She had, as you can see, never resolved her early guilt feelings about the childhood seduction. Her whole life had been built around this early experience.
Molly’s relationship with the young doctor did not prosper, but in the course of our work she finally did meet and marry a very fine man. On the basis of insights she had had, she had decided to postpone intercourse with him until after the marriage. When the love-making began she at first responded sexually, but in a matter of a few weeks she became quite frigid.
This reaction of course represented, as in the case of the intern, her lifelong fear. However, since she had faced up to her psychological frigidity, had stopped running away into pointless and meaningless relationships, the resolution of this problem was merely a matter of time, of “working through” the guilt feelings she had never dared to face before.
The form of psychic frigidity represented by Molly’s case has always, in my experience, been caused by a childhood seduction. The seduction usually takes place between the fourth and seventh year, and the child reacts to the experience with strong sensual pleasure accompanied by guilt. This guilt is handled by a withdrawal from the parents and from values they represent. And sensual pleasure becomes an end in itself, dissociated from friendly perduring relations with another person. It must be furtive, indulged in with unlikely persons; acute anxiety develops if there is any danger that it will lead to marriage.
The seduction need not be as complete or as direct as Molly’s. I have had a case in which a single sight of grownups having sexual intercourse has had the effect of a seduction on a child. In such a case the pleasure reaction becomes associated with the early erotic feelings toward the father. The suggestion in the child’s mind is that her “evil” wishes can be granted if she will displace them onto another person. In later years this becomes the model for sexual behavior; sexual desire in the woman is too closely associated with the father image, so the love object sought must be as different from the father image as possible.
Sometimes “liberal” parents seduce their children quite unwittingly. Not too long ago it became the practice among certain “liberated” or intellectual families to indulge in a species of nudism within the home. This practice was based on a misunderstanding of certain contributions of modern psychology, mainly the concept of inhibition. The parents wished to prevent their children from being inhibited or prudish about the human body. Such parents made no difficulty about parading around nude in front of sons and daughters of any age.
Parents who believe in this manner have rather elaborate rationales and present them convincingly. If certain of my patients are an indication, however, I can testify that many children do not have the “healthy” reaction to nudism in the home that the parents had expected. To a six-year-old girl the sight of a naked father can be far too stimulating an experience for her to handle. She will react either with shock or excitement or both. The same is true of boys who are permitted to view their mothers in the nude.
We have seen that erotic fixation on parents constitutes a stage in the growth process. Whatever it may be in other societies, primitive or otherwise, nudity in our society is associated with lustful feelings. Family nudism, I firmly believe, tends to fixate children on parents permanently by causing unnecessary stimulation and hence strong guilt feelings. The result can be similar to a direct seduction of the child.
Psychic frigidity is often confused with a temporal emotional condition we call situational frigidity. A woman suffering from situational frigidity has no basic sexual problem. Her responses have always been normal and her orgasm is both frequent and satisfying. However, some severe reality problem has arisen in her life which has caused a temporary eclipse of her sexual responsiveness.