What was the specific psychological definition of female “frigidity”?
astro honey – between the current question and this one – do you want to tell us anything? :dubious:
I would be surprised that the psychological community actually employed that term. Do we have a reference to such a use?
Basically, frigidity meant an inhibition that prevented sexual arousal possibly accompanied by any number of personality traits to prevent the woman from even being approached, sexually.
I’d be surprised to discover that it was actually a diagnosis, however. Since the word has carried that connotation since the 16th century (at the latest), it would seem that if the psych community used it, it was simply borrowing from common speech.
According to this it’s usually psychological in nature. Medications and lack of hormones can also be factors.
The Wikipedia article to which mstay linked contained a further link to this NIH/Medline article that discusses the problem, but without ever using the words “frigid” or “frigidity.” (This does not in any way indicate that the word has never appeared in a psych text, but it does not yet support the idea that the word was used in a technical or clinical situation, previously.)
This term is “from the 60’s” only in the sense that it hasn’t been used much since the 1960’s, since around that time it began to look like a sexist comment. You can imagine some guy saying, “She must be frigid. She turned me down, and obviously no woman would turn me down unless she was frigid.”
Cecil uses it in his piece on nymphomania:
And Dorland’s Medical Dictionary mentions frigidity in relation to the DSM IV:
The wiki article doesn’t mention the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, so it’s hard to draw any conclusion as to what the disorder used to be called from that. Perhaps someone has a copy of the old DSM II sitting on their shelves, and can give us the straight dope?
There are some who say that when a man says frigid, he means, “I can’t make her come.” It’s rather more complicated than that, in both directions.
A few other good words for “ain’t happening”
anhedonia
anorgasmia
dyspareunia