at first find no single aspect of them that would indicate a problem that could be classified as sexual frigidity.
However, the woman does have an obviously serious problem. She seems to be unable to form a close relationship that will endure. She is apparently devoted to an inner ideal of transiency in love. Sometimes she is not conscious of the fact that transiency in love is so important to her, but everything about her amorous career indicates this is so. She may select as partners married men or men who are chronically hostile to women and who always end up by rejecting them. Or she may do the rejecting herself. She is usually faithful to her partner of the moment and indeed sometimes pays lip service to the hope that this time the love affair will last. But just below the surface of her awareness she has no such wish. If the relationship shows any indication of moving toward permanency, she will create a reason for terminating it. And this is where her sexual problem shows: if she could not terminate it she would inevitably become sexually frigid with her partner.
One might wonder why I include this type here, since her problem is not one of physical frigidity as we ordinarily think of it—a primary blocking of sexual feeling, an inability to experience vaginal orgasm. I do so because in every case of this kind that I have treated there has been a profound sexual involvement. Early and destructive sexual experiences (usually some form of seduction) have led to a psychological inability to relate emotionally to another.
In the cases discussed up to now, we have seen that a too early experience can lead to a permanent repression of a child's entire sexual nature. Overstimulation leads to anxiety; anxiety leads to a ruthless repression of sensuality by the little individual. Basically the sexual experience has been felt as dangerous and unpleasant.
In our psychically frigid type we see, on the sexual level,
