husbands so eager.

But there is another strange reason that keeps some wives physically
unresponsive, and so prevents any perfect sexual experience. It is a
reason that only operates with refined and spiritually minded women,
and though its results may be very serious it seems to them a right
reason. What I am thinking of is a sense that it is not quite right or
quite seemly or quite refined to allow the primitive instincts of the
body to awaken. In other words, such women are afraid of passion in
themselves, and suspect that it is not quite consistent with their
moral and religious ideals to allow it to have sway. And so they never
frankly and openly accept their own sexuality. It may be natural enough
in view of the terrible ways in which men and women have misused and
degraded passion. It is almost inevitable when women have been brought
up to believe that morality consists chiefly in self-suppression.
None the less it is a mistaken, and ultimately an irreverent as well as
a fatal misconception. It was Jesus who said, "He which made them at
the beginning made them male and female and said, For this cause shall
a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they
twain shall be one flesh." There is a place in the holy life for the
free, happy, and full expression of the instincts and desires that are
rooted in our sex natures. The assumed inevitable opposition between
bodily and spiritual functions has no real existence. We cannot
spiritualize the body away. To neglect or simply to repress it is a
course that comes to no good. What we can do is to accept, understand,
and then use it rightly. And when we do so it turns out that the free
and happy exercise of bodily function will harmonize with all the rest
of our life till body, soul, and spirit attain to harmony and unity. I
think this reluctance to accept our real natures is wrong and
unreasonable, but my chief feeling about it is a sense of pity that