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 you are experiencing 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 be aware that they are the 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; during
