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Orgastic potency is the ability to completely experience and surrender to the involuntary, pleasurable convulsions of the organism at the climax of excitation in sexual intercourse, without any inhibitions and resulting in a complete discharge of excitation. The inability to do so is known as orgastic impotence. The terms should not be confused with the capacity to have an orgasm, incapacity of which is known as anorgasmia. Wilhelm Reich originally coined the term in 1924 as a result of his clinical observations that genital disturbance is present in all neuroses. The concept and related theories form part of the Reichian tradition and are not generally accepted as valid.

The extent to which a person has orgastic potency is a measure of health because full orgastic potency can only come about if a person is psychologically free from a neurotic character (pleasure anxiety), is physically free from body armor (chronic muscular contraction), is socially free from compulsive morality and duty (as imposed by authoritarian and mechanistic ways of life), and has the natural ability to love. According to Reich, the vast majority of people do not meet these criteria and, thus, lack orgastic potency.

Orgastic potency forms a central concept in sex-economy, a general theory of health dealing with an organism's energy household. Someone lacking orgastic potency cannot discharge all excess energy during the climax of excitation leaving him or her in a constant state of tension - an outer rigidity and inner anxiety - which is the neurosis. Someone with orgastic potency needs less sexual outlet, because he receives satisfaction rather than forever trying to. The sex-economic therapeutic technique is vegetotherapy in which the attainment of orgastic potency is one of the two main goals.

In the most definitive biography on Reich, orgastic potency is labelled Reich's single most unique contribution, and unique how "he connected a series of psychological, social, and biological findings with the presence or absence of this function." Although Reich's work in the field of natural sciences is generally regarded as discredited, he is famed for his contributions to the field of psychology. As he used the concept orgastic potency in both fields, its status remains unclear.

Background

Wilhelm Reich came to Vienna and entered medical school in 1918. He described that the roots of his scientific position lie in the Vienna seminar on sexology, 1919 to 1922, which he joined because sexuality was not part of the curriculum. Reich observed during these seminars that sexuality was treated as unnatural, and as the outcome of an unconscious full of perverse instincts.

In that period, Reich studied the works of Richard Semon, Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch, Henri Bergson, Friedrich Albert Lange, Oscar Hertwig, Paul Kammerer and Eugen Steinach. In Reich's study of human anatomy and physiology he observed that no mention was made of how sexual organs were related to the automatic nervous system, and their relation to sexual hormones was vague.

Moreover, Reich examined the conceptions of sexuality proposed by Auguste Forel, Albert Moll, Iwan Bloch, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Reich observed that they all equated sexuality with procreation. Moreover, with the exception of Freud, they all described sexuality as awakening and seizing humans at the age of puberty out of nowhere.

At the time, nothing was known of psychic and sexual illnesses. Any deviant behaviour was seen as hereditary and given a moral qualification. Reich was relieved with reading Freud, as it had paved the road to a clinical understanding of sexuality. Moreover, Freud's differentiation between stages of psychosexual development appealed to Reich and made it clear to Reich that sexuality and procreation should be differentiated. Freud's use of the concept libido also appealed to Reich. Before Freud, libido was used as a conscious appetite for sexual activity, but Freud used it as the energy of an unconscious sexual instinct, which rules and governs us. This made Reich commit himself to psychoanalysis.

Initial clinical experiences

Reich was trained by Paul Federn and started practising as a psychoanalyst in 1920, two years before his graduation. Freud recognised his brilliance and in 1922 choose him as first assistant physician for the newly started Vienna Psychoanalytic Polyclinic. Two years later, Reich was made vice director, member of the teaching staff and concerned himself with conducting seminars and training young psychoanalysts. Reich became a leading psychoanalyst with regards to theory, technique, clinical therapy, and ability as a teacher. He was at this time also involved in the socialist youth movement in his home town as well as doing counselling work with people who were experiencing sexual problems.

In clinical experiences Reich observed that many patients lacked genital fantasies. This drew his attention to that not a single patient when masturbating imagined of experiencing pleasure through sexual intercourse. These male patients used the term sexual intercourse mechanically or in a desire to prove their manliness. Reich differentiated between two large groups. Firstly, those who could have an ejaculation, but where it did not provide genital pleasure. Secondly, those who lacked both activity and fantasies which could be called genital. Reich wrote a report on this subject called Concerning Specific Forms of Masturbation, which he presented to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on October 10, 1922.

Around this time Reich initially discovered orgastic potency and formulated and substantiated it between 1922 and 1926. The first time he made use of the term is in his seminal 1924 work Die Therapeutische Bedeutung des Genitallibidos, and published in English as Further Remarks on the Therapeutic Significance of Genital Libido in the 1975 book Early Writings, Volume One. The concept was described in detail in the book Die Funktion Des Orgasmus, published in 1927, re-published in a slightly edited second edition in 1944, and finally translated into English in 1979 with the title Genitality in the Theory and Therapy of Neuroses. Here, Reich defined orgastic potency as follows:

" capacity to attain gratification by discharging an amount of libido equivalent to the built-up sexual tension in the organism" (1927).

Related later work

Throughout Reich's career he added to his understanding of the phenomenon. Work of direct relevance to orgastic potency includes:

• 1923-1934: Oorgasm theory and technique of Character Analysis.
• 1928-1934: Theory of respiratory block and muscular armor.
• 1923-1934: Theory of sex-economic self-regulation of primary natural drives in their distinction from secondary, perverted drives.
• 1930-1934: Theory of the role of irrationalism and human sex-economy in the origin of dictatorship of all political denominations.
• 1934: Theory of the orgasm reflex.
• 1935-1936: Theory of the bio-electrical nature of sexuality and anxiety.
• 1939: Theory of bio-energy (Orgone Energy).
• 1947: Theory of Emotional Plague of man as a disease of the bio-energetic equilibrium.
• 1954-1955: Theory of desert formation in man (the emotional plague).
• 1951-1957: Theory and practical application of Social Psychiatry.

