What is Frigidity?
Frigidity is broadly used to refer to a low libido (sex drive) in women. This term is often used incorrectly to
describe a woman who is emotionally cold or does not respond to her partner’s
sexual advances.
A lack of sexual desire can be psychologically embedded in a
person’s subconscious and linked to greater issues that should be addressed or
discussed. In some cases women
may experience low libido and refuse or avoid sexual intimacy or they may endure it without being
able to reach orgasm, finding little pleasure in the act.
In
other cases, women may have difficulty being aroused or sex may even cause
considerable pain or discomfort. But whether the root cause is emotional or
physical, frigidity can result in conflict and strain in even the
most secure relationships.
Diagnosing Frigidity
If lack of sexual desire has become a problem in your
relationship, there are many treatment options to explore depending on the
underlying causes and specific symptoms. A communication problem is often at
fault for lack of sexual
desire, so
try discussing your partner's feelings.
If the
problem is an emotional one, bring it out into the open, or consider making an
appointment with a psychologist for personal or couple’s counseling. It
is possible for low libido
or frigidity to be caused by a physical problem. If
this is suspected, seek a professional opinion by consulting a gynecologist,
general practitioner or complimentary health professional.
What Causes Frigidity?
It
must be understood that sexuality involves a complex set of emotions and
behaviors, ranging from romance and feelings of closeness and security, to
feelings of sensuality and desire.
Intimacy
has no switch that can be flipped on when
one partner wishes to become intimate, and usually the setting and situation
must feel right and comfortable before both partners can enjoy it.
Frigidity, in
psychology, the inability of a woman to attain orgasm during sexual
intercourse. In popular, nonmedical usage the word has been used traditionally
to describe a variety of behaviours, ranging from general
Describes the frigid man, who does
not respond to any of the general advances made by the aggressive female. This
type of man possesses a recessive knee and also is reticient about kissing. He
shrinks from any demonstration of affection, and is considered a biological
"sport". He would rather admire his women from afar and dream about
them.
coldness
of manner or lack of interest in physical affection to aversion to the act of
sexual intercourse. Because of the derogatory connotations that have become
associated with the term frigidity, it has been replaced in the vocabulary
of sex therapists by the general term hypogyneismus, the inability of a woman to
obtain sexual satisfaction under otherwise appropriate circumstances.
The lay
term frigidity encompasses three distinct problems recognized by sex
therapists: inability to experience a sexual response of any kind; ability to
achieve sexual arousal only with great difficulty (hyposexuality);
and the inability to achieve orgasm (anorgasmia).
Failure of sexual response in females—as in males—may have specific physical
sources; such is the case of women who experience vaginal spasms (vaginismus) or pain (dyspareunia)
during attempted intercourse. Likewise, female sexual
response may be impaired by purely psychological causes, triggered by emotional
conflicts outside the sexual relationship or by anxiety and other stresses
within the relationship.
To her husband’s bewilderment,
the more a man tries to entice his wife to be better in bed, the colder she is
likely to get. With his own needs screaming within him, a man can be expected
to start emphasizing sex, and yet this usually sets off alarm bells within a
woman. Despite her husband’s best intentions, she could soon end up feeling devastated,
imagining he married her simply because he wanted a legal prostitute!
Men typically dismiss such
wifely outbursts as complete nonsense. The sad reality, however, is that the
best of us are in danger of lapsing into shallow sex, dragging our wives down
with us. Even more disturbing is that we men seldom sense when we are on this
decline. Women, on the other hand, tend to be acutely perceptive of what we are
really doing to them. The popularity of porn proves this male tragedy. As
unbelievable as it sounds, men are capable of so demeaning themselves as to
have sexual interaction with ink on paper or electrons in a computer! As if
this were not shocking enough, they can engage in this depravity and barely be
aware that they are degrading and depersonalizing what was meant to be the
pinnacle of interpersonal relations. If so many men can fall into having a
sexual experience with a piece of paper, each of us live a knife edge away from
sometimes treating our wives as no more than a lump of flesh and not even
realize how much we have debased both ourselves and the most precious person in
our lives.
The shocking truth is that the
most common reason for female frigidity is that their men are not the great
lovers they imagine themselves to be.
As an egg cannot burst into
life unless it is kept warm, and plants can flower only under the right
conditions, so a normal woman can reach the pinnacle of sexual passion and
abandonment only if she feels loved, valued, secure, relaxed and physically
refreshed.
