Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Masters and Johnson PDF
Masters and Johnson PDF
Research work
Masters and Johnson met in 1957 when William Masters hired Virginia Johnson as a research assistant to undertake
a comprehensive study of human sexuality. (Masters divorced his first wife to marry Johnson in 1971.[1] They
divorced in 1992.) Previously, the study of human sexuality (sexology) had been a largely neglected area of study
due to the restrictive social conventions of the time, with prostitution as a notable exception.
Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues at Indiana University had previously published two volumes on sexual behavior in
the human male and female (known as the Kinsey Reports), in 1948 and 1953, respectively, both of which had been
revolutionary and controversial in their time. Kinsey's work however, had mainly investigated the frequency with
which certain behaviors occurred in the population and was based on personal interviews, not on laboratory
observation. In contrast, Masters and Johnson set about to study the structure, psychology, and physiology of sexual
behavior, through observing and measuring masturbation and sexual intercourse in the laboratory.
Initially, participants used in their experiments were prostitutes. Masters and Johnson explained that they were a
socially isolated group of people, they were knowledgeable about sex, and that they were willing to cooperate with
the study. Of the 145 prostitutes that participated, only a select few were further evaluated for their genital anatomy
and their physiological responses. In later studies, however, Masters and Johnson recruited 382 women and 312 men
from the community. The vast majority of participants were white, they had higher education levels, and most
participants were married couples.
As well as recording some of the first physiological data from the human body and sex organs during sexual
excitation, they also framed their findings and conclusions in language that espoused sex as a healthy and natural
activity that could be enjoyed as a source of pleasure and intimacy.
The era in which their research was conducted permitted the use of methods that have not been attempted before or
since: "[M]en and women were designated as 'assigned partners' and arbitrarily paired with each other to create
'assigned couples'."[2]
Masters and Johnson 2
Sexual dysfunction
Their research into the anatomy and physiology of sexual response was a springboard to developing a clinical
approach to the treatment of sexual problems in a revolutionary manner. Prior to 1970, when they described their
treatment program to the world for the first time, sexual dysfunctions such as premature ejaculation, impotence,
vaginismus, and female frigidity had been generally treated by long-term (multi-year) psychotherapy or
psychoanalysis with very low rates of success. Masters and Johnson revolutionized things by devising a form of
rapid treatment (2 week) psychotherapy always involving a couple, rather than just an individual, working with a
male-female therapist team that resulted in a success rate of more than 80%. This was strictly a talking therapy –
couples in their sex therapy program were never observed in sexual activity.
Criticisms
Some sex researchers, Shere Hite in particular, have focused on understanding how individuals regard sexual
experience and the meaning it holds for them. Hite has criticized Masters and Johnson's work for uncritically
incorporating cultural attitudes on sexual behavior into their research; for example, her work concluded that the 70%
of women who do not have orgasms through intercourse are able to achieve orgasm easily by masturbation.[4] She, as
well as Elisabeth Lloyd, have criticized Masters and Johnson's argument that enough clitoral stimulation to achieve
orgasm should be provided by thrusting during intercourse, and the inference that the failure of this is a sign of
female "sexual dysfunction". While not denying that both Kinsey, and Masters and Johnson have made major
contributions to sex research, she believes that people must understand the cultural and personal construction of
sexual experience to make the research relevant to sexual behavior outside the laboratory. Hite's work, however, has
been challenged for methodological defects.[5]
Moreover, Masters and Johnson's research methodology has been criticized. First, Paul Robinson argues that because
many of their participants were prostitutes, it is highly likely that these individuals have had more sexual experience
and are also more comfortable with sex and sexuality in general.[6] He says that one must approach these results with
caution, because the participants do not represent the general population. Other researchers have argued that Masters
and Johnson eliminated same-sex attracted participants when studying the human sexual response cycle, which also
limits the generalizability of their results.[7] Furthermore, Masters and Johnson have been criticized for studying
sexual behaviors in the laboratory. While they attempted to make participants as comfortable as possible in the lab
by giving them a "practice session" before their behavior was recorded, critics have argued that two people engaging
in sexual activity in a lab is a different experience compared to being in the privacy of one's home.[8]
Masters and Johnson 4
Dramatic production
The American cable network Showtime debuted Masters of Sex, a dramatic television series based on the 2009
biography of the same name, on September 29, 2013. The series stars Michael Sheen as Masters and Lizzy Caplan as
Johnson.
Publications
• Masters, W.H.; Johnson, V.E. (1966). Human Sexual Response. Toronto; New York: Bantam Books.
ISBN 0-553-20429-7. 1981 edition ISBN 978-0553204292.
• Masters, W.H.; Johnson, V.E. (1970). Human Sexual Inadequacy. Toronto; New York: Bantam Books.
ISBN 0-553-20699-0.
• Masters, W.H.; Johnson, V.E. (1974). The Pleasure Bond. Toronto; New York: Bantam Books.
ISBN 0-553-20915-9.
• Masters, W.H.; Johnson, V.E. (1979). Homosexuality in Perspective. Toronto; New York: Bantam Books.
ISBN 0-553-20809-8.
• Masters, W.H.; Johnson, V.E.; Kolodny, R.C (1988). Masters and Johnson on Sex and Human Loving. Little,
Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0316501606.
• Masters, W.H.; Johnson, V.E.; Kolodny, R.C (1994). Heterosexuality. New York; London: HarperCollins.
ISBN 0-7225-3027-7.
References
[1] Nemy, Enid. "AN AFTERNOON WITH: Masters and Johnson; Divorced, Yes, But Not Split" (http:/ / query. nytimes. com/ gst/ fullpage.
html?res=9E04EFDF103CF937A15750C0A962958260& sec=& spon=& pagewanted=1), The New York Times, 1994-03-24. Retrieved on
2008-12-03.
[2] Masters, W. H., & Johnson, V. E. (1979). Homosexuality in perspective. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, p. 11.
[3] See Homosexuality and psychology#Declassification
[4] Shere Hite: "I was making the point that clitoral stimulation wasn't happening during coitus. That's why women 'have difficulty having
orgasms' - they don't have difficulty when they stimulate themselves.
Tracey Cox: "It's disappointing that one of Hite's main messages - that 70 per cent of women don't have orgasms through penetration - is not
completely accepted today. Plenty of women don't feel comfortable admitting it, even to themselves, for fear their partners will love them less.
But women are far more experimental now."
[5] Selected Articles by David Streitfeld (http:/ / davidstreitfeld. com/ archive/ controversies/ hite01. html)
[6] Robinson, P. (1976). The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson. New York: Harper &
Row, Publishers, Inc.
[7] Hyde, J. S., DeLamater, J. D., & Byers, E. S. (2012). Understanding Human Sexuality, 5th ed. McGraw-Hill Ryerson.
[8] Masters, W. H. & Johnson, V. E. (1966). Human Sexual Response. Toronto; New York: Bantam Books.
External links
• St. Louis Walk of Fame (http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/masters-johnson.html)
Article Sources and Contributors 5
License
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/