edly the case.

The extreme psychic importance of the manner in which the act of
defloration is accomplished is strongly emphasized by Adler. He
regards it as a frequent cause of permanent sexual anaesthesia.
"This first moment in which the man's individuality attains its
full rights often decides the whole of life. The unskilled,
over-excited husband can then implant the seed of feminine
insensibility, and by continued awkwardness and coarseness
develop it into permanent anaesthesia. The man who takes
possession of his rights with reckless brutal masculine force
merely causes his wife anxiety and pain, and with every
repetition of the act increases her repulsion.... A large
proportion of cold-natured women represent a sacrifice by men,
due either to unconscious awkwardness, or, occasionally, to
conscious brutality towards the tender plant which should have
been cherished with peculiar art and love, but has been robbed of
the splendor of its development. All her life long, a wistful and
trembling woman will preserve the recollection of a brutal
wedding night, and, often enough, it remains a perpetual source
of inhibition every time that the husband seeks anew to gratify
his desires without adapting himself to his wife's desires for
love" (O. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des
Weibes_, pp. 159 et seq., 181 et seq.). "I have seen an honest
woman shudder with horror at her husband's approach," wrote
Diderot long ago in his essay "Sur les Femmes"; "I have seen her
plunge in the bath and feel herself never sufficiently washed
from the stain of duty." The same may still be said of a vast
army of women, victims of a pernicious system of morality which
has taught them false ideas of "conjugal duty" and has failed to
teach their husbands the art of love.

Women, when their fine natural instincts have not been hopelessly
perverted by the pruderies and prejudices which are so diligently
instilled into them, understand the art of love more readily than men.
Even when little more than children they can often completely take the cue
that is given to them. Much more than is the case with men, at all events
under civilized conditions, the art of love is with them an art that
Nature makes. They always know more of love, as Montaigne long since said,
than men can teach them, for it is a discipline that is b