Causes of frigidity

During the sexual revolution in the 1970s, a catholic priest – Don Paolo Liggeri, has shared his views on intimacy between partners. He said that when one of the partners is not completely synched with the other, this doesn’t give him or her the right to be passive because they not only have the duty to be available for the partner, but they need also to find a way to make the intimate act more pleasant. If we are talking about frigidity that can be treated, it is a moral duty to take a treatment because this is what compassion with the partner demands. Now let’s see what frigidity actually means.

Sexual coldness in women or frigidity is determined in a broad range – from complete inaction by women to sexual arousal to the inability to achieve orgasm. In this sense, we can make difference between: frigidity that emerges due to low level of sexual needs, which is usually attributed to innate or so-called constitutional reasons, which may or may not be related to hormonal disorders; the inability to experience satisfaction or orgasm, the inability to have an orgasm in certain situation or inability to achieve orgasm through any other way than coitus or vice versa.

There is no doubt that the specific sexual education of women in childhood and the early stage of sexual maturation or puberty plays an important role in the development of frigidity. Punishing actions conducted by parents or teachers at the stage of preparing of female child for achieving sexual pleasure like reading erotic literature, sexual fantasies, watching pornographic videos, sexual games with other children or punishing actions in the phase of so-called consuming behaviors like masturbation, play a very important role too.

There is considerable empirical evidence to suggest that these punishing measures can direct sexuality in a wrong direction. For example, it was proven that women get more excited while reading some harmless romance novel than watching pornographic videos. On the other hand, educational measures used for penalizing consuming sexual behavior of female child can lead to development of women who completely reject sexuality as a communication act which creates closeness and satisfaction. Punishment, therefore, logically produces fear so one part of women with frigid behavior is explained by their fear of sex as a result of certain traumatic event or via information that sex is dirty, shameful, immoral or exploitative.

It is good to point out that nor all forms of frigidity have psychological nature and a number of them can be attributed to organic causes like hormonal imbalance, local organic diseases (in the intimate area) or certain chronic illnesses that put sexuality in the second place and survival to the forefront.

One of the best ways to treat frigidity is psychological therapy. During these sessions, the patient and doctor exchange information and women acquire new knowledge about sexuality which leads to increased self-confidence and development of communication skills. In addition, during these sessions, women learn how to reduce anxiety and fear of sex and sexual situations.