William masters and virginia johnson biography. Fundamentals of sexology

Masters and Johnson began their pioneering program for the treatment of sexual disorders in 1959. It is very different from previous treatments. Its main difference is that Masters and Johnson work exclusively with couples (and not with individual patients), being sure that any sexual problem that arose between people who are devoted to each other cannot but concern them both. By framing the question in this way, the center of gravity shifts from the individual to the relationship. In addition, it provides an opportunity to determine the most certain extent of the problem. Masters and Johnson found that interviewing both partners is generally more helpful than one-sided information from one of them. And finally, such a strategy provides an opportunity to achieve cooperation and understanding on the part of both partners, which contributes to the elimination of the problem.

The logical continuation of this approach is the joint work of two therapists - a man and a woman. Such a tandem enhances the objectivity of the treatment process and, thanks to the combination of male and female points of view, makes it the most balanced; in addition, in this case, any of the sexual partners turns out to be a patient of a doctor of the same sex as himself, which facilitates communication. A tandem of therapists can also act as a model, for example, to demonstrate to patients the art of effective communication.

Another important element of Masters and Johnson's method is the integration of physiological and psychological data for diagnosis and treatment. In the past, many psychiatrists never examined their patients, fearing that this might cause unwanted sexual sensations and complicate relationships with them. Masters and Johnson recognized the need to identify physical disorders that may require therapeutic or surgical intervention rather than sex therapy. They also found that in many cases it is possible to have a beneficial effect on patients by explaining to them the anatomy and physiology of the sexual reaction.

Finally, the method of Masters and Johnson is characterized by the speed and intensity of the healing process. Communication with married couples is carried out daily for 10-14 days (on average, treatment usually lasts 12 days). This continuity favors some aspects of sex therapy by reducing patients' anxiety or helping them avoid mistakes. Partners are also encouraged, if possible, to free themselves for these two weeks from their simple work, family and social obligations in order to focus attention and feelings on their relationship without being distracted by anything else.

In clinical testing of this scheme, it became clear that the treatment is much more effective if partners visit the clinic daily, and not once or twice a week for 50 minutes.

Having characterized in general terms the method of Masters and Johnson, it is necessary to state a number of additional concepts developed by them.

1. Treatment should be tailored to meet the specific needs of each of these couples. In this case, you need to focus primarily on the values ​​​​and aspirations of this couple. Physicians should not impose their views on patients.
2. Sexual activity is considered as one of the natural functions, regulated to a large extent by reflex reactions. Sexual function is influenced by many factors that destroy these natural reflexes, however, "teaching" the desired sexual reactions is usually not included in the tasks of sex therapy. Masters and Johnson focus on identifying the barriers that block the effective functioning of the sexual sphere and helping people remove or overcome those barriers. Often, to restore normal function, it is not enough to remove obstacles, especially if sexual function has been impaired throughout life. Such people need special treatment that facilitates the appearance of arousal or improves sexual technique.
3. Often the main cause of sexual disorders is the fear of failure and "introspection", so the treatment is carried out at several levels. The pressure created by the consciousness of the need to have sexual intercourse is first eliminated in the end by the direct prohibition of direct sexual contact. After that, partners are helped to re-experience the sensual joy that touch and sensation of touch give, not intended to cause a sexual reaction (physical within the "sensual focus"). Sex therapists also help partners change their verbal assessment of their expectations so that everything they do is not judged as "success" or "failure". They also give their patients "permission" to worry, which helps them to speak more freely about what is bothering them. Such open discussion often reduces the intensity of fears.
4. One should not try to find out who is "guilty" of a sexual problem, as this only interferes with the matter. Instead, partners should be helped to identify what makes them feel calm and pleasant, and what causes tension and irritation. This approach encourages each of the partners to take responsibility, and not wait until another partner starts trying to create the “right” mood, give the “right tone” or “right style” to intimate relationships.
5. It is especially important to help partners understand that sex is just one component of their relationship. Often, when a sexual problem comes up in people's lives, it causes them such anxiety that they spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking and talking about it. Sex, of course, should not completely absorb their thoughts, but they should not be neglected either. One of the truisms of sex therapy is that improving relationships between partners outside the bedroom will most likely lead to better relationships outside the bedroom.