Over the years Reich adjusted the definition of orgastic potency accordingly. In the book Die Entdeckung des Orgons Erster Teil: Die Function des Orgasmus, which was published in 1940, and published in English in 1942 as The Discovery of the Orgone, Volume 1: The Function of the Orgasm, the following definition is used:

"the capacity to surrender to the flow of biological energy, free of any inhibitions; the capacity to discharge completely the dammed-up sexual excitation through involuntary, pleasurable convulsions of the body" (1940).

A definition of orgastic potency used in his latest publications is:

"the capacity for complete surrender to the involuntary convulsion of the organism and complete discharge of the excitation at the acme of the genital embrace" (date unclear).

Central concepts

Neurosis and genitality as antithetical

Reich gathered general attention in the world of psychoanalysis by his analysis of certain unsuccessful clinical cases. He divided these into two categories: ones where therapy didn't bring results, and secondly, ones where patients appeared to recover, but, lapsed back to their neuroses or obtained a new one instead, for no apparent reason. Next to to the details of his own patients’ sexual functioning, Reich examined, through interviews and case records, the love life of over 200 patients seen at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Polyclinic. Reich was impressed by the depth and frequency of genital disturbances he observed. One example was a patient that had reported having a normal sex life, but on closer interviewing by Reich revealed not experiencing an orgasm during intercourse and having the thoughts of murdering her partner following the act. Such observations made Reich very suspicious of superficial reports about sexual experience. The study led Reich to confirm the following hypotheses:

1. Genital disturbance is present in all neuroses;
2. The severity of neuroses is positively related to the degree of genital disturbance; and
3. Patients improving in therapy and remaining symptom-free achieve a gratifying sex life.

This brought Reich to a seminal conclusion: all patients who had become and remained healthy shared having achieved and keeping up a satisfactory genital sex life.

A measure of health

Reich set out to establish criteria for satisfactory intercourse and a satisfactory sex life. Through interviews with people who appeared to have satisfactory sex lives he discovered that the sexual act is optimally satisfactory only if it follows a specific pattern: the act begins with a slow increase of sexual arousal which increases further with penetration and initial phase of coitus; movements are arbitrary and the rise in arousal is controlled. However, as soon as excitation reaches a certain level, the movements become automatic and excitation increases rapidly in which consciousness blissfully surrenders until reaching the climax. Then there is a temporary lapse in consciousness, arousal subsides quickly, consciousness returns, and a calm state of joy, peace and security sets in giving an impulse for work, play or sleep.

Reich labelled the ability to have this experience orgastic potency. Reich's findings on the importance of the concept orgastic potency can be summarised as follows:

1. Everyone who has experienced this type of sexual experience agrees that it is more fulfilling than any other type;
2. This ability, orgastic potency, is limited to those who are free from neuroses; and
3. Thus far, all people known to be free from neuroses also have orgastic potency.

The energy source of neurosis

After having established the criteria for an adequate and completely satisfying sexual experience, Reich demonstrated how disturbances of orgastic potency relate to each type of neurosis. He elaborated on these disturbances in his 1933 book Character Analysis. Reich's starting point was Freud's original position of two basic types of neuroses: the actual neurosis and the psychoneurosis.

Sigmund Freud observed that one group of patients suffering from neurosis had sexual disturbances - practising coitus interruptus, conflicts related to masturbation or sexual abstinence - and were cured when these disturbances were removed. Hence, Freud reasoned that sexual maladaption caused the damming-up of actual "sexual stuff" and defined actual neurosis as anxiety based on dammed-up libido. This group was separated from psychoneuroses with conflicts related to the unconscious, repressed impulses, desires and memories, and repressed unresolved conflicts and childhood experiences.

Reich built on this and related neurosis to orgastic potency with the following arguments:

1. Frigidity and impotence are the key to understanding neuroses;
2. Making patients conscious of repressed sexuality alone can but does not have to cure the neurosis when the unconscious meaning was discovered. This is only the case if it also leads to orgastic potency, that is, the ability to discharge the energy source of neuroses;
3. Orgastic impotence creates a difference between accumulated and discharged sexual excitation, providing the energy source of neuroses.

Thus, Reich concluded that having orgastic potency allows one to discharge the energy source of all forms of neuroses - both actual neurosis and psychoneurosis. This fundamental relation between psychoneurosis and actual neurosis was revealed when they were treated, because anxiety was always felt when a neurotic symptom was given up. In other words anxiety was always present at the original moment of onset of neurosis, and all neurotic symptoms work to lessen or bind anxiety. Over the years, Freud also realised that the distinction between actual neurosis and psychoneurosis was not absolute and that a psychoneurosis was hidden behind every actual neurosis and behind every psychoneurosis was a core of actual neurosis.

Neurosis as sexual stasis

Adults seemed to experience adequate discharge only in sexual intercourse with an adequate release of sexual tensions during the orgasm. In the case of orgastic potency all built up energy can be released during an orgasm and, hence, restores an energy equilibrium. However, in the case of orgastic impotence no gratification can be achieved and not all energy can be released during an orgasm, resulting in a damming-up of energy or stasis.

