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Buried in the middle of this paper is a statement that most aptly presents the challenge it undertakes: "The difficulty in finding an even half-way satisfactory theory of female sexual development is based on the plurality of factors that are relevant." These factors are discussed in detail. For example, concepts of penis envy and vaginal orgasm are the focus in Eissler's attempt to examine the current feminist challenge to classical analytic thinking on women. The effects of penis envy may vary widely with changing history. Eissler compares penis envy with sibling rivalry in its potential impact. The difficult question is not its existence, but the nature of the adult consequences of childhood penis envy. One of the many concepts critically evaluated is vaginal orgasm. Without denying Kinsey's and Masters and Johnson's evidence that no physiologic difference between clitoral and vaginal orgasm exists, he presents clinical material to support the view that psychological differences do exist, and "that women have the ability to experience orgasm in two different areas of their genital apparatus." Suggesting that physiologically identical processes may be experientially different, he proposes that the vaginal component may not reach conscious experience in all women.
In the paper's final section, Eissler will most certainly outrage what few feminists he has not yet already alienated, with his arguments supporting male superiority.