Yesterday we got yet another call from a young woman. She was inquiring about ‘frigidity’. She wanted to know whether she was frigid as sex with her husband was a painful affair no matter how many lubricants she used. He was now threatening to annul the marriage because he was ‘sexually unsatisfied’. Not only that, he was wanting to hit her with a court case over being ‘frigid’. She had visited a gynaecologist who had told her that there was nothing wrong with her but she was just ‘sensitive’….whatever that means!

I tried to explain to her that frigidity was an out dated diagnosis, that it didn’t exist and what she was experiencing was an inhibited sexual response. That a gynecologist would not be able to solve the problem and that the most likely reason was some memory/emotion that was making the body unwilling to let go. Maybe child sexual abuse? She denied any such experience.

I then asked her what her relationship with her husband was like and she said that within two days of being married he had become extremely emotionally distant and had stopped paying attention to her. She said she felt no emotional connection, safety, intimacy or trust with him but she insisted “what does that have to do with having sex?” And besides she said “all I want is a certificate from you saying that I have been counseled and am not frigid so that I can save my marriage and so that he doesn’t defame me in court by saying I am ‘frigid’.”

It’s really quite common to come by women like X. Sexually violated and emotionally abused in their marriages, but still wanting to save them if only because we still place more social value on being married than unmarried. Or because we school our daughters in such low self esteem that they can never stop feeling that ultimately all failures are their fault and so saving the marriage is tantamount to saving the self. Or because women still don’t feel strong enough, feel they have enough options in life to move out and discover new adventures for themselves. Despite doing this work for so long now and understanding all the nuances of abuse and the emotional web it spins and traps its victim in, I have to say that women like X’s responses never cease to surprise me. How low the value of being woman is.

However this article is not about abuse and violence. Nor is it about why women want to stay in abusive situations and keep thinking they can redeem them. This article is about the issue of “frigidity”.

This vague and denigrating term is a non-medical term coined by men and used commonly in everyday language as an insult for women who are perceived by men to be unaffectionate or are seen as sexually unresponsive. It was also used to refer to a lack of orgasm in women or their lack of sexual excitement. No one thought about the possible causes of ‘frigidity’ but instead prescribed it to be the result of some form of female inadequacy.

‘Frigidity’ is a sexist term that places blame on the woman herself rather than on her socio-cultural milieu, emotional experiences, or health status, all of which can contribute to sexual non-responsiveness. Women’s sexual responses are rooted in a complex emotional framework of experiences, needs and desires. Inhibited sexual response is nearly always a result of a psychological/emotional issue.

There is no standard that women must meet for their sexual functioning to be considered normal. And if this could be understood and accepted deeply by women I do believe that sexologists, psychologists, gynecologists etc. would lose a whole lot of business and the world would be a sexually happier place to live in. If you want your body to work with you get to know it, listen to it, and respect it. Stop looking at yourself through the eyes of others.

If your body is closing up to your partner, or you find that you don’t really desire to be sexual at all, take a deep breath and relax. Your body is wise and it’s trying to tell you something about yourself which you’re not willing to accept or listen to. Either you’ve had some experience of body violation before. Or you’ve received strong moral messaging. Or you’re not attracted to your partner, don’t trust him/her, don’t feel safe in the relationship. Or…or….or… Dig deeper, there is a very valid reason.

If none of the above is your problem then look for depression, anxiety, stress, exhaustion. Keep looking until you find it. But don’t let anyone tell you that it’s because of an unexplainable, vague, condition called ‘frigidity’ which implies a hundred and one things and all of them not nice. So let Frigidity R.I.P (rest in peace) and lets try and re-learn through our own experience how wonderfully scientific and what a great friend our body truly is. And thank God for the fact that even when we insist on lying to ourselves about our emotions, our partnerships and our state of mind, we have the kind of friend in body which is there to draw us back to the path of truth.