This energy results in a vicious circle where the dammed-up energy feeds the inhibition which prevents sexual release and pleasure; this in return only adds to the sexual stasis. An analogy could be a pressure cooker where the pot has to contain a surplus pressure, though in this case the pressure originates from accumulated sexual energy rather than evaporated water vapor. This outer rigidity and inner anxiety is the neurosis which fuels harshness, brutality, sexual sadism, restriction, mechanisation, confinement to routines and becoming filled with compulsions or phobias as well as loneliness, helplessness, craving for authority, fear of responsibility and mystical longing.

Hence, stasis was the energy source of neurosis, and neurosis was the sum total of all chronic and automatic inhibitions of natural sexual excitations. Reich defined the concept stasis anxiety as follows:

"The anxiety caused by the stasis of sexual energy in the center of the organism when its peripheral orgastic discharge is inhibited."

And the related stasis neurosis as follows:

"All somatic disturbances which are the immediate result of the stasis of sexual energy, with stasis anxiety at its core."

Its relation to body and mind

There are two forms of armor, character armor and muscular armor, which are functionally identical with each other: they are the mechanisms through which the experience of pleasure is blocked.

Character armor

Reich's 1933 Character Analysis was a major step in the development of psychoanalysis from the treatment of neurotic symptoms to what today is called ego psychology. Central to character analysis is the concept character resistance or character defence, by which a person's character - what the patient did instead of said - was seen as his or her primary defence mechanism. Character attributes include: posture, expression and way of speaking. Character armor is defined by Reich as:

"The sum total of typical character attitudes which an individual develops as a blocking against his emotional excitations, resulting in rigidity of the body, lack of emotional contact, and 'deadness.'"

Reich used the concepts genital character and neurotic character to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy characters, respectively.

Genital character

The genital character is the non-neurotic character structure which is free from sexual stasis and, therefore, has the capacity of natural-self regulation on the basis of orgastic potency.

The genital character is able to fully focus on a task or object, experiences social work and life a natural result of a yearning for continued human contact, has a healthy sympathy for his or her fellow human beings in sorrow and happiness, and life happens as a fulfilment and unfolding of his natural tendencies and struggle to achieve these objectives.

His or her sex life attains full bloom in a manner where all sexual wishes are subordinated for the wish for heterosexual intercourse with full surrender, without seeing in its partner, consciously or unconsciously, the parent to whom it was bound in childhood, without wanting to torment or to be tormented, without accepting celibacy except for strongly convincing reasons when it has found a partner to whom it can completely and safely surrender and receive, and without looking for another partner as long as its affection for the partner is reciprocated.

Neurotic character

The neurotic character operates under a principle of compulsive moral regulation due to chronic energy stasis.

The neurotic character's work and life is permeated by struggle to suppress original and even more basic urges or tendencies. The various forms of neurotic character correspond to the equally many ways of suppressing such urges or tendencies that the human being in question considers to be dangerous or is ashamed of. A feeling of inferiority may occasionally spur one to social work, making work either a strive for power and honour or duty-directed, rather than a strive for joy and happiness.

His or her sex life is disturbed by impulses received from pregenital wishes, so strong that they prevent experiencing a full release of excitation during the orgasm, or genital wishes are so suppressed by prohibitions and a guilty conscience that they either inhibit a full release during orgasm or an adult sex life doesn't get established. Sexual discharge will leave him or her empty, unsatisfied, and not fully at peace, resulting in sensations of emptiness and a feeling of inferiority. This latter phenomenon, post-coital tristesse, has become so widespread that it has become generally believed to be a natural part of the experience.

Muscle armor

Reich argued that if repression occurred, this energy, in the form of stored emotions or affects, were held back in muscular contraction or armor. This restricts and immobilizes the body and becomes the somatic core of neuroses, making full orgastic discharge impossible.

Muscular armor is defined by Reich as:

"The sum total of the muscular attitudes (chronic muscular spasms) which an individual develops as a block against the breakthrough of emotions and organ sensations, in particular anxiety, rage, and sexual excitation."

One of the characteristics of orgastic potency is the ability to experience deep, delicious current-like sensations running up and down the body shortly before the orgasm. Muscular armor prevents the climax from being experienced throughout the body. For example, forms of armoring are pulling back the pelvis or tightening the thigh and buttock muscles.

Moreover, Reich observed that the ego must play an active part in the act of perception. Whereas for some people the gentle stroking of a sexual zone produces a pleasurable sensation, for others it is merely perceived as touching or rubbing. This differentiation is the basis between pleasurable sensations in orgastic potency and the purely tactile sensations in orgastic impotence.

Resolving armor

Dissolving character and muscular rigidifications or armorings is the basic principle of vegetotherapy. This dissolution results in softened movement, eased breathing and can also brings back the repressed memory of the childhood situation that had caused the repression, Reich wrote.

The two goals of vegetotherapy became the attainment of orgastic potency during intercourse and of the orgasm reflex during therapy. The orgasm reflex could be observed as waves of pleasure moving through the body, a series of spontaneous, involuntary movements, and signified that the person is free of body armoring, entailing the ability to give and receive love in all its forms.

The natural sexual act

Having orgastic potency implies the ability to experience in a specific form of sexual activity with the following characteristics:

1. People love each other and can express this love;
2. Breathing is full, deep, and pleasurable;
3. Shortly before the orgasm both sexes experience deep, delicious current-like sensations running up and down their bodies;
4. Involuntary muscular movements occur before climax;
5. One is free from anxiety, unpleasure, and fantasies; and
6. The entire affective personality is focused on the orgastic experience.

In that case, the pleasure of the orgasm depends on the amount of sexual tension concentrated in the genitals and the steepness of the drop of excitation during the orgasm.

