But a woman must be certain that she does not act upon her feelings. The only danger is that she might.
But, I am often asked, how can one cope with such fears, fears so deep one does not even dare to let them into the conscious mind? The answer is that, generally speaking, you do not have to cope with them in any active way. They will pass. All you have to do is to sit tight, so to speak. The unconscious will in fairly short order (a week, a month) calm down.
Reality, a good reality, can prove to the infantile unconscious that it has nothing to fear. When one has quieted again, resumed the straight line of progress one had been pursuing, orgasm will occur again. This time the reaction of alarm is generally far less. By the third and fourth times it has become virtually nonexistent. The neurotic, defensive portion of one’s mind has then been permanently disarmed.
All frigidities are basically related. We could prescribe no general approach that would be helpful if this were not so. However, I have found that there are specific measures that can be of great value if applied to the individual kinds of frigidity. Indeed, if these measures are omitted, the return to full feminine maturity can be slowed down dramatically or even stopped, at least on the sexual level.
I must warn once again, however, that one should be careful to put no reliance on these techniques if they arenot combined with the “feeling through” and revaluative processes I have described. With this in mind, then, let us examine these measures that can be taken by individual types.
First let us look at themasculine type. As we have seen both in our abstract description and in our case-history approach to this type, the only method of gratification possible for this woman is clitoral. She achieves climax through self-masturbation or through masturbation by her husband. She has few if any vaginal sensations during intercourse, and her orgasmic reactions are confined entirely to the clitoris. This is so even if she is able to establish contact between her clitoris and her husband’s penis in intercourse. In most cases vaginal entrance of the penis is a matter of indifference to such women; to some it is actively disliked.
We have seen how women establish this erotic primacy of the clitoris. Because of early fears connected with becoming women they have firmly rejected the vagina. They have held onto infantile and pubertal masturbation long past the point when it is normal for a girl to give it up.
Now, with a new evaluation of the meaning of feminine sexuality, with a new tenderness and warmth toward their husbands available to them, the time at length comes when it is possible for them to switch from clitoral sensations to vaginal. However, the pathways for satisfaction have been set up for many years, the “habit” of clitoral climax has been deeply established. What should they do?
We have found that, if the clitoridal woman wishes to achieve a more mature form of sexual satisfaction she may be aided in reaching her goal if she can give up the form of gratification she now employs. This form of gratification still symbolizes an attachment to the earlier form of sexuality. For that reason, of course, it is a defense against the type of sexuality that stands for psychic maturity. The simple decision to abandon the less mature form of gratification oftensignifies a deep decision within a woman: the decision to take the final step toward womanhood.
On the other hand, many women experience the abandonment of clitoral gratification as a keen deprivation and deeply resent it. In such cases the resentment signifies that they have not sufficiently “felt through” their childhood defenses against femininity.
Obviously there are only two possible steps to take: one can continue the practice of masturbation or one can examine the resentment that is caused by giving it up. If a woman decides on the first step, progress toward the goal of vaginal orgasm may be slowed down or halted completely.
If, however, one decides to examine the resentment more closely, using the “feeling through” technique I have described, the bases upon which the resentment rests may be discovered and disposed of, just as resentments against men and against motherhood were disposed of. Indeed, many of the same feelings, though now more specifically related to sexuality, often come out.
Let me give an example. A patient with a clitoridal fixation had worked through many of her negative feelings toward her husband; she had seen that these feelings had been based on an irrational envy and fear of men and a depreciation of women. Her progress, however, seemed to halt completely when she attempted to give up clitoral masturbation.
All of her early feelings toward men returned, only now they referred to the act of intercourse. Men were the lucky ones; they were on top. Just as in life. Woman’s classical sexual position in our civilization (on the bottom) was “degrading and humiliating.” It represented her position vis-à-vis men in life. As in life, men were the ones for whom irresponsible enjoyment was designed; no wonder they could enjoy sex so much; and they couldn’t get pregnant; they didn’t have to menstruate, etc., etc.
