When I emphasize this early “masculine” direction which a little girl’s values may be given, I do not wish to confuse the reader. There is a “tomboy” stage through which many girls pass. This is a perfectly natural phase in her development and has nothing to do with the problem unless the child holds onto her tomboyism until well after twelve years of age. This natural emulation of little boys is really quite a feminine gesture on the little girl’s part—she is trying to learn more about what that wonderful opposite sex does and thinks and feels. In this way she enters into her first friendly relationships with males other than her father.
Remember that we called puberty “the chum stage.” The young girl takes to herself a bosom companion of the same sex with whom she shares her “secrets.” One of the chief dangers to arise during this part of the growing-up process comes from this relationship, which is, of course, a normal one under optimum circumstances. However, if the chum selected turns out to be precocious as far as sexual experiment with the opposite sex is concerned, the friendship can lead to harmful experiences for the more innocent member of the duo.
A girl entering puberty is often attracted to a girl a year or two older than she is and will idealize this new friend, feeling that any action she performs is entirely fine and defensible. Neither of these children is, of course, ready for any truly heterosexual experience, but the younger one may imitate the older one and attempt to follow through in a sexual relationship with a boy or older man. Without mentioning the possible disaster of pregnancy at this early juncture, I should like to emphasize that sexual intercourse at this age, without the preparatory stage of adolescence having intervened, can cause a permanent aversion for the experience. It can produce a trauma of such severity that the young person may withdraw from the opposite sex entirely and remain withdrawn. Or it may encourage her to believe that she has attained her majority and cause her to act out this joyless and premature experience over and over with many different members of the opposite sex.
The simple fact is that a girl is not ready for love-making until she falls in love with a specific individual. For this to happen in a meaningful manner, she must first pass through the daydream stage of adolescence. Boys do not go through this phase and, indeed, do not have to. They are ready for intercourse at a much younger age than girls are. Girls have much to risk in love, even if we confine our observations to the purely biological aspects of the experience of sexual intercourse. Psychologically they must, so to speak, be sure that it is indeed Prince Charming who leans over them. Until it is, they must dream and sleep, for if it is a rude stranger he can shatter the dream forever, thus rob the young girl of any chance of ever bringing her dream to fulfillment in reality.
Another danger of both puberty and adolescence is that the parents will be overly strict, interpreting the move of the young one toward independence as a danger to her. I have seen many cases of young girls who might have stayed within the home until their adolescence was safely over had it not been for the rather prurient and thick-skinned assumption of a mother or father, or both, that their early dating must inevitably be immoral. This assumption on the part of a parent can activate a very hostile reaction on the part of a young girl. It is as if the parent were saying to her, “You will never be independent of us, never have a life of your own. Why don’t you give up trying?” The fact that the parents do not intend their watchfulness to imply this at all is not relevant. That’s the way the young one too often interprets it, and in a gesture of defiance she may do something that will really injure her.
Equally seriously affected, if not more so, is the young girl who feels extremely rebellious but who submits to overzealous parental authority out of fear. I have seen several girls with this problem. What generally happens is that they have pulled back, because of undue parental influences, from indulging the personality-enrichening dreams of adolescence. This causes them to remain on the threshold of womanhood, lost in an emotional dependency which belongs to an earlier phase of development. By and large, the problems of such girls when they come to womanhood tend to be more severe than those of the girls who rebelled.
In making these observations on parental strictness I am in no way advocating a laissez-faire attitude. Every young girl needs to feel the force of the parents’ moral feelings; they give her guidance and a feeling of security. She will, however, generally react more normally and healthfully if the moral attitudes are expressed and interpreted rather than laid down as ukases.
We have now seen the stages of development that lead to maturity in woman and the pitfalls she may encounter on the way. With this final information in hand we are at last ready to look at frigidity itself. The next section, therefore, will treat of the frigid woman herself, and I will show you, with specific cases, how the kinds and degrees of frigidity develop and what concrete problems they bring in their train. With such models in mind we will then be prepared to examine the constructive steps which individuals who suffer from this problem must take to win their freedom, to cross the bridge to womanhood.