If the frigid woman did not explore her irrational feelings in the manner I have described, any objective information about men, learned from whatever source, would be useless. Her hidden feelings about men would still dominate. Now, however, with the hidden feelings up and out, she is ready to hear more about men as they really are, to contrast the reality to her projection upon it. We shall take that latter step in the next chapter, but before we do there is another, further insight into one’s feeling, which it will be very helpful to achieve.
Women who suffer from frigidity often have, in addition to negative feelings toward the male sex, another very marked characteristic. They are subject to powerful fantasies which militate against the recovery of their lost sexuality and their psychological maturation. It is extremely important that these fantasies be ruthlessly explored and exploded. If they are not, they serve the unhappy function of preserving the unhealthy conviction that one deserves a far better fate than that of being a beloved wife and mother.
Such fantasies are often half hidden from view, just as are one’s negative feelings about men. They are daydreams left over from adolescence or earlier. Their destructive power derives from the fact that the daydreamer either still believes that the dreams are realizable or that she could have achieved them if her husband and family had not prevented her from doing so.
It is amazing how powerful and persistent these fantasies can be. They generally spring from an early desire to become an actress, a dancer, or a concert artist. However, they may also express wishes to become a doctor, lawyer, athlete, diplomat, or whatever. Their impossible, Walter-Mittyish character is blithely ignored by the daydreamer. I have had frigid women of forty and even fifty who still, just beneath the logical, sound surface of their minds, still believed that someday (tomorrow perhaps, next year certainly) they would go to acting school and soon obtain leading roles in a Broadway drama, or resume their piano lessons and become famous concert artists.
Such fantasies derive their power from the fact that the daydreamer feels unable to deal with reality. Since a woman who is frigid is dealing with her real-life situation in an inadequate manner, it is not strange that she should hold onto such fantasies with passion. They protect her from her feelings of inferiority. What matter, says her unconscious mind, if you are unable to love, what matter if your husband exploits you, attempts to enslave you. Tomorrow—someday, at any rate—you will show them all that you are beautiful, glamorous, a great performer, or doctor, or lawyer, or Indian chief.
The frigid woman should approach such fantasies in the same manner as she approaches her negative feelings toward the male sex. First she should let the fantasy have full play. She should allow herself to imagine herself as impresario, doctor, whatever fantastic dream her unconscious has fixed on. Let the daydream roll on and on. Note its magnitude, its grandiose quality, its glitter and its glamor.
When all the details of the fantasy have been experienced, allow yourself to imagine what life would be like for you if you were never able to realize any single aspect of this daydream. If you feel depressed by such a prospect, if the contemplation of life without the possibility of realizing such a dream of glory seems empty, you have had an important experience. You have taken your fantasy’s full measure. You now can get some idea of what an important part it plays in your emotional life.
Do not be afraid of the depression, the feeling of emptiness that will come with your first conscious attempts to free yourself of your fantasy. It can be the beginning of a far richer emotional life than any which depends on an unrealizable daydream. Therefore, persist for a few days in imagining what life will be like if you do not ever realize your daydream. Please notice that your depression does not go beyond a certain depth and that it is not incapacitating; also note that your feeling of deprivation is not unendurable.
I am not using auto-suggestion in these last remarks. A persistent daydream has certain characteristics in common with a drug or alcohol habituation. The daydreamer has, over a long period of time, learned to handle reality in terms of her drug—her deep-seated daydream. Without realizing it she has come to feel that, without this psychological narcotic, life would be impossible. She must, in a very real sense, wean herself from it, gradually realize that life without it is not nearly so dreary, so difficult, as she had imagined it would be.
The next step in this process is to explode the daydream entirely. This can be done with a few pinpricks of cold logic. Most people, realizing that such daydreams, formed in the heat of youth, have no function in reality, have long ago given them up in favor of living as passionately as possible in the present. The frigid woman, however, having a reason for keeping them alive, has never scrutinized them in the cold light of rationality.