She aired these irrational feelings quite completely and saw them for what they were. She saw that they were a recapitulation, in sexual terms, of the negative feelings she had expressed earlier toward men. She realized, too, that her feeling that it was humiliating and degrading to be “on the bottom” really showed her deep distress, fear of, and underlying depression about what she took to be woman’s role in life.
The patient was rather surprised to see these irrational feelings reappearing. However, because of her earlier work on her psychological defenses, it was not too difficult for her to dispose of these negative attitudes toward the sexual act and to integrate her positive feelings about womanhood with woman’s sexual role. At that point she was not far from achieving vaginal orgasm. Within a month or so she had achieved it.
When a woman consciously abandons clitoral gratification in favor of her search for a deeper and more abiding joy, the switch from clitoris to vagina usually takes place gradually. I have known cases in which it has happened rather quickly, but it is more frequently a matter of two, three, or even more months.
One further word on this type: the clitoridal woman may discover that she cannot take the final step to vaginal primacy alone. She may need direct and expert counsel. This should in no way discourage her. The problem is a deep-seated one, but it almost certainly can be resolved. If after a few months of trying to handle the problem alone one finds out that too little progress is being achieved, I strongly urge that outside help be sought (see Addenda I, page 260, for methods of obtaining the correct kind of aid).
I have heard the therapy fortotal frigiditydescribed as “a problem in rerearing.” Recalling the case history of Patricia Agnew, one can easily see why this phrase is so apt.The causes of this kind of frigidity go back to infancy. Punishment for infantile masturbation and/or an overly strong early fixation on the male parent causes the child to repress her sexual feeling entirely. She does not go through, in any complete way, the normal stages of psycho-sexual development; a part of her, the sensual and sexual part, remains frozen in the bud.
In my opinion, psychotherapy is frequently indicated when the frigidity is of this total type. The sexual aspect of the problem is sometimes too deeply seated for the individual to handle alone.
However, I know of several women who, when therapy was not possible, were able to make great strides toward truly feminine values and behavior by adopting the procedures described in this section. Though some of them were not able to achieve orgasm, the psychological change they were able to effect in their personalities added greatly to their general happiness and security in marriage. A few even were able to achieve orgasm.
For women with this form and degree of frigidity who wish to or must attempt to approach their problem without outside aid, I should like to point out that if general sexual development is resumed it will tend to recapitulate the stages of psycho-sexual growth we have described. Thus we find that when such women, through insight, are once again able to experience sensual feeling they sometimes go through a period of self-masturbation. Recall that this stage had been omitted in their development.
I should like to emphasize that, in terms of the final resolution of her sexual frigidity, this masturbation is perfectly normal for this kind of woman—just as it is contraindicated for the masculine or clitoridal woman. The totally frigid woman is making up for phases of development she had missed in growing up. Guilt feelings aboutmasturbation in such cases are harmful, and the ego of the individual can be put in the service of overcoming such emotions. For those who have moral feelings against masturbation it is sometimes helpful to realize that modern scientific findings indicate that societal prohibitions against it were partly based on insufficient and incorrect information. It was believed for centuries that pubertal or infantile masturbation was harmful physically and mentally. It has now been clearly demonstrated, however, that the only harm of any kind that can come from masturbation is the psychological harm that is caused by guilt feelings connected with it.
The fact is that, in attempting to establish her lost sexuality, the totally frigid woman may be helped by encouraging, any sensuality, however meager, she may discover in herself, whether it is psychological or physical. The sensuous feelings engendered by sun-bathing, of the press of the earth under one when lying down in a field or under a tree, the soft beauty of the moon on a hazy night, the warmth and coziness of a fireplace as the rain beats upon the roof—if she will allow her body and mind to enjoy these kinds of things, they can help to awaken her dormant sensuality, can help her to move back from her dusty sensationless condition toward a reappreciation of the glory of the senses.