Masters and Johnson treatment regimen

The first day of treatment begins with the introduction of patients and their doctors, who, introducing themselves, explain what will happen over the next few days. After this first meeting, the partners are separated, and the doctors conduct a conversation with each of them (a male doctor with a man, and a female doctor with a woman) a conversation, finding out in detail the history of their life. After a break for lunch, during which the doctors discuss their findings, a secondary interview of partners begins, but this time the male doctor talks to the partner, and the woman doctor talks to the partner. At the end of this busy day, both patients undergo a complete physical examination. The next morning they take blood for a general analysis.

The second day is devoted to a "round table" with the participation of doctors and both patients. Physicians express their opinion regarding the sexual and non-sexual difficulties identified in the examined couple, and openly express their opinion about the chances of successful treatment. Patients are asked to comment on their findings and to correct possible factual errors. Medical professionals try to explain more likely causes of sexual dysfunction(s) or problem(s) and begin to outline a treatment plan. As a rule, this involves talking about sex as a natural function of the body, about how the fear of failure appears, about the effect of self-observation and about the important role of the ability to communicate. At the end of the roundtable, patients are usually encouraged to do the sensory focusing exercises (described in the next section) in the privacy of their own home or hotel room.

The very first interview usually lasts from half an hour to two hours, the second, that is, after an exchange of opinions between doctors, approximately 45 minutes for each partner. A round table usually takes up to an hour and a half. All these terms vary and depend in part on the talkativeness of patients. Subsequent daily meetings last an hour on average.

Starting on the third day, both patients come across with both doctors in a four-way interview, although often the doctors talk to each of the partners separately to find out if they have any difficulties that they would not like to discuss in the presence of the other partner. Every day, each partner is asked to recount the events of the previous day, paying special attention to the nature of the communication during the sensation focusing exercises.

It is interesting to note that most of the time in these healing sessions is usually devoted to topics that are not directly related to sex (how to manage anger; self-esteem; the struggle for leadership), however, doctors try, while dealing with other problems of their patients, to provide them with information about anatomy and physiology of the genital organs. .
Focusing sensations

At the beginning of treatment, each couple is asked to refrain from direct sexual intercourse involving genital contact. This approach helps to remove the pressure that comes from fear of failure in intercourse and creates the conditions for breaking the vicious circle of fear-introspection-failure-fear, which in many cases is deeply rooted. Training in the most effective ways of sexual interactions is based on the idea of ​​focusing sensations.

In the first stage of learning to focus sensations, the couple is asked to have two sessions, during which each of them touches the body of the other, with the chest and genitals being declared "forbidden zones." The purpose of touch is not to cause sexual arousal, but to discover the sensations caused by the partner's touch. Partners are warned that each of them must act in accordance with their own desires, and not try to guess what the other likes or dislikes. It is emphasized that the touch should not turn into a massage or an attempt to cause sexual arousal.

In the initial period, physical focusing of sensuality should be held in silence, if possible, since words can distract from physical sensations. However, one of the partners who is touched must make it clear to the other either without words (body language), or with words, if this or that touch is unpleasant for him.

However, many people say, "Oh, we have touched each other many times before: can't we do without it and go to the highest level?" This first stage is important in many ways. It provides the doctor with additional insight into the interactions between partners. In addition, this stage has a purely curative effect: this is evidenced by the fact that many men who for many years, when trying to have sexual intercourse, could not achieve an erection, suddenly found themselves with an unusually strong erection; this was probably due to the removal of pressure created by the feeling of the need to have sexual intercourse. After all, they were told that they were not expected to have sexual arousal, and even if it does occur, it should not be realized. And, finally, such touching is an excellent tool for reducing feelings of anxiety and learning to communicate without words.

At the next stage of the sensation focusing exercises, the area of ​​touch is expanded to include the chest and genitals. The positions shown in the figure are recommended but not required. The partner making the touch is explained that one should not start with the genitals, but with some other parts of the body. And again, the main goal should be the physical sensation of touch, and not the expectation of some special sexual reaction.

