Fuerbringer says the majority of women are so.  Effertz (quoted by Loewenfeld, Sexualleben und Nervenleiden, p. 11, apparently with approval) regards 10 per cent, among women generally as sexually anesthetic, but only 1 per cent, men.  Moll states (Eulenburg’s Encyclopaedie, fourth edition, art.  “Geschlechtstrieb”) that the prevalence of sexual anesthesia among German women varies, according to different authorities, from 10 to 66 per cent.  Elsewhere Moll (Kontraere Sexualempfindung, third edition, 1890, p. 510) emphasizes the statement that “sexual anesthesia in women is much more frequent than is generally supposed.”  He explains that he is referring to the physical element of pleasure and satisfaction in intercourse, and of desire for intercourse.  He adds that the psychic side of love is often more conspicuous in women than in men.  He cannot agree with Sollier that this kind of sexual frigidity is a symptom of hysteria.  Fere (L’Instinct Sexuel, second edition, p. 112), in referring to the greater frequency of sexual anesthesia in women, remarks that it is often associated with neuropathic states, as well as with anomalies of the genital organs, or general troubles of nutrition, and is usually acquired.  Some authors attribute great importance to amenorrhea in this connection; one investigator has found that in 4 out of 14 cases of absolute amenorrhea sexual feeling was absent.  Loewenfeld, again (Sexualleben und Nervenleiden), referring to the common misconception that nervous disorder is associated with increased sexual desire, points out that nervously degenerate women far more often display frigidity than increased sexual desire.  Elsewhere (Ueber die Sexuelle Konstitution) Loewenfeld says it is only among the upper classes that sexual anesthesia is common.  Campbell Clark, also, showed some years ago that, in young women with a tendency to chlorosis and a predisposition to insanity, defects of pelvic and mammary development are very prevalent. (Journal of Mental Science, October, 1888.)

As regards the older medical authors, Schurig (Spermatologia, 1720, p. 243, and Gynaecologia, 1730, p. 81) brought together from the literature and from his own knowledge cases of women who felt no pleasure in coitus, as well as of some men who had erections without pleasure.

There is, however, much uncertainty as to what precisely is meant by sexual frigidity or anesthesia.  All the old medical authors carefully distinguish between the heat of sexual desire and the actual presence of pleasure in coitus; many modern writers also properly separate libido from voluptas, since it is quite possible to experience sexual desires and not to be able to obtain their gratification during sexual intercourse, and it is possible to hold, with Mantegazza, that women naturally have stronger sexual impulses than men, but are more liable than men to experience sexual anesthesia.  But it is very much