Some women may discover (if they can consciously dispense with their inhibitions or with a hindering sense of propriety) that they are able to experience sensual feelings of a moderately keen nature in areas which are secondarily erotic. During our work together one woman suddenly discovered that she enjoyed having her back stroked by her husband. Another discovered that though she could not enjoy kissing her husband if she was in bed with him she could if she remained fully clothed in the living room. A third was able to respond quite strongly to clitoral stroking if she had a drink of liquor with her husband beforehand. In each casethe sensual capacities described in these women preceded their work with me. But it was only when they realized that they possessed unexplored potentialities and that these could be used to enrichen their sensual lives, to move them closer to the ultimate experience of love, did they dare to take their first tentative steps toward maturity.
As we have observed,partial frigidityincludes those degrees of frigidity that lie between total frigidity and normalcy. This includes such a large range of sexual reaction (or the lack of it) that it would not be possible to describe specific measures that would be helpful in all cases.
However, those who find they are closer to total frigidity on this scale than to normalcy often discover that the general techniques just described are helpful. Many of these, if they persevere, will find that they will ultimately achieve orgasm without requiring psychotherapy. Others, after determining the distance they can go on their own, may wish to seek outside help.
For those who lie closer to normal feminine sexual reactions it is usually sufficient to persist in the techniques for self-discovery and self-realization described earlier in this section.
As we saw when we examinedpsychic frigidity, it seemed to be the exception that proved the rule. Women of this type are able to have orgasms that are apparently normal. But they cannot form a relationship with any man that will endure. They frequently select ineligible men as partners or, if by chance the man happens to become eligible, they will then flee the relationship. If they cannot flee it they become sexually frigid.
We have found that women with this type of frigidity can help themselves by denying themselves the easy gratification to which they are accustomed. Their facile sensuality is a red herring used to disguise their real fears from themselves.They can come to grips with these fears only when they allow themselves to enter a close psychological relationship with an eligible member of the opposite sex.
I have called the steps by which a woman moves from frigidity to emotional and sexual maturity a “process.” Once really started, it tends, almost by inertia, to complete itself, needing only a kind of minimal guidance from one’s intelligence and a few specific facts.
For the sake of clarity, then, let us review what the steps in this process are.
It is launched by the surfacing of negative emotions and fantasies from which the frigid woman has been hiding. These emotions and fantasies reflect an underlying attitude toward the opposite sex which is based on early childhood fears and misunderstandings and which is seriously affecting one’s ability to love. As the emotions are exposed to full view they lose their power for harm, for it is only when they are partially or totally hidden from oneself that their primitive force is dangerous. When they are exposed to the light of intelligence and judgment, their power over one can at first be greatly reduced and finally can be disposed of entirely.
When all or most of one’s negative daydreams and emotions have been exposed, step two can be taken. This is a revaluation of the male in terms of his real nature and real goals. We saw that his real nature is basically aggressive, and one of his chief aims in life is to put this aggression to work for his wife and family. Viewed from this standpoint, man’s differences from woman are seen in their true light. The frigid woman, from this revaluation, learns that she can now let down her defenses, knowing that her husband, far from being hostile or wishing to enslave or exploit her, is her loving ally. She sees that his once-feared aggression is the very thing that makes it really safe for her to be a woman.
From this realization, on a deep level of her personality, the next step follows naturally. She first achieves a tranquillity and then a serenity she had not known before. This is followed by an acceptance of and a surrender to her real role—that of a loving and wise wife who glories in her womanly functions and in her man’s love.
The last step was seen to be the achievement of orgasm as a natural sequel to her psychological maturation. This part of the process we saw was attended by a resurgence of early anxiety when orgasm finally occurred. This anxiety caused a desire to flee from the newly acquired ability to love. However, the only danger at this juncture was seen to be the possibility that the anxious woman might act upon her fears. Forewarned of this reaction, she is forearmed, and by seeking further insights and waiting out the anxiety she will find that it will gradually subside completely.
These general steps, then, outline the process that can lead to recovery. I can add little to them. I have seen this method work for many women and I know of no other that will.
Patience and faith are the prime requisites for emotional maturation. Nobody can name the time it will take for any given individual to cross the bridge to womanhood. But that most women can cross it, there can be no doubt. Those who have gone before make that point ultimately clear.