To avoid a contest of wills she delays training until the toddler's...

To avoid a contest of wills she delays training until the toddler's eighteen-month stubbornness wanes. She responds to the stool as an erotic product, just as she does to an erection. She smiles and comments on its pleasant characteristics. She receives the stool as warmly as she receives the child who forms it. She emphasizes the erotic rather than the hygienic component of cleansing by utilizing soft cotton, creams, and oils. She's pleased by the process. If her child is a girl, she treats the clitoris as an area distinct from the anus by naming and swabbing it separately. If her child is a boy who fondles his penis while seated on the potty chair, she observes without averting her eyes. She smiles and offers a compliment. Anal eroticism needs to be protected too.

Anal sensations intensify the adult response, providing the individual can accept and enjoy them. Tightening the muscles about the anus during coitus heightens pleasure in both sexes. Some women prefer certain positions because the penis presses back against the rectum, and in almost all positions, the woman's anus is stimulated by traction on vaginal tissues. A finger on or in the anus accentuates the climax for many men and women. Thus the mother needs to accept and convey enjoyment of the anus also. Her tissue can be soft, her touch tender, and her smile warm.

Preschool children invest their stool with character-nice, mean, powerful, angry, stubborn, and so forth. (Anthony, 1972) Children ascribe the same qualities to the stool that they assign to the anal and genital areas. It's easy to find out how a child feels by asking. Let him know that you can feel friendly toward both the producer and the product. Occasionally a child enamored of his own products will decorate himself or a wall with astutely smeared feces. Is a parent supposed to encourage that too? Hardly. Encourage eroticism and preserve pleasure, but not at the expense of creating an "enfant terrible." This can be labeled unacceptable behavior without demeaning the stool nor the child's intrinsic worth. "Your poop is lovely, but it does not belong on the wall.Here,help me put it back in the pot."The production of flatus, or letting wind, can also be gently curtailed without evoking shame if the parents have first demonstrated their acceptance and enjoyment of this natural function.

Shame is transmitted to children at an age when words are less important than actions. Because of this, the sex therapy clinics must utilize actions rather than words to relieve shame. Assignments include disrobing under a bright light, swimming together nude, demonstrating methods of self- pleasuring to one another, and an exploration of each other's genitals. This last exercise includes the internal examination of the wife by her husband, in the presence of one or more therapists. An examining table with stirrups and a speculum are provided. These tasks cause the clients profound embarrassment, and the therapist must support the couple every step of the way. Once a task is complete, the clients experience tremendous relief, and increased comfort and intimacy. As shame diminishes, sex improves.

Another sexual dysfunction, performance anxiety, is rooted in our early attempts to educate children, such as toilet training. Performance anxieties are the fears which men experience concerning erection and ejaculation. Will it get hard enough? Can I hold that erection? Can I delay orgasm long enough to satisfy my mate? Will I ejaculate? Once these anxieties intervene, the joy in sex dwindles. The production itself is so important that passive, receptive pleasuring is impossible. The child's first pressured performance is on the potty chair.

Mothers who focus on the rapid production of "enough" stool at the appointed hour are emphasizing performance. "Now it's time to do your business"; "Do a good job." Goodness is equated with compliance and achievement. The child learns to please his mother by producing a proper stool. Later, he pleases his mate by producing a proper orgasm. Performance anxiety can be prevented through a relaxed attitude toward all early training including the potty chair. Slipups are expectable. In addition, parents can emphasize passive pleasures such as rocking and back rubbing, and the erotic rather than hygienic component of toilet training.