When was the turning point? When did women begin to assert themselves sexually?

Some date it from woman suffrage, others from when women first began to challenge men in the marketplace, still others from the era of the emancipated flapper and bathtub gin. Virtually everyone agrees, however, that the trend toward female sexual aggressiveness was tremendously accelerated with the postwar rush to the suburbs.

Left alone while her husband was miles away in the city, the modern wife assumed more and more duties normally reserved for the male. Circumstances gave her almost undisputed sway over child rearing, money handling and home maintenance. She found she could cope with all kinds of problems for which she was once considered too helpless. She liked this taste of authority and independence, and, with darkness, was not likely to give it up.

``Very few wives,'' says Dr. Calderone, ``who balance the checkbook, fix the car, choose where the family will live and deal with the tradesmen, are suddenly going to become submissive where sex is concerned. A woman who dominates other family affairs will dominate the sexual relationship as well.''

And an additional factor was helping to make women more sexually self-assertive -- the comparatively recent discovery of the true depths of female desire and response. Marriage manuals and women's magazine articles began to stress the importance of the female climax. They began to describe in detail the woman's capacity for response.