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 Chapter 19

THE LORE OF LOVE

In this book, as you have noted, I have taken a firm stand against any mechanical approach to love or love-*making. This represents the psychiatric view of love and is based on the premise that frigidity is psychological in nature and that the resolution of it must be therefore a psychological one.

The mechanical approach is based on the premise that love-making is an art or even a science that can be learned, as the piano or chemistry can be learned. From the psychiatric view the so-called art of love is instinctual. The perfectly free person, if one can be imagined, would, if he loved and were loved in return, soon become a sophisticated practitioner of this art with the barest of preparation.

I recall an anecdote that illustrates this point. It was told to me by a sociologist who was conducting a survey of married couples in an effort to find the correlation between premarital advice and sexual happiness. While questioning one healthy couple whose marriage was obviously happy, he asked the husband:

"And did your parents give you any advice?"