Foreword
It is axiomatic that most of the things people want to do are things they are afraid to do. The individual must be compelled to overcome his own resistance to enjoying himself.
The reasons are varied. Usually they are the result of a background which teaches a hypocritical morality to the individual during his formative years. When maturity arrives, it might be said that the individual is "patterned" or "conditioned" into a specific type of behavior.
During the child's upbringing, as he emerges as an adult, the theory is that the patterns of behavior and morality he is taught are absolute. They cannot be changed. They will not be changed. They must not be changed. The conditioning is so strong that despite later evidence that what is taught is not absolutely correct, the individual is incapable of changing his behavior-even though he longs to with his soul and body.
The result is frustration. Anti-social behavior.
Psychological pain. And frequently social psychosomatic dysfunction.
Nowhere does this occur more than in the area of sexual relations. In America today, some psychologists believe the basis of most of the mental illness is sexually motivated.
Behaviorists disrupt the pattern the individual has established. Instead of trying to turn the individual inside out through protracted psychoanalysis, modern theory allows the psychologist to strip the non-functioning behavior pattern away first-freeing the patient of the anxiety and conflict which causes the illness. The results are not always the same from patient to patient, but the method is swift and relatively efficient.
This book is, in its entirety, an examination of how the same effect is accomplished in the "natural" method.
For instance, it is obvious that Kathy's sexual boredom is the result of unhealthy sexual attitudes learned in her pre-adulthood.
The apparent breakdown in her marriage is a consequence of this "illness". Yet the apparent key is her inability to do anything about it. She recognizes that she has powerful, unreleased sex urges which are patently "wrong". But she cannot act openly.
Still, she is impelled to put herself in the way of temptation. Her conditioned self tells her she can't and she mustn't do certain things. So she doesn't. She simply puts herself in the path of temptation and applauds her own self-righteousness when she stands fast. Then she puts someone else in the same position of temptation-a horny young man for example-and when she is raped she acts surprised and outraged outside, while inside she has satisfied her urges without accepting responsibility.
It would seem she has solved her problem. But this is not true. Because the guilt always remains.
This drama is played out in one degree or another throughout America every second of the day. While some of our readers will be shocked at the lengths Kathy eventually goes to, to achieve satisfaction, others will see in it only the commonplace.
The fact that she becomes totally subservient to sex is hardly a guarantee of mental health. One of the dangers of breaking out of an overbearing pattern is the possibility of falling into an equally dangerous extreme on the other hand. Too much sex is equally as debilitating as too little, as the reader will see on the following pages.
-The Publisher