Frigidity

I've been having a more entertaining conversation with Marie over the concept of "frigidity". You may remember that once upon a time that was a concept Marie applied to herself. Anyway, it came up again when I saw the recent biopic of Dr. Ruth.

Hey love.

There's a movie theater right next to my office, so at 5:00 pm I walked over from work to see a new documentary that I recommend. It's about the life and work of Ruth Westheimer, and it's called "Ask Dr. Ruth." And really — if you get a chance to see it, do.

One scene I loved for what will be obvious polemical reasons when I describe it.

The documentary made a big deal about how Dr. Ruth went on radio and television saying things that nobody was saying back then — things that nobody thought they were allowed to say on the air. Nobody said "clitoris", almost nobody said "orgasm", and all the rest of it. Saying the unsayable.

So they showed one clip when she was on TV in the 1980’s, where a man starts by asking her, “Dr. Ruth, tell me, when you have a woman who is frigid ....”

And right away she interrupted him, “NO! Stop! You may NOT use that word on my show!” And then went on to explain what she meant, that sometimes a woman has to learn what works for her and there are different ways to do that etc etc etc. And I just wanted to cheer but it would have been disruptive to the rest of the audience.

There was a lot more. It explains how she got to be the personality she became, and traces her life back ... to the Kindertransport that took her and a lot of other Jewish children from Frankfurt to Switzerland in 1938 when she was 10, at the same time her parents were sent to labor camps. Oh. Right. That. And more like that too. So it’s a rounded picture.

Really it’s worth seeing, and the theater broke into applause when it was over.

Know that I love you, now and ever, my poet, my water sprite, my Sunlight on the Water,
Your Hosea

She answered back:

Hey sweetness!

It's showing at the indy/arts theatre [in such-and-such a neighborhood], so I can't exactly walk over after work myself.  It does sound worth seeing, however!

And yes, I can see why that one scene would particularly catch your notice.

BTW, I don't think I ever asked, when and how did you come to decide that the term frigid (applied to anything but Sticksville weather) was both, well, inapplicable and insulting? I remember that your feelings were quite decided against the word (and your analysis proved correct in my case) the first time it came up in conversation between us, but I don't think you described how you came to the conclusions you did....

Loving you always,
Your Marie

My reply:

“Conclusions”? Hell, I don’t know. It wasn’t the result of a process of ratiocination. It’s just a word that has always made me clench up inside. I know it used to be commonly used in the 50’s and 60’s, but it just felt like it belonged on the same list with all the racial, ethnic, and religious slurs people used so casually then too. And the fact that you used it against yourself didn’t inoculate it any. If Dean Martin had ever made scurrilous jokes about food with too much garlic, or if Mel Brooks had ever made a joke about lending money to his friends at interest ... would that have made those jokes OK? If they had used the nouns usually associated with those jokes, would it have been OK because they were talking about themselves? If Sammy Davis, Jr., had ... no, dear God, let’s not even go there, not even as an illustrative example.

And it felt like a word associated with that kind of a man — with the Frank Sinatras and Dean Martins and Sammy Davis Jrs of the world, arrogant, cocksure men who treat dames (never “women”) purely as little children to be alternately pampered and scolded, as ornaments for their tables and toys for their beds, but never, NEVER, as adult human beings.

So when I heard such a word out of your mouth, a word that would have shocked me a little bit even coming from Anita Bryant or Phyllis Schlaffley, ... it was like you were channeling some alien intelligence. It was like hearing Eldridge Cleaver deliver a speech written by David Duke. I wanted to shake you and ask, “Who are you and what have you done with Marie?” I wanted to object, “You’re a feminist, for God’s sake! How can you use language that is so demeaning and self-hating?”

Except of course, yeah. That’s exactly how.

So I didn’t shout at you (IIRC) but I did figure that had to change.

Time to leave for my volunteer work, even though I’ve gotten nothing more than the dishes done today.

Know that I love you ever,
Your Hosea

And finally hers again:

Hey sweetness.

Yes, of course, calling myself frigid was expressing self-hatred, or more precisely hatred of that aspect of myself.  And unlike words like slut or queer, I haven't heard of anyone trying to reclaim that word as a badge of honor:  Asexuals unite!  Frigid and proud!  (Though there is an asexual pride movement; one slang term I've seen used is "Ace.") 

(Though also, of course, I don't think I ever thought of myself as asexual, as not interested:  just as incompetent, and very profoundly discouraged.  It's very liberating to be shed of that baggage--as I may possibly have expressed before, but it bears repeating.  My love.)

And yeah, "frigid" belongs to the same group of concepts as "slut," and you're right, not just to judgments passed on women by men who felt entitled to have opinions, but also to various ethnic slurs that were considered funny when I was a kid.  (I can still remember some of the Polack jokes my parents' friends told....)  (Venn diagrams:  misogyny intersecting with racism/ethnocentrism with a particular set of odd views of sex....)

Now I'm curious about something else--did it strike you that way the first time I used it of myself to you, in 1983?  As Eldridge Cleaver channeling--well, couldn't have been David Duke then; Strom Thurmond, maybe?

By the way, I laughed in enjoyment, reading your email; and I am laughing again now, re-reading your conclusion, and thinking of a riposte.

I mean, seriously, love, if you were just worried about my using language that was demeaning and self-hating, denigratory to women and our sexuality, unworthy of a feminist, you COULD have just corrected my choice of words.

But no, Mr. Overachiever, you ensured I can never again use the term with any pretensions of accuracy (which, by the way, was my self-excuse for using the label:  it was simply descriptive), by blowing out of the water the underlying fallacy:  by establishing that I was, indeed, entirely capable of enjoying orgasms.  More than one.  In quick succession, even.

But you realize, love, having chosen initially to attack my use of that term for myself on factual rather than ideological grounds, there's nothing in principle to prevent me from using the term for other women who consider themselves anorgasmic....

(Except that, aside from the fact that you've persuaded me the term is offensive, you've also pretty much persuaded me it's guaranteed to be inaccurate, more or less logically inconceivable... I mean, if I could be brought to orgasm so easily* after YEARS of sincerely believing that to be impossible [*"easily"--not to underrate your achievement, but you may have devoted considerable attention to inducing my first orgasm since I was fourteen, but not that bloody much TIME], I'd have a hard time convincing myself that any other woman, possessed of any reasonable proportion of her sensual apparatus, could be less susceptible of registering ecstasy than you proved me to be....)

Okay, so maybe I won't use that term of anyone.  But really, love, you could have just ASKED me to find a different term, if that was your main concern!  Not brought me repeatedly to peaks of ecstasy.... those peaks were entirely redundant!  Egregious.  Unnecessary.

Now that we've got that established.

Mmm...  dwelling on certain entirely unnecessary sensations.  Damn I wish my tactile memory were as easy to control as my verbal! 

(Goodness.  It occurs to me: verbal memory is TRAINABLE.  Are the others, too?)

Loving you always,
Your Marie