Detailed description

Reich found this to be a form of penile-vaginal sexual intercourse of which he provided the following detailed description, excluding foreplay which he described as too determined by individual needs.

Voluntary phase

In the first phase of the sexual act there is a voluntary control of excitation:

1. The male experiences a pleasurable erection, without overexcitation, and a distinct urge to penetrate. The female genital is hyperemic and moist, including an abundant secretion of the genital glands with specific chemical and physical properties.
2. The man and woman are tender toward each other without contradictory impulses. The activity of the woman is not different from that of a man, lacking the widely prevalent passivity.
3. The level of pleasurable excitation remains approximately the same during foreplay, but suddenly increases in both the man and woman with the penetration of the penis into the vagina. This accompanies the feeling of "being sucked in" by the man, and of "sucking in" the penis by the woman.
4. The man's urge to penetrate deeply increases, without sadistic tendencies and wholly lacking the characteristic sensation that heralds and accompanies the discharge of the semen. Mutual, gradual, spontaneous, and effortless friction concentrates the excitation on the surface and glans of the penis and on the posterior parts of the mucous membrane of the vagina. The body is less excited than the genital. Consciousness is fully adapted to assimilating the streaming sensations of pleasure. The ego actively participates in that it attempts to explore all means of pleasure and to achieve the highest degree of tension before the onset of the orgasm. All takes place spontaneously, lacking conscious intentions.
5. The interruption of friction is in itself pleasurable, because the pause does not require any psychic effort and the special sensations of pleasure which attend this. This prolongs the act. Excitation subsides slightly during a pause, but does not subside altogether. Withdrawing the penis is not unpleasurable as long as it occurs after a restful pause. However, when friction continues, the level of excitation increases to a level beyond which it had been previously. As Reich put it: "It gradually takes more and more possession of the entire body, while the genital itself maintains a more or less constant level of excitation" (italics in original).

Involuntary phase

Suddenly, and often as a result of a fresh increase in genital excitation, a phase of involuntary muscular contraction sets in:

6. A phase sets in where it is not possible to voluntarily control of the course of excitation with the following characteristics:
• The increase in excitation grips the whole personality and can no longer be controlled, causing deep exhalation and an acceleration of pulse.
• Physical excitation is increasingly concentrated in the genital accompanied by a sweet sensation of excitation flowing from the genital to other parts of the body.
• This excitation makes the entire musculature of the genitalia and pelvic floor contract involuntarily, experienced in the form of waves that rise with full penetration of the penis and fall with retraction of the penis. Once retraction occurs beyond a certain limit, immediate spasmodic contractions in the male cause accelerated ejaculation, and in females this causes contraction of the smooth musculature of the vagina.
• Interruption is unpleasurable for both males and females. Such interruption causes a spasmodic instead of rhythmic muscular contractions leading to the orgasm in females and ejaculation in males. This type of interruption can create highly unpleasurable sensations, and pains in the pelvic floor and sacrum.
7. Excitation mounts rapidly and sharply to a climax through further intensification and an increase in the frequency of the involuntary muscle contractions, normally coinciding with the first ejaculatory muscle contractions in the man.
8. Consciousness becomes more or less clouded. After a short pause at the height of the climax, there is a spontaneous increase in the friction. For the man, with every ejaculatory muscle contraction the urge to "penetrate completely" becomes more intense. For the woman, there is only a psychic difference, wanting to "receive completely" at the height and just after the climax.
9. The excitation overtakes the whole body which produces strong convulsions of the musculature. This is essentially a reversion of excitation from the genital to the body; the return of excitation from the genital to the body is the gratification. This implies the relaxation of the genitals.
10. Before reaching a neutral point, the excitation gently fades away and is replaced by a pleasant psychic and physical relaxation. A satiated, tender attitude towards the partner continues, together with the feeling of gratitude, though lacking sensual relation.

Reich added that the course of excitation is exactly the same in women as it is in men, and that the orgasm for both is more intense when the peaks of genital excitation coincide, which is often the case in love relationships that are undisturbed by internal or external factors. Furthermore, Reich found five to fifteen minutes to be the normal duration for sexual intercourse.

Sexual disturbances

As orgastic potency is related to a very specific form of sexual activity, different behaviour than common is regarded as disturbances. These forms of sexual disturbances are caused by a lack of orgastic potency. Character armor and muscular armor, for example, can change the sexual impulse from something gentle and soft to something brutal and harsh. The inability to express the sexual impulse causes rage which is also repressed, making sex mechanical and possibly brutal.

According to Reich, sexual disturbances are more common in women than in men due to a stronger sexual suppression of women in childhood and stricter sexual education. In The Sexual Rights of Youth, Reich provides the following general categories of disturbances for men and women, including characteristics and underlying explanations:

For men

1. Erectile dysfunction

About 40% of men occasionally suffer from some form of erectile dysfunction.

According to Reich, impotence, which is an incomplete or inadequate erection, often occur in otherwise quite healthy people. In some cases it may have a somatic cause, but generally it is due to shyness towards the female sex organ or to an unconscious fear of intercourse. This is usually manifested in feelings of sexual inferiority. An ideology of abstinence is often based on such fear or shyness, believing that intercourse is unwanted for moral reasons. This is commonly solved by making the sufferer aware of the unconscious anxieties. These anxieties are commonly caused by wrong education, making in particular men believe that they are faced with a difficult task, which only further increase his fears. This makes him attempt to ambitiously prove himself even when he is not sexually excited. It would be better to just lie still and wait as the erection will return sooner or later.

