Masters & Johnson – their unique contribution to sexology

SUMMARY The scientific study of human sexuality is now accepted as mainstream practice but early researchers in the field often attracted considerable criticism. Masters and Johnson were pioneers in observing and describing normal sexual function and consequently they provided unique insights into helping to understand sexual dysfunction. Their contribution to describing the physiological process of sexual response alongside potential psychological factors resulting in and maintaining sexual dysfunction is widely acknowledged. Their work continues to influence contemporary sexual medicine and psychosexual therapeutic practice.

Docile Bodies

“Docile Bodies” focuses on behavioral sex therapists who were contemporaries of Masters and Johnson, including Joseph Wolpe, Arnold A. Lazarus, William Hartman, and Marilyn Fithian. This chapter shows how they valued intercourse for women partnered with men, much as Masters and Johnson did, not for what it means to women, but as a behavior that is intrinsically natural and healthful. This chapter shows that for Masters and Johnson’s contemporaries, intercourse was not only mandatory for heterosexuals; it was the unstated, unrecognized foundation of sexuality and sex therapy. Topics covered include systematic desensitization, typical hierarchies of sex scenes, and when sex therapists prescribe intercourse.

Male Identification

“Male Identification” examines how a prominent follower of Masters and Johnson, Helen Singer Kaplan, viewed her female patients much as Masters and Johnson viewed theirs, as less deserving, as less entitled, and less credible. Kathleen Barry called this bias “male identification,” a phenomenon of growing importance since the field of psychotherapy and the subfield of sex therapy have become increasingly dominated by female practitioners. Through examination of case studies written by Kaplan, the chapter highlights how this therapist pressured women to accept masculine versions of sexual normality. It shows how she encouraged her female patients to admit that, deep down, despite their repeated denials, what they really want and need is a penis—their husband’s penis—thrusting inside their vagina.

Masters and Johnson and the Primacy of Intercourse

“Masters and Johnson and the Primacy of Intercourse” focuses on the therapists most responsible for launching the sex therapy discipline during the 1960s and 1970s. This chapter shows how Masters and Johnson, despite their emphasis on sexual behavior and scientific research, were not very different from their Freudian forebears in their treatment of women. They too neglected to consider that what men want most out of sex—a penis thrusting inside a vagina—is not necessarily what women want. This chapter shows that Masters and Johnson’s goal was not so much to influence women’s sexuality as it was to influence women’s resistance to men’s sexuality.

OB-scene, a Live Audio/Visual Performance for Photoplethysmograph and Female Body

OB-scene is a performance centred on a live sonification of biological data gathered in real-time with a medical vaginal probe (photoplethysmograph), made by the author. The use of the photoplethysmograph, which takes inspiration from the first medical vaginal probes used for diagnostic purposes by Masters and Johnson (1966) introduces a media-archaeological aspect to this work. Data gathered through the probe is processed and transformed into sound and visuals projected in the exhibition space. OB-scene takes inspiration from Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter (2010) in which she argues that human agency has echoes in non-human nature and vice versa, shifting away from anthropocentrism towards the concept of ‘vital materiality’ that runs across bodies, both humans and unhuman. Furthermore, OB-scene is affiliated with an emerging movement of women and technology called ‘XenoFeminism’ (XF). It introduces the idea of techno-alienation and focuses on the concept of other/diverse desires, new forms of desiring, experiencing something other (Laboria Cuboniks 2015). In this specific work, this takes the form of a technofeminism incorporating the fluid, the non-human and the diverse. In this performance, the body is fused with the technology, rather than empowered or enhanced by technology itself, body and technology become a unique actant (Latour 2009) enabling the audience to experience the sensorial assemblage as a space for communal experience with political implications. OB-scene is as an immersive environmental work where the senses, affect and memory were key features of ‘assemblage thinking’ (Hamilakis 2017).

An Integrative Model for Treatment of Sexual Desire Disorders

An integrative model for treating sexual desire disorders was developed from the original work of Masters and Johnson Institute. Sensate focus exercises and psychoeducation were combined with couple therapy for relationship conflicts and individual therapies for issues with trauma and attachment disorders. The resulting model fits trends in systemic and integrative treatment.