Why Some Woman Cannot Achieve Orgasm During Sexual Intercourse ( 2 )

( being the concluding part of yesterday's article on the factors inhibiting women's ability to reach orgasm during sexual intercourse)
 2. Perceiving sex as immoral or bad: Many women have acquired distorted views about sex early in life during the process of socialization. In general, parents’ negative attitudes toward nudity, masturbation and sex play have a powerful influence on both male and female children’s feelings about sexuality and the sex act. As a result, people typically grow up viewing some sex acts as acceptable and clean, and others as dirty and bad. In addition, some religions, especially rigid belief systems, perceive sex as an expression of the baser or sinful nature of human beings. When women take on these attitudes, they tend to see sex as forbidden, shameful and bad. They feel guilty about wanting, seeking or experiencing pleasure in lovemaking, and expect negative consequences or actual punishment.
3. Guilt about breaking the mother-daughter bond with a mother who is sexually repressed: As explained in Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships, “Girls learn by observation and imitation to be like the mother and feel strange or uncomfortable when they are different from their role model.” Therefore, when a mother is held back sexually, it is very difficult for her daughter to go beyond her in terms of enjoying sexual fulfillment in her adult relationship. A woman’s guilt and fear in relation to surpassing her mother in this area are often transferred to other women in her life. Because of these feelings, women are often afraid of standing out from their peers as mature, sexual women.
4. Fear of arousing repressed sadness: For many women, feelings of sadness related to emotional pain in childhood surface during a sexual experience, especially when sexuality is combined with emotional intimacy. For women who were mistreated or rejected early in life and feel unlovable, the contrast of being loved, pleasured, and sexually fulfilled brings out deep and painful emotional responses.  When women try to hold back their sad feelings, they become cut off from themselves, both emotionally and physically, and removed from the sexual interaction.
In Beyond Death Anxiety, I noted that “a close sexual experience can also cause individuals to become acutely conscious of their existence. They experience a heightened awareness of themselves and the value of their lives. Paradoxically, these uniquely positive feelings come with a price–the special appreciation of life makes them aware of deep and painful sadness that their lives are terminal.” For this reason, many women pull back after an especially intimate encounter.
5. Fear of being vulnerable:In my latest book, The Self Under Siege,I write, “Accepting love leads to a feeling of increased vulnerability and challenges aspects of the negative identity formed in the family of origin.”  A woman may enjoy casual sexual encounters, but “as a relationship becomes more meaningful and intimate, being loved and positively acknowledged can threaten to disrupt one’s psychological equilibrium by piercing core defenses.” Depending on another person to satisfy one’s wants and needs breaks into the defensive posture of being self-sufficient and pseudo-independent. Being open and receptive to another person threatens an inward, isolated, self-soothing way of protecting one’s self from emotional hurt. Combining sex and love leads to a sense of vulnerability and is anxiety provoking because many women and men are afraid of being completely committed to a significant other, especially if they have been previously hurt emotionally.
6. Fear of arousing repressed memories of abuse and trauma:Being close sexually to a partner and freely experiencing orgasm tend to trigger unwanted memories in women whose histories include sexual abuse or molestation.  Estimates are that one out of three to four women were abused sexually or experienced some type of inappropriate sexual contact with a relative or stranger before they were 18. In these cases, being sexual can be unconsciously associated with the abuser, particularly when the abuser is a family member, and sex becomes guilt provoking, tinged with emotional pain, and unacceptable in the woman’s mind. Any similarity between her partner and the family member increases the probability that these memories will emerge.
7. Fear of loss of control: Women who rely heavily upon maintaining control as a self-protective defense mechanism are prone to be resistive to a freely expressive sexual encounter. This can show up in an overall fear of losing control or in more specific fears, such as fears of making noise or moving, or even fears of urinating or defecating when letting go. Control is related to existential issues of life and death. Faced with issues of death anxiety, people tend to detach themselves from their animal nature and disconnect from a body that they know is mortal. This dissociation can inhibit feeling pleasurable responses in the here and now interaction during sex.