Here again we have to deal with ignorance or neurosis or both.
The frigid woman, as I explained elsewhere is generally a neurotic, (perhaps made so by unpleasant first sexual experiences and her mate's failure to awaken her normal erotism), who is afraid of life, of its biological duties, of responsibility, of submission to a man's will, etc., and burdened with some unconscious incest fixation on her father, or homosexual fixation on her mother, etc.
Her platonic attitude in love is due to numberless unconscious fears which are a strong bulwark against temptation.
Ideal Love. Another form of negativism in love which receives no little amount of praise at the hands of the romantically silly and of the ill-informed, is the quest of the ideal love.
We meet men and women, sometimes of mature years, who tell us with a great deal of pride that they never married because they could not find the "right mate."
I will not deny that in rare cases this may be considered a perfectly valid reason, pointing to no morbid disposition on the part of the unwillingly single person. Marriage might have implied mating with a member of an erotically indifferent race, African or Asiatic; isolation in a remote farming community where a refined woman could only select a mate from among primitive laborers, or in mining regions like some Alaska camps, where the only women available at times are prostitutes.
Barring such "legitimate" exceptions, which to my mind, imply however, a suspicious indifference to securing a mate, the seeker for an ideal mate is almost always neurotic.
Protective Measures. By setting his goal very high, he is protected against the danger of finding a mate and assuming life's responsibilities, increased as they would be by normal sexual activities.
This is done in various ways, thru exaggerated social expectations, or thru unreasonable economic demands, or through morbid criticism of the possible mate.
A working girl may set her heart on marrying none but a Prince Charming who could by no chance whatsoever be attracted by her appearance or her manners, unless he himself were a neurotic seeking safety in a union with a socially inferior mate (students marrying waitresses, etc.). Newspapers publish enough news of such matches to supply the neurotic woman with a reasonable rationalisation of her fear of matrimony.