Freud’s teachings have been discounted for a generation but careful reading of his cases, and observation of patients, reveals that his theories, although impossible to substantiate, often incorporate basic truths. Your case illustrates Freud’s theory of the castration complex so perfectly that he could have used our reader’s case to portray it at every demonstration.

The psychologists who followed Freud’s teachings believed that many of men’s inhibitions and “perversions” stemmed from a fear of castration or penile amputation. Freud felt that the castration anxiety was as crippling to some men as penis envy could be to women.

The basis of the castration complex in Freud’s opinion was that some men have a deep-seated anxiety that once their penis disappeared into a vagina it might never reappear. The most anxious men were said to have a dread that a vagina was like a toothed metal trap of the sort set by Victorian poachers that snapped shut to catch rabbits in its jaws or like a Venus Flytrap that closes on any insect that ventures within it. Few men who have this fear admit to it, and so many thanks to our reader for his question.

Are penises ever trapped in a vagina? No. Stories that circulate around accident-and-emergency departments are no more than urban myths. Foreign bodies such as small bottles, sex toys and various vegetables occasionally disappear into another orifice where reverse peristalsis carries them up into the lower colon.

Instruments or tampons introduced into the vagina can always be retrieved for, unlike the colon, it is a street with a dead end. I have had to retrieve, or to arrange the retrieval of, many objects in the rectum or beyond, but have never been confronted by a penis trapped in a vagina.

The reader’s question introduces two important conditions: vaginismus in women and priapism in men. Neither would apply in our reader’s case. Most men are pleased to find a woman whose pelvic muscles contract so firmly that they grasp the penis. Women in some parts of the world do exercises to strengthen these muscles, but even though they may thereafter grasp the penis tightly, they never imprison it.

Vaginismus is the condition in which there is an involuntary spasmodic contraction of the pelvic muscle, known as the pubococcygeus muscle, when a man attempts to make love to a woman. In this strange condition any sexual advance from a man that might lead to an attempt at penetration produces a powerful spasm in this muscle that clamps off the vagina. The more the man tries to penetrate, the tighter the clamp shuts. Often the muscle spasm extends to those around the anal area and, at the same time, the muscles in the woman’s spine can contract so that her back becomes arched.

In priapism, a man has an exceptionally hard erection, for a pathological rather than psychological reason, and won’t wilt. It may remain uncomfortably hard for hours. This needs treatment as an emergency as, unless it is dealt with quickly, it may destroy the delicate erectile mechanism of the penis permanently.

Our reader’s anxiety needs treatment from a competent qualified psychologist who, without allowing him to wallow in mumbo-jumbo, will explore his problems and their roots, and enable him to enjoy his girlfriend’s company and her talents.

SUZI GODSON

Blimey. What a pelvic floor your woman must have. She definitely hasn’t had four kids, I can tell you. And her climax must be off the Richter scale. Most women would give their right arm, well, possibly their appendix or tonsils, for that kind of vaginal control. But, unfortunately, there is only one way of becoming the Fatima Whitbread of sexual penetration and, like almost every other kind of self-improvement, it involves long-term commitment and a degree of effort.

The pelvic floor and all the other bits and pieces that make up a woman’s internal genitalia are held in place by a sling of muscle called the pubococcygeus muscle and, like any other muscle, this can be strengthened through exercise. The correct way to do it was discovered in 1947 by Arnold Kegel, a Californian gynaecologist.

Kegel was trying to help people suffering from incontinence; however, his patients soon realised that the exercises helped them with more than just urinary control. A toned pelvic floor, as Kegel’s patients discovered, also enhances orgasm immeasurably (find step-by-step instructions to Kegel exercises at www.sexuality.about.com/od/anatomyresponse/index_a.htm).

Kegel is famous for his pelvic workout but less well known as the inventor of the perineometer, a device that can measure the strength of a woman’s pelvic floor. Though they are mostly used in a medical context now, in the early 1970s Betty Dodson, a feminist activist, ran orgasm workshops for women which involved participants taking turns with a condom-clad perineometer. She compared it to the strong men in the circus swinging a mallet to ring the bell and, when someone scored a perfect 100 squeezing the perineometer with her pubococcygeus muscle, Dodson rang a bicycle bell while the rest of the group applauded. (You can buy a PFX2V pelvic-floor exerciser and pelvic-floor trainer with biofeedback from www.winhealth.co.uk or www.acatalog/peritron.html, for £54.95.) Despite being in her seventies, Dodson is still hell-bent on raising female sexual consciousness. She has made her own contribution to the strength of the female pelvic floor in the form of Betty’s Barbell (www.bettydodson.com), a stainless steel vaginal exerciser and pleasure device, which is, according to the website, “sturdy enough to become a family heirloom.” Bless.

But I digress. What you really want to know is whether your penis could get stuck inside your extra-strong mate? Well, it might if you were a dog or a wolf. Male canids have a penis with a particularly bulbous head and during mating they can remain locked or tied inside the female for as long as 20 minutes after ejaculation. However, although the phenomenon you describe has an impressive Latin title, there is no evidence that penis captivus has ever occurred during human sexual intercourse.

The first report of it dates back to 1884 when The Philadelphia Medical News published an article on the subject, written by Egerton Yorrick Davis. But the article turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by Sir William Osler, a prominent Canadian doctor with a sense of humour.

A detumescent penis would slide out of even the tightest vagina and penis captivus is now widely believed to be an urban myth, so relax. However, if we are all wrong and it does happen, remember to call Body&Soul after you’ve dialled 999. You will make medical history.