2. Premature ejaculation

About 21% of men experience ejaculation within two minutes.

In the case of premature ejaculation, the male ejaculates before or shortly after penetration of the penis into the vagina. According to Reich, this prevents sufficient sexual excitation to concentrate in the sex organ and, therefore, not all existing excitation can be discharged. Moreover, this denies sexual gratification to the female. The causes often lie in the creation of sexual anxiety and the suppression of a person's sex life during childhood. It is also often caused by a hasty attempt (such as in fear of being discovered), being fully clothed, too much stimulation beforehand or simply not having intercourse frequently enough.The solution is eliminating the necessity to hurry, to be naked and having intercourse as often as necessary.

3. Inability to experience gratification

Also common, according to Reich, is the inability to experience a proper release of tension during the last phase of pleasure. Important factors are the fear of being interrupted, being fully clothed, being in the presence of third parties, being in a miserable social position, or because of inner emotional problems. These factors, and frequent change of partners, may prevent a proper adjustment and adaptation to the sexual partner.

For women

Reich suggested that the capacity for vaginal orgasm is an indicator for orgastic potency in women. There is related criticism (see below). About 20–30% of women attain a coital climax; 70–80% require manual clitoral stimulation.

1. Complete lack of sexual feeling

Frigidity is often associated with considerable unpleasure or pain for the woman and may include women lacking any vaginal sensation though having an over-sensitive clitoris. Although, according to Reich, outwardly they behave in a very sexual manner, they avoid it and feel sick at the thought of it. This is associated with a strong unconscious rejection or fear of the male, commonly overlain by masculine and homosexual tendencies. However, it is often a superficial disturbance that disappears if the man is potent and can sexually arouse the woman.

2. Inadequate vaginal sensation

The woman experiences an amount of pleasure during intercourse, but experiences no gratification.

3. Release before climax

This is a special case, according to Reich, in which the woman experiences normal sensations in the beginning of intercourse but which disappear before release and, thus, never attains a proper release of tension. This is commonly associated with a fear of excitation, a fear that all of a sudden increases before the climax. Often this is manifested as a woman's belief that something terrible might happen to her in the process. Reich warned that these should not be considered as cases of vaginismus, in which the disturbance is regarded as a mechanical reflex-like defence against penetration.

4. Overexcitement without discharge

The woman is overexcited and apparently experiences much sexual satisfaction during intercourse. However, she experiences a level of excitation that won't rise to a point of release or drop with gratification. These women are often man-crazy, and suffer intensely and are unhappy because they experience a constant state of undischarged sexual excitation.

Reich's views on masturbation

In cases, Reich often observed that patients had experienced being suddenly brutally punished in early childhood for their 'premature' sexual activity. This created an unconscious sexual guilt feeling. In contrast, Reich considered masturbation to be a healthy practice during infantile and youthful sexuality phases. However, he considered it not a form of natural sexual activity once sexual maturity is reached, although he considered it nonsense to set a precise age limit between maturity and immaturity. Reich provided the following details on his views regarding masturbation in his 1932 The Sexual Rights of Youth.

Inhibition

Reich found it important that once masturbation was commenced, sexual excitation and gratification should not be inhibited or blocked. Not the act of masturbation itself, but its inhibition and related guilt feelings, anxiety and remorse are sources of harmful effect.

Harmful practices

Reich considered the following masturbatory practices to be harmful: stimulation without orgasms (holding back the ejaculation for boys), prolonging stimulation by too frequent interruptions or failure to provide stimulation; attempt to create excitation while no sexual excitation exists (a flaccid penis for boys, or masturbating with sharp objects for girls); or, finally, mutual masturbation between boys and girl, boy and boy or girl and girl without permitting orgasm.

Fantasies

According to Reich, masturbation is always linked to sexual fantasies. This is healthy as long as boys and girl fantasise about genital intercourse, embraces, or kissing. However, it may be harmful if the content of fantasies concern beating someone, being beaten, or the like. In such cases, solutions could include discussing this with an older friend or moving to satisfying sexual intercourse.

Developmental function

Reich found that masturbation during puberty forces the young person to direct his sexual desires towards himself, weakening his drive to find a sexual partner and to develop his body and mind in the course of finding such partner. Therefore, as soon as masturbation no longer provides sexual gratification, he recommended that the young person should try to move towards sexual intercourse. If this is impossible for personal or social reasons, the young person's social and psychic development may be blocked, taking recourse to childish fantasies, desiring to look at naked bodies, the desire to expose one's own sex organs, an increasing interest toward a person of the same sex, lapsing into daydreams and losing interest in the major social questions of the world.

Impotence

According to Reich, when young people do not masturbate, reject homosexuality and cannot find a partner to have sexual intercourse with - for internal or external reasons such as shyness, bashfulness, overwhelming poverty, lack of money, or sexual inhibitions - this may force the young people to gradually suppress their sexuality and sexual thoughts. This could prepare the way for impaired potency or impaired sensations at a later date.

Prevention: society as the cause

The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, written in 1931, was Reich's first step in approaching the answer to the problem of human mass neuroses in society, preceding The Mass Psychology of Fascism and The Sexual Revolution. Reich coined the term emotional plague to capture the destructive actions of a neurotic character on the social scene.

Reich considered only one kind of social and moral arrangement in opposition with orgastic potency: every type of authoritarian or dictatorial regime, organisation or institution that seeks to destroy spontaneous decency and natural self-regulation of the vital energies through compulsive morality and compulsive work. Such an authoritarian upbringing forms the psychological basis in the masses of people in all nations, as they are taught to be blindly loyal and nationalistic. Reich writes that authority is easier, the line of least resistance.

