The Power of Sexual Surrender

by Marie Nyswander Robinson

Knowing all this, a psychiatrist could almost guess the nature of Toni’s sexual life. It did not come out in our interviews for some time, and I did not press for the details. However, when the facts did emerge at length they portrayed the particular type of sexual response which characterizes the clitoridal woman and has caused endless and ill-informed speculation in various quarters. The fact that this form of frigidity is so widespread in our society has actually given rise to a group which believes that the clitoridal woman’s form of sexual gratification is perfectly normal. This group is vociferous and much-published and, in my opinion at least, can do incalculable harm if its conclusions should reach wide acceptance.

Toni was what we call “clitorally centered,” though she did have some general reactions to kissing and other forms of foreplay. For example, she enjoyed having her back rubbed and she received a rather minor pleasure if her husband manipulated her labia. But she definitely preferred that the foreplay be confined to her clitoris. If her husband stroked her labia for more than a few seconds, the sensations became rather uncomfortable and she would ask him to stop.

Orgasm was almost invariably confined to the clitoris. During such orgasm, though her vagina sometimes became lubricated, she felt no pleasurable sensations there at all. At the point of orgasm she could feel no vaginal contractions nor any desire to have her husband thrust his penis ever deeper or more rapidly inside her, as is characteristic of the normal orgasm in women.

On the contrary, she generally preferred to be masturbated manually rather than to have sexual intercourse. Often, to avoid intercourse, she would masturbate her husband. Or, when they did have sexual intercourse, her husband would generally masturbate Toni afterward.

However, she was occasionally able to have a clitoral orgasm during intercourse. This always was achieved when she took the position on top and her husband was on the bottom. She was very circumstantial in her explanation of why she could achieve orgasm in this position, pointing out to me at some length that her clitoris could come into more direct contact with his penis in this position. There may be some truth in this fact, but what was of more interest to me was the extent to which she went to make her point clear. I have often found that women with this type of problem are, in the beginning at any rate, very anxious to avoid any suggestion that they may be enjoying the position because in our society it is the traditional male position in intercourse.

Just as she took the lead in financial and social matters in the family so did Toni take the lead in sexual matters. It was she who almost invariably initiated every intercourse. She explained this fact to me by saying that her husband was very insensitive to her sensual moods. “He just doesn’t seem to pick up any cues that I throw out,” she said, “so I have to go after him when I feel passionate.” Please note that this, too, is a reversal of the usual pattern in sexual love between men and women in our society; the woman will sometimes initiate sex, but it is usually the man who does so.

It is interesting, too, to note that although the personal relationship between Toni and her husband had deteriorated badly in the two years before she came to me there had been no diminution in the amount of sex they had. Since Toni was the initiator of sex, the one who, so to speak, set the sexual pace of the relationship, it would indicate that she had split off her sexual feelings from other emotions. Unlike most women, she could have sex with a person toward whom, at least during this period, she felt no conscious feelings of love.

As soon as I possibly could, without upsetting her, I began to focus my discussions with Toni on the period two years before, when she began to develop feelings of anger toward her husband.

At first our discussions yielded nothing, though I had emphasized to Toni the importance of reconstructing all the details of life at that juncture as minutely as possible. At length she brought up the important factor. Two days before the sudden onset of her intensely critical feelings toward her husband she had, for the first time in her life, pleasurable vaginal sensations during intercourse.

She had felt very warmly toward her husband that night; an unaccustomed tenderness had filled her whole being before the love-making. They had had no preliminary love play of the usual manual kind, starting intercourse almost at once. The vaginal sensations had begun halfway through the intercourse and had been maintained right up to the point of orgasm, when her clitoral sensations once more took over. She recalled that afterward she had been surprised and quite pleased but had soon “forgotten” the whole experience.