This is simply not true. Caressing or manipulating the genitalia or secondary erotic zones of certain types of frigid women would only result in exacerbated nerves or in a condition of inwardly screaming protest. In other types, caressing might give temporary satisfaction but in the long run could really be harmful from the psychological standpoint, deepen or encourage immature methods of gratification.
In short, while a husband, through tenderness and understanding, may help a woman face the true nature of her problem, he is never responsible for the existence of her frigidity and cannot, through any mechanical means, get her over it.
I might add that neither can any man other than her husband.
Another misconception about frigidity: Women who suffer from a greater or lesser degree of frigidity often come to believe that there is something wrong with them glandularly. Through a misunderstanding of something they’ve read or heard, they get the idea that somewhere, somehow, there is a drug that will cure them. A gynecologist I know tells me that he has at least three women a week ask him to give them hormones to step up their sexual responses. On the basis of his statement I have checked with several other gynecologists and also with five obstetricians. They all tell me that the request for hormonal injections from women is a daily constant.
Let me say here that frigidity is rarely a problem of glandular malfunction. Much work has now been done in this area and, unless your case is relatively unusual, you may rest assured that your problem is basically a personal and psychological one.
How can I be so certain of that last statement? Because real frigidity reacts to psychological treatment; it can generally be cured in a psychiatrist’s office without the use of any drugs whatsoever.
If you reply: “Well, perhaps the mind has caused a glandular shutdown in women with a frigidity problem,” we would answer: “Even if that were true the mind would still be the ‘cause,’ and a real cure can be effected only by getting at the cause.”
A far more serious misunderstanding of the nature of true feminine sexuality and of the nature of frigidity is shown by the following case, told to me by a psychiatric colleague.
A pretty young woman came to him stating that she had been unable to have sexual satisfaction in intercourse. She had told her physician of her problem two years previously. He had examined her and told her that her clitoris was too far from her vagina. He informed her that this biological fact made it impossible for her husband to contact the clitoris with his penis during intercourse and that this was causing her frigidity. The physician advised an operation which would bring the clitoris and the vagina closer together, thus allowing the penis to contact the clitoris during intercourse.
The woman, in all good faith and with a laudable desire to be a good wife, had gone through with this grotesque surgical procedure. After the operation, when she was able to have intercourse again, it had apparently worked. For two months she had had orgasms during intercourse. Then slowly but surely her ability to respond disappeared. Within three months she had become totally frigid.