The authoritarian state uses a variety of tools in order to suppress its citizens' natural sexuality. These tools comprise Reich's view of "conservative, sex-negative moralism" and include:

1. the ideology of lifelong, monogamous marriage, which Reich calls "compulsive marriage";
2. the suppression of infantile sexuality, which Reich cites as the primary cause of unnatural sexual desires and perversions later in life;
3. a lack of candid sex education or sexual freedom for adolescents;
4. the persecution of "abnormal" sexualities such as homosexuality;
5. the illegality of abortion;
6. marriage as a legalized institution, and the lack of an "incompatibility" reason for divorce.

To move from formal democracy to genuine democracy, social life must be based on self-determination, natural sociality and morality, earthly happiness in love and pleasurable work. This requires being capable of bearing full responsibility for social existence and rationally determining one's own life, and being psychically independent. It is not a static condition of freedom that can be given, granted or guaranteed to a group, but is a dynamic and continual process of dealing with the development of new ideas, new forms of living and new discoveries. The young must always be able to decide what they take over and what they discard, and be prepared to hear the same from their children.

In Reich's view, this implied replacing sexual chaos, prostitution, sex trafficking and pornography with the natural happiness in love secured by society.

Reich claimed that Bronisław Malinowski's study of the culture in the Trobriand Islands, such as in his The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia, showed that non-authoritarian societies lacking compulsive morality and duty are possible and correlate with natural moral self-regulation.

Status

There is difficulty in assessing the status of the theory of orgastic potency, because it is made up of psychological, physiological and physical layers that could be valid independent of each other.

Criticism

Vaginal orgasm

In his work Genitality: In The Theory and Therapy of Neurosis Reich, Reich suggested that the capacity for vaginal orgasm is an indicator for orgastic potency in women. However the existence of a vaginal orgasm as distinct from a clitoral orgasm is nowadays disputed, for example on physiological grounds. Moreover, one voiced criticism is that Reich only used a subjective criterion to discern the vaginal orgasm from a clitoral orgasm: it would be obvious to the woman experiencing one. Other sources reveal that Reich's position was much more elaborate. In a series of experiments Reich found that the orgasm had characteristics of a bioelectrical phenomenon and drew the conclusion that the genitals in coitus constitute an electrolytic system:

"The male and female circulations and the mutually stimulating plasmatic excitations in the autonomic nervous systems represent the inherent sources of electrical charge on the organs of sexual contact. The equalization of the potential gradient occurs between the two surface potentials -- penile epidermis and vaginal mucosa."

In a further experiment, Reich found that the same bioelectric energy displayed a antithetic function: if it flowed outward to the skin surface, causing a build-up of charge at the skin, it is experienced as pleasure; in contrast, if it flowed inward away from the skin surface, resulting in a lowering of charge at the skin, then it was experienced as an increase in central tension or anxiety. To experience a pleasurable and full orgastic discharge of excitation, this energy needs to reach the skin and genital (which is part of the skin). A clitoral climax could only provide a local response.

According to Reich, the lack of women's capacity to have a vaginal orgasm is an artifact of our culture. Our culture suppresses genitality and, hence, instills castration anxiety not only in boys but also in girls. This creates a secondary drive in the predominance of penis envy and clitoral orgasms. According to Reich, these secondary drives were mistaken for primary, natural functions by Freud and traditional psychoanalysis. If our society would allow girls to naturally develop their genital sexuality, such secondary drives would rarely occur.

Objectively measuring surrender

One criticism is that Reich never found a method to measure the "totality of surrender" during an orgasm both directly and objectively. A direct subjective measure existed: the person having experienced the "total surrender" during the orgasm him or herself. One direct objective measure also existed, the orgasm reflex, but Reich had pointed out that it can appear in a patient with orgastic impotence. Reich's main way to empirically establish orgastic potency was through several indirect objective measures, such as muscular armor and forms of neurotic character armor.

Originality

According to Reich's biographer, many of Reich's ideas and findings have found their way into various disciplines, although often in quite different forms from how Reich used them. However, he called the concept of orgastic potency, and the way he related it to psychological, social, and biological findings, unique to Reich.

Reich's view that the capacity to unite tender and sensuous feelings is important for a healthy love relationship is not new. Freud had noted this as early as 1912.

Original to Reich are the involuntary physical aspects of the full genital discharge.

Reception

In a review of Reich's sexual theories, psychiatrist Elsworth Baker writes:

"Wilhelm Reich has been incredibly misunderstood and maligned, and almost everything he has written has been misinterpreted. Particularly is this true of his sexual theories. The usual distortion is that he advocated "free" sexual expression - "obey that impulse" - amounting to a wild and frantic promiscuity ever seeking a mystical, ecstatic orgasm that is supposed to cure all neuroses and even physical ills."

These are all based on a superficial understanding of Reich's theories, because, on the contrary, Baker notes:

"Reich could only conclude that sex, which was formerly believed to be solely for reproductive purposes, had the vitally important function of maintaining a stable energy level within the organism. Sexual activity is thus of little value for emotional health unless it is experienced with pleasurable excitation reaching a peak at the orgasm, when the excitation rapidly diminishes. . . . The healthy person does not need as much sexual outlet as the armored because he receives satisfaction and is not forever trying to attain it."

Censorship

In 1956, the US government burned six tons of Reich's books, journals, and papers, which is cited as one of the worst examples of censorship in U.S. history. Some of these titles treated the subject orgastic potency.

