Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/144

There is undoubtedly a larger percentage of sexual coldness or frigidity among women than there is the equivalent condition among men. But it is impossible to estimate how great a proportion of this lack of feeling is artificially produced, due to the constant repression of sexual instincts over a long course of years, until the emotional nature becomes warped and responds unnaturally and antagonistically to normal sexual stimuli.

Women raised in the atmosphere of ultra-conventional ideas about the sexual question, and who have thereby acquired a revulsion, or a coldness, toward the thought of the sexual relation, would do well to see the error of this attitude. Mental attitudes and ideas play such a powerful rôle in human conduct, that a change of viewpoint will often revolutionize one's whole nature. Nowhere is this more seriously to be considered than in respect to the sexual relations in marriage. The woman who believes herself frigid or with an erotic constitution so weak that it is irresponsive, should make an effort to find out what wonders psychic re-education will perform.

Much ill has resulted from the false notion that woman is completely passive sexually. She is passive only to a relative extent—at least in the sexual relations, man normally assumes the initiative and is the guiding hand, but the act of coitus is not completely fulfilled if the woman does not respond to the wooing and amatory tactics of her partner.

In the secondary phases of sexual expression, woman is certainly not passive, either by nature or adaptation. Coquetry, coyness and other characteristic feminine attributes are positive, if more or less subtle, evidences of sexual interest and expression. Many women excel in the