Sexually Toni did not abandon clitoral masturbation in adolescence as, under normal circumstances, a girl would, or at least would attempt to. She clung to this early form of sexual release with almost grim determination, masturbating daily at least once. This continuation of clitoral masturbation long after the time when it is normally given up was, of course, the sexual sequel to her early rejection of all that was feminine.
At this point one might be willing to grant that Toni had sufficient reason to embrace masculine values but wonder just why she should develop such a strong rejection of her feminine side, such a fear of it. The question becomes more urgent when we learn that Toni’s sex instruction was handled in an apparently intelligent manner by her mother. Sex, menstruation, pregnancy, and other related matters were explained to her calmly and clearly and at just the right times to satisfy her normal curiosity.
She had no shocking experience, nobody seduced her; nothing whatsoever that was visibly untoward had happened to her.
Many girls can be turned against sexuality by experiences that are directly traumatic. Such experiences, however, are not an absolute prerequisite for later difficulties. If you will recall our earlier discussion, you will remember that to embrace the feminine role a woman must be willing in the deepest biological and psychological sense to suspend the natural law of self-preservation. She must be willing to sacrifice her time, her being, her other goals—her very life—to give birth to her children and to see them safely to maturity.
If in her formative years the young girl is not properly prepared for this role, if womanhood is not treated as desirable, honorable, and lovable, she will automatically turn against it. The game, to the young mind, will seem far too risky for the candle. As the years pass, nothing disproves this contention and the original childlike fears, unmodified by reality, remain intact or even increase.
In other words, to the improperly prepared child, facing the reality of being a woman is in itself traumatic. Such was the case with Toni. She was convinced that real love, full of giving and willing sacrifice, represented death. It is no wonder then that two years before she saw me, when she had come to the verge of experiencing something like true sexual pleasure with her husband, she turned against it in a panic, barred it from her consciousness, attempted to render unlovable the man who had dared to rouse such dangerous feelings in her.
In telling of Toni’s story I have selected a rather pure type of clitoridal woman, but I should like to make clear that not all cases show such an obvious masculinization. Nor am I making the point that the woman who succeeds in the market place is necessarily dominated by masculine motives. A woman can be a stay-at-home, apparently performing all her duties as a wife and mother, and still be suffering from the same kind of basic problem that confronted Toni. Perhaps we can put it this way: many women of this kind have never learned to imitate men as successfully as Toni did.
Helene Deutsch has said, “ … the masculinity complex is characterized by the predominance of active and aggressive tendencies that lead to conflict with the woman’s environment and above all with the remaining feminine inner world … in its most primitive manifestation, masculinity appears as the direct enemy of feminine tendencies, disturbing their function.”
Toni certainly fitted this description. However, she like many other women with this kind of problem, was finally able to overcome her fear and envy of the male and to embrace her feminine nature without fear or shame.