The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

THE INVENTION OF THE FRIGID WOMAN
were not yet fixed because it was so new), which were published
in the 1920s. He estimated that 40–50 per cent of women were
frigid and considered that the problem particularly afflicted
women of the ‘higher cultural levels’. He asserted that there
was no such thing as an ‘asexual’ being and that frigidity was
the result of repression. Weith Knudsen was a professor of
jurisprudence and economics at the Technical College at
Trondheim, Norway. He was an antifeminist whose work
Feminism—The Woman Question from Ancient Times to the
Present Day was translated into English in 1928. Gallichan
quoted sympathetically from his work which clearly had an
audience among the British sex reformers. Weith Knudsen quoted
estimates from various sources which placed the percentage of
women who were frigid at between 40 and 60 per cent. He
divided women into five classes according to their sexual
responsiveness and estimated that 20 per cent of women were
cold, 25 per cent indifferent, 30 per cent compliant, 15 per cent
warm and 10 per cent passionate. He claimed that the first 20
per cent of ‘cold’ women were incurable and that part of the
next 25 per cent could be assisted but that 40 per cent of women
overall were incurable. 14
The reasons offered for women’s fridigity were many and
various and included both physiological and psychological
factors. Stekel suggested homosexuality as one cause of frigidity
and considered this to be curable with analysis which would
help the patient ‘improve her attitude to men’. However, the
description he gives of the ‘homosexual’ woman conforms closely
with the caricature image of an independent woman of the time:
She wishes to dominate and is afraid to submit. Orgasm
means to give in, to be the weaker one, to acknowledge the
man as master. This type is keeping back the orgasm because
of pride. She plays the ‘she-man’, trying to imitate the habits,
qualities, dress and sporting qualities and even the
shortcomings of men, smoking, drinking, fighting and the
like. She hates motherhood, she despises nursing, is afraid of
giving birth, of labour pains, and she tries to suppress her
monthly period. 15
A sexual interest in women was not necessary to be classified a
homosexual under this definition. The sexual habits of the
problem homosexual or intersexual woman might take the form
merely of masturbation.
Gallichan also posed homosexuality as a cause of frigidity
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