Works

Wilhelm Reich

• The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety. 1983. ISBN 0374517282.
• Children of the Future: On the Prevention of Sexual Pathology. 1984. ISBN 0374518467.
• Concerning Specific Forms of Masturbation (essay).
• The Discovery of the Orgone, Volume 1: The Function of the Orgasm'. 1986. ISBN 0374502048. (tr. of Die Entdeckung des Orgons Erster Teil: Die Function des Orgasmus, 1940){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• "Further Remarks on the Therapeutic Significance of Genital Libido". Early Writings, Volume One. 1986. ISBN 0374513473. (tr. of Die Therapeutische Bedeutung des Genitallibidos, 1924){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• Genitality in the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis: In the Theory and Thearpy of Neurosis. 1981. ISBN 0374516413. (tr. of Die Funktion Des Orgasmus, 1927){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality. 1995. ISBN 0374509395. (tr. of Der Einbruch der Sexualmoral, 1932){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• The Mass Psychology of Fascism. 1980. ISBN 0374508844.
• The Sexual Revolution: Toward a Self-Governing Character Structure. 1963. ISBN 0374502684. (tr. of Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf, 1936){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)

See also

Notes

Footnotes

1. Reich progressively called this energy libido, sexual energy, emotional energy, bioelectric energy, biophysical energy and, finally, orgone ('life') energy.
2. See for more info Reich's legacy on the main Wilhelm Reich page.
3. This statement was made by Raknes in 1944.
4. Before 1920, Freud had maintained that symptoms had to disappear when its unconscious meaning was made conscious to the patient. In 1920, Freud changed his view, saying that it can but does not have to disappear when the unconscious meaning was uncovered (Reich 1999: 49).
5. The average time for intromission is 7 minutes (Corty 2008).
6. Possibly this includes forms of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (editor).
7. Reich possibly refers to forms of love-shyness.

Citations

1. Konia 1987; Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help); Daniels 2008: "Orgiastic Potency" .
2. Sharaf 1994: 86-105.
3. Reich 1999: 6-8.
4. Konia 1987
5. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help).
6. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help).
7. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help).
8. Sharaf 1994: 238-241, 243.
9. Roazen 1985.
10. Sharaf 1994: 4.
11. Isaacs 1999.
12. Time Magazine 1957.
13. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help).
14. Reich 1999: 4, 20-21, 115.
15. Reich 1999: 31.
16. Reich 1999: 27.
17. Reich 1999: 28-30.
18. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help).
19. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
20. Reich 1999: 4, 20-21, 115.
21. Reich 1980.
22. Orgonite 2012.
23. Reich 1999: 102. Note: the original reads "damned-up" but this is probably a typo.
24. Reich 1961: 10.
25. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
26. Sharaf 1994: 86-105.
27. Sharaf 1994: 86-105.
28. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
29. Sharaf 1994: 86-105; Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
30. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
31. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
32. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
33. Kovel 1991.
34. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
35. Reich 1999: 111-2.
36. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
37. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
38. Daniels 2008: "Neurotic Sexuality."
39. Daniels 2008: "Neurotic Sexuality."
40. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
41. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help).
42. Daniels 2008: "Neurotic Sexuality."
43. Reich 1961.
44. Reich 1961.
45. Reich 1961: 10.
46. Reich 1999: 34.
47. Daniels 2008.
48. Reich 1961: 10.
49. Reich 1961: 9-12.
50. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
51. Reich 1961: 9-12.
52. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
53. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
54. Daniels 2008: "Neurotic Sexuality."
55. Raknes 1944 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRaknes1944 (help).
56. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help): para. 4.
57. Reich 1961: 9-12.
58. Daniels 2008: "Orgiastic Potency" .
59. Daniels 2008: "Sexuality and Armoring."
60. Reich 1999: 52.
61. Reich 1999: 8.
62. Sharaf 1994: 238-241, 243.
63. Sharaf 1994: 238-241, 243.
64. Daniels 2008: "Neurotic Sexuality."
65. Daniels 2008: "Orgiastic Potency" .
66. Reich 1999: 102, 108-9.
67. Reich 1999: 102.
68. Reich 1999: 102-7.
69. Reich 1999: 102-7.
70. Reich 1999: 102-7.
71. Reich 1983: 181.
72. Daniels 2008: "Sexuality and Armoring."
73. Reich 1983: 179-89.
74. Schouten 2010.
75. American Urological Association 2004.
76. Reich 1983: 179-89.
77. "The amount of time of sexual arousal needed to reach orgasm is variable – and usually much longer – in women than in men; thus, only 20–30% of women attain a coital climax. b. Many women (70–80%) require manual clitoral stimulation..." Psychiatry: Diagnosis & therapy. A Lange clinical manual. Appleton & Lange (Original from Northwestern University). 1993, Digitized 29 Oct 2010. pp. 544 pages. ISBN 0-8385-1267-4, 9780838512678. Retrieved 5 January 2012. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Check date values in: |year= (help); Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
78. Reich 1983: 179-89.
79. Reich 1999: 79.
80. Reich 1983: 168-74.
81. Reich 1983: 168-74.
82. Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust 2011.
83. Reich 1961: 9-12.
84. Reich 1999: 11.
85. Reich 1999: 7, 8, 11, 15, 18.
86. Reich 1999: 12-5.
87. Reich 1999: 12.
88. Wilcox 2001.
89. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help).
90. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help).
91. Reich 1983: 142, footnote.
92. Wilcox 2001.
93. Sharaf 1994: 4.
94. Sharaf 1994: 86-105.
95. Sharaf 1994: 86-105.
96. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help).
97. Baker 1986 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBaker1986 (help).
98. eNotes 2012.
99. Encyclopedia Britannica Online 2012.

