Page:The Power of Sexual Surrender.pdf/224

 that in real orgasm a woman must be out of control; must willfully, delightedly desire to be entirely so.

The delusion that the orgasm can or should be sought as an end in itself and not as the result of a deep inner change of the kind discussed in the preceding chapters of this section has been fostered by many of the books which have dealt with the problem of frigidity or with the role or responsibility of woman in marriage. One recent book counseled the conscious contraction of certain muscles during intercourse, holding that this would heighten sexual pleasure. Other books emphasize the importance of position during intercourse. Their tacit or stated contention is that orgastic potency can be achieved by mechanical means.

The simple fact is that concentrating on one's sensations during intercourse, wondering if one is feeling the "right" feeling, can destroy real sexual passion more completely than any technique I can think of. We know this from scores of patients. Such a clinical and objective attitude toward local sexual sensations merely reflects the frigid woman's need to be in control of a situation and her fear of surrendering herself to her man. She can get little more from this obsessive scrutiny of her sexual reactions than an even more frustrating experience than usual.

Is there, then, an attitude one can take toward orgasm before one has achieved it? Yes, there is, and we have found it a helpful and productive one. This attitude may be summarized in this fashion: If one has truly pursued the goal of self-surrender, uprooting and exposing attitudes left over from childhood and youth, the ability to achieve orgasm must inevitably arrive. Until that time, and particularly during intercourse, ''one must put the matter out of one's mind entirely''.

The growth of a woman's ability to have orgasm is a natural growth. It has been impeded by her psychic attitudes;