219. 10. Wives do not experience arousal the way men do, but they have a state of being ready to accept. Clearly, men produce semen, which results in arousal, and women do not have arousal because they do not produce semen. But I report from what I have heard that women have a state of being ready to accept and therefore to conceive. I am not supposed to describe what this state in women is like, and besides, only they know it. But they have not disclosed whether their love finds pleasure in that state or is unhappy, as some say. Only this is generally known — that it is not permissible for a husband to tell his wife that he is able and not willing, for this markedly hurts the receptive state, which becomes ready in response, when the husband is able.
