Wedding-night shock is common among sexually ignorant young brides
Evidence
It is not only in vaudeville that one sees young women returning in tears to their mothers on their wedding night: psychiatric books are full of this type of account; several have been told to me directly: they concern young girls, too well brought up, without any sexual education, and whose sudden discovery of eroticism overwhelmed them. Last century, Mme Adam thought it was her duty to marry a man who had kissed her on the mouth because she believed that was the completed form of sexual union. More recently, Stekel writes about a young bride: “When during the honeymoon, her husband deflowered her, she thought he was of unsound mind and did not dare say a word for fear of dealing with an insane person.” — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1164
Categorization
- QUESTION: Mme Adam’s belief that a kiss was the completed sexual act is striking — worth chasing the original source.
- CANDY: The bride who thought her husband insane for deflowering her is a darkly memorable anecdote.
- XREF: connects to: Even informed brides experience defloration as a form of rape; Sexual ignorance and fear can produce crippling obsessive phobias in young women