When, instead of doing more to
foster these feelings, a man tries to overcome his wife’s sexual inhibitions by
focusing on the physical, she slips from feeling secure and relaxed to feeling
pressured to perform. She slumps from feeling valued as a person to feeling
reduced to a toy. Under the devastation of this emotionally crippling insult, her
sexual passion dries up. Her sex drive will most likely vanish for as many
weeks or years as she continues to feel that this is how her husband sees her.
On the other hand, if it gradually sinks into the core of her being that she is
loved, honored and cherished by her husband, her yearning to sexually thrill
him will skyrocket.
Your wife’s passion is the
culmination of all the feelings you have generated within her, not just in the
last ten minutes, but every time you have been in her presence in the last days
and weeks and even months. If a woman is cold in bed, it is usually because the
way she is treated outside of bed has left her cold.
In making a woman feel loved,
a hug not intended to lead to anything, is worth twenty passionate kisses when
is sex on the agenda. When a husband does little to make his wife feel valued
except when he wants his sexual needs met, acting like the world’s greatest
romantic for what to him are the few critical moments, will not prevent him
from being a miserable failure as a lover. Rightly or wrongly, she will feel
not loved, but the victim of a cold-hearted con artist who is unconcerned about
her and wants only to manipulate her for his selfish gratification.
A woman’s hearing fails if the
only time she hears, ‘I love you,’ is during foreplay. To her, the words end up
sounding remarkably like, ‘I love conning you into serving my needs.’ And,
‘You’re beautiful,’ begins to sound like, ‘Just forget about your feelings – I
have. All I care about is using your body as something to masturbate inside
of.’
It’s too late to suddenly
transmute into the perfect lover when you want sex. If how you treat your wife
then is inconsistent with how you treat her the rest of the time, your attempts
to arouse her will affirm not your lovemaking skills but your hypocrisy. The
show you put on might be so convincing that you fool yourself into thinking you
are loving her, but she will see right through it and feel not loved, but
violated. Hypocrites arouse in their victims neither love nor lust but pure
disgust. Under those circumstances your failure to sexually arouse her would
prove not her frigidity but her intelligence.
A particularly important time
for a man to show love is the few minutes immediately after he has been
sexually satisfied. At this, the very time when most men feel like sleeping, a
hormone is usually released within a woman that heightens her alertness and
longing for romance. This makes it a critical time for bonding.
A man does not deliberately
create his wife’s coldness. He simply becomes preoccupied with other things and
so his wife’s feelings fade from his consciousness. Unfortunately, this
preoccupation means his wife has slipped in his priorities. No matter how much
we kid ourselves, our priorities are a most revealing measure of the
genuineness of our love.
Animals seek to satisfy their
sexual needs. Humans make love. Lovemaking is a sham if it is only seen when a
man wants his animal needs met. Since women are made to be sexually drawn to
men, not animals, women can be expected to be turned on by the qualities that
set us apart from animals. In addition to love and selflessness, speech is one
of the major characteristics separating us from animals. The less you really
speak with her, and the more you merely grunt at her, the less you are acting
like a human being, and so the less appealing you can expect to be in the eyes
of a normal woman. Conversely, the more deeply you communicate with her,
drinking in her words and baring your heart to her, sharing your joys, your
dreams and your failures, the more sexually responsive you can expect her to
be.
The way we treat others
bounces back at us, profoundly affecting us. We couldn’t murder someone without
it turning us into murderers. We can’t steal from anyone without it making us
thieves. And we can’t degrade our wives, as if they had no feelings or
preferences, without ourselves being degraded.
For humans, sex is divinely
designed to be the height of personal interaction. If we reduce it to a
mechanical act or to selfishly gorging ourselves, we end up debasing and
dehumanizing ourselves as well as our wives. So you have much to be grateful
for if your wife acts as an alarm alerting you to times when you are on the
slippery slide to degradation.
Technique
It is generally realized that
for good sex most women need genital caressing during foreplay. A common
complaint women have about this is that their partners keep pressing too hard.
This mistake, however, is merely a symptom of the real problem. At the heart of
such matters is that the wife has not taught her husband how to please her. In
most cases this can be traced to what is commonly called the male ego – the
tendency for a weak man to crumple, pathetically thinking himself a failure, if
forced to admit to himself that he knows less about his wife’s sexual feelings
than she does.
Let’s face facts. Every woman
is unique. No one can become a good lover merely by reading books or from
former partners. The only way anyone can learn how to sexually thrill a
specific woman is by responding to guidance she gives. Many couples tragically
miss out because the woman is too timid to provide the feedback necessary for
good sex. Usually it’s because the husband has given the impression that he is
that weak sort of male who can never learn from the only person who truly knows
how to thrill his wife – the woman herself. If you cannot learn from your wife,
you might pass as an animal, but as a husband you are a failure.
