birth of her third child she began to experience some feelings of pleasure during intercourse, and these gradually increased. At this point she had her fourth child, and intercourse was interrupted for two or three months. When it was resumed her feelings of pleasure had increased enormously and on the second time she had a profound orgasm.
But she was not, like my actress, delighted with the new horizons the experience opened up for her. She was very consciously frightened and very consciously ashamed. All her background and training had been against it. She consciously decided never to let the experience repeat itself. She was entirely successful in her resolution, she told me. Unlike my actress, she threw off the lovely pink cloak of her feminine potentiality and never donned it again. Her husband had died after the birth of their last child, and it was not until a few years afterward, with the new information science had developed on the subject, that she realized the tragedy of her decision.
It's a poignant story, but I have not told it for that reason. I have told it because it illustrates very clearly how subject to the mind, to outside cultural and moral influences, feminine sexuality can be. If a grown woman can choose to destroy her mature and flowering sexuality at the height of its strength, just think of the fragility of this sexuality in the bud.
The Fear of Motherhood
On the whole, women will face anything to achieve motherhood. Recently a woman of thirty-five came to my office. She had called me twice to make appointments and twice broken them at the last moment. When this happens a psychiatrist will generally assume that the patient has become frightened of her decision to face up to whatever prob-