References

American Urological Association (2004), Premature Ejaculation: Guideline on the Pharmacologic Management of Premature Ejaculation, archived from the original (PDF) on 12 June 2012.

Baker, Elsworth (1986), "Sexual Theories of Wilhelm Reich", Journal of Orgonomy, 20 (2), The American College of Orgonomy: 175–194, ISSN 0022-3298, OCLC 1754708, archived from the original (PDF) on 6 June 2012.

Corty, Eric W. (2008), "Canadian and American Sex Therapists' Perceptions of Normal and Abnormal Ejaculatory Latencies: How Long Should Intercourse Last?", The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 5 (5), Jenay, M; Guardiani BS: 1251–1256, doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2008.00797.x {{citation}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help).

D'Aloia, Alessandro (15 October 2004), Marxism and Psychoanalysis - Notes on Wilhelm Reich's Life and Works, In Defence of Marxism, archived from the original on 7 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Daniels, Victor (10 May 2008), "Lecture notes on Wilhelm Reich and His Influence", Victor Daniels' Website in The Psychology Department, Sonoma State University, archived from the original on 6 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Encyclopedia Britannica Online (2012), Wilhelm Reich, Encyclopædia Britannica, archived from the original on 12 June 2012.

eNotes (2012), "Reich, Wilhelm (1897-1957)", International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, eNotes.com, archived from the original on 12 June 2012.

Isaacs, Kenneth S. (1999), "Searching for Science in Psychoanalysis", Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 29 (3): 235–252, doi:10.1023/A:1021973219022, was quickly discredited.

Konia, Charles (1987), "A Patient Brought to Genitality", Journal of Orgonomy, 21 (2), The American College of Orgonomy: 172–184, ISSN 0022-3298, OCLC 1754708, archived from the original (PDF) on 6 June 2012.

Kovel, Joel (1991), A Complete Guide to Therapy: From Psychoanalysis to Behaviour Modification, London: Penguin Books, ISBN 0140136312.

Orgonite (2012), "Chronology of the Scientific Development of Wilhelm Reich", Biography. archived on 14 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link).

Raknes, Ola (1944), "Sex-economy: A theory of living functioning", International Journal of Sex-Economy and Orgone-Research, 3 (1), (under pseudonym Carl Arnold), Orgone Institute Press: 17–37, OCLC 5917664. See here for a summary on Xiandos.info, archived from the original on 9 June 2012. {{citation}}: External link in |postscript= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)

Reich, Wilhelm (1961), Selected Writings: An Introduction to Orgonomy, Foreword by Mary Boyd Higgins, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0374501971.

Reich, Wilhelm (1983), Higgins, Mary; Raphael, Chester M. (eds.), Children of the Future: On the Prevention of Sexual Pathology, Trans. by Derek Jordan, Inge Jordan and Beverly Placzek, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0-374-51846-7.

Reich, Wilhelm (1999) , The Function of the Orgasm: Sex-Economic Problems of Biological Energy, The Discovery of the Orgone, vol. Volume I, Trans. Vincent R. Carfagno, London: Souvenir Press, ISBN 0-285-64970-1 {{citation}}: |volume= has extra text (help).

Reich, Wilhelm (1980) , "Function of the Orgasm (Part II)", Journal of Orgonomy, 14 (1), Trans. by Barbara G. Koopman and Irmgard Bertelsen, The American College of Orgonomy, ISSN 0022-3298, OCLC 1754708, archived from the original (PDF) on 6 June 2012. Note: not to be confused with the 1942 The Function of the Orgasm, Volume I of The Discovery of the Orgone{{citation}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link).

Roazen, Paul (1985), "Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich. Myron Sharaf. New York: St Martin's Press/Marek, 1983, xiii + 550 pp.", Psychoanalytic Review, 72, National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis: 668–671, ISSN 0033-2836, archived from the original on 8 June 2012.

Schouten, B.W. (2010), "Erectile Dysfunction in the Community", J Sex Med, 7, Bohnen AM; Groeneveld FP; Dohle GR; Thomas S; Bosch JL: 2547–53, doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2010.01849.x, PMID 20497307 {{citation}}: Text "issue 7" ignored (help).

Sharaf, Myron (1994) , Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich (1st Da Capo Press ed.), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80575-8.

Time Magazine (18 November 1957), "Obituary notice for Wilhelm Reich", Time Magazine, archived from the original on 8 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Wilcox, Roger M. (20 March 2001), "Orgastic Potency as the criterion for emotional health", A Skeptical Scrutiny of the Works and Theories of Wilhelm Reich, Roger M. Wilcox's Home Page, archived from the original on 6 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust (4 January 2011), The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, archived from the original on 6 June 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Further reading

• Baker, Elsworth (1986), Sexual Theories of Wilhelm Reich, archived from the original (PDF) on 6 June 2012.
• Raknes, Ola (1944), Sex-economy: A Theory of Living Functioning. For a summary see here on Xiandos.info, archived from the original on 9 June 2012 {{citation}}: External link in |postscript= (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link).
• Reich, Wilhelm (1963), Selected Writings: An Introduction to Orgonomy, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0374501963.

External links

• Documentary "Man's Right to Know" (28 min) Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust. An introduction to the life and work of Wilhelm Reich.
• Documentary Who is Afraid of Wilhelm Reich ("Wer Hat Angst vor Wilhelm Reich") (1:34 hr), Antonin Svoboda in coproduction with Austrian TV.

• Health
• Sex economy
• Developmental psychology
• Orgasm
• Sexual acts
• Wilhelm Reich