What ignites a woman sexually
varies enormously, not just from woman to woman, but from day to day. For
example, studies have shown that, especially for a woman not on the pill, male
body odors that disgust her most of the time arouse her at a certain point in
her menstrual cycle. Likewise, what visually appeals to her sexually varies
according to the time of month.
You can only get to know your
wife’s sexuality the same way you get to know her personality – from her, not
from books or videos or guesswork. Getting inside her body without getting
inside her mind will end up a hollow experience for both of you.
Let’s
Get Practical
Treat a computer as a football
and you won’t have a computer for long. You might keep the pieces but it will
be incapable of meeting your computing needs. A few seconds’ fun would turn you
into a loser. Treat a wife like an inflatable doll and you won’t have a wife
for long, even if you still have the pieces.
Many of the most significant
things in kindling a woman’s sexual feelings are quite different to what makes
a man feel like sex. The average man can see the link between maintaining a car
and that car’s performance, but he seldom sees the link between maintaining his
wife’s awareness of his love and his wife’s sexual performance.
Here are pointers as to how to
help a woman know she is loved. From this will flow astounding benefits,
including bringing her to the peak of her sexuality.
Praise her. Regularly find
things you like about her physical appearance, her character and her abilities,
and verbalize your admiration. Appreciate all that she does for you and freely
express your gratitude.
Be loyal to her. Don’t say
negative things about her behind her back. Defend her if anyone speaks
negatively about her. Don’t undermine her authority in front of the children.
If you use humor that puts her
down, be extremely careful. She might, laugh but at times your words could be
damaging her. Try to wean yourself off such humor.
Seek to discover her inner
feelings. Keep pushing yourself to new levels of tenderness and sensitivity to
her needs. This is a huge challenge for most men. We live in a world that is so
twisted that many of us end up imagining that the way to be esteemed as a man
is to be morally bankrupt in such basic virtues as kindness and gentleness,
known to Christians as the fruit of the Spirit. To imagine that to be male is
to be morally deficient is a gross insult to masculinity. Aim to go beyond the
standard set by your own father, gallantly breaking into new realms of
tenderness and exalting your wife.
Recognize and make allowances
for times when she is tired or upset or not her usual self.
Respect her opinions. You
might not always agree with her, but try to. Thoughtfully consider her views.
Never rubbish them.
Consult your wife before
making decisions. Share your plans and dreams with her. Be open and honest with
her about every aspect of your life.
Realize that for your wife to
be the full woman you need her to be, she needs close women friends. Don’t feel
threatened by this. It is part of what makes her a woman. You married her
because she is a woman, not a man, so let her be the full woman she is.
Regularly ask her such things
as:
* What can I do to make
you feel more loved?
* What can I do to boost
your confidence and help you feel good about yourself?
* What can we do to make sex more exciting
and fulfilling for you?
Perhaps you are scared to ask
such questions for fear she will say something like, “Help more around the
house.” Be brave! If this really is high on her priorities for feeling loved,
then it is important. More is at stake than a bit of housework. It touches her
emotional well-being and your entire marriage. Only she knows the critical
elements in making her feel loved.
If you are the leader in your
home then your role is to lead your wife to heights she would never otherwise
attain. To achieve this you must exalt her, doing everything you can to help
her reach her full potential. If, however, you are not a leader but an
oppressor, don’t bother calling yourself a husband.
Christian
Perspective
Any man not doing what he can
to make his wife feel loved and secure and honored is not just a failure, he is
doing the devil’s work. I say that very deliberately. By his actions, or lack
of them, such a man is in league with the Tempter, inciting his wife to go to
someone who will honor her the way she deserves. If she yields to that
temptation, she will be accountable before God for her sin. Regardless of her
response, however, God holds her husband responsible for the temptation even
existing. This is a grave responsibility. ‘Temptations must come,’ said Jesus,
‘but woe to him who causes them. It would be better for him for a millstone to
be placed around his neck and he be tossed into the sea’ (Luke 17:1-2, paraphrase). Such a man might consider
himself the model of faithfulness but in reality he has not only betrayed his
wife, and his marriage vows, he is a disgrace to the name of Christ.
You, however, were born to be
a lover, and born again to receive divine empowering to soar way beyond what
you could otherwise attain. Rise to your high calling and you will find fulfillment
beyond your fondest dreams.
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