At this stage, partners are usually invited to try the "hand on hand" method as the most direct way of communication without words. Partners do this exercise in turn. By placing her hand on her partner's hand while he touches her body with his other hand, a woman can let him feel if she wants him to press harder or weaker, stroke faster or slower, or move to a different part of the body. After that, all this is repeated with a man, who in turn signals his preferences. The meaning of this whole procedure is to integrate silent messages in such a way that the partner touched by another partner does not turn into a "traffic controller", but rather simply makes some additional contribution to the process of touching, which is first made based on the interests of the "touching" partner. .

At the next stage of learning to focus sensations, a man and a woman are offered to touch each other not in turn, but simultaneously. This has two purposes: first, it creates a natural form of physical interaction ("in real life" people don't usually touch each other in turns); second, it doubles potential sources of sensory input. This stage is very important for overcoming the desire for self-observation, since the only thing that the observer can do is switch his attention to some part of his partner’s body (immerse himself in touch) and completely distract himself from observing his own reaction. Partners are reminded that no matter how intensely aroused they are, sexual intercourse is still forbidden.

During subsequent exercises to focus sensations, the same actions continue, but at some point the partners move into the “woman on top” position without trying to insert the penis into the vagina. In this position, a woman can play with the penis, rub it against the clitoris, vulva or vaginal opening, regardless of whether it is in an erect state or not. If an erection occurs and if she wants to, she can insert the tip of the penis into the vagina, but at the same time all her thoughts should be focused on physical sensations in order to immediately end her own actions or return to simple touching or hugging that does not affect the genitals, if she or her partner will show a desire for sexual intercourse or some kind of anxiety. Once partners begin to feel confident at this level, actual intercourse is usually not a problem.

All such techniques may seem very simple, but it is important to understand that all these are only components of a carefully designed psychotherapy program, and not just a set of some tricks or tricks. Their most important advantage is their quick and effective action even in severe and neglected cases.
Some Special Treatment Strategies

The treatment regimen outlined above, used by Masters and Johnson, is complemented by several other methods used in the treatment of various sexual disorders.

With erectile dysfunction, it is important to help a person understand that he cannot cause an erection on his own, for sure, just as he cannot voluntarily lower his blood pressure or increase his heart rate. He can create favorable conditions for his natural reflexes to take over if he does not try to achieve an erection and tries to overcome the fear of failure. Not surprisingly, it is not uncommon for a man with erectile dysfunction to develop strong erections in the very first sessions of focusing sensory sensations. This may be encouraging, but it is also important that the man (and his partner) understand that the loss of an erection is not a sign of failure; it simply enough shows that erections come and go naturally. Therefore, it should be explained to the woman that when an erection occurs, she must stop stroking the penis and other caresses so that the man has the opportunity to make sure that the erection will return when touching resumes. Another problem is related to this: many men with erectile dysfunction tend to have sexual intercourse as soon as they get an erection, because they are afraid that it will quickly pass. This "rush" creates another negative pressure and usually leads to a rapid loss of erection.

When an attempt is made to have sexual intercourse (only after the man has gained sufficient confidence in his ability to erect and has been able to weaken self-observation), the woman is offered to insert a phalos. This saves the man from having to decide when to enter; in addition, he is not "distracted" in search of the entrance to the vagina. In the treatment of premature ejaculation, our method of communicating with both partners is especially important, since this disorder may actually be more unpleasant for a woman than for a man. In these cases, in addition to discussing the physiology of ejaculation, physicians introduce a special method called the “compression method”, which helps to restore the ejaculatory reflex. When touching the genitals begins, the woman periodically squeezes the penis. In this case, as shown in the figure, the woman puts her thumb on the frenulum of the penis, and the index and middle fingers on the coronal groove and under it, on the opposite side of the penis. For about 4 seconds, she squeezes the cock very hard, and then abruptly releases it. Compression should always be applied from front to back, not side to side. A woman is obliged to do this with the pads of her fingers so as not to pinch or scratch the phallus with her nails. For unknown reasons, the compression method reduces the urgency of ejaculation (in addition, this effect can lead to a temporary partial weakening of the erection). It should not be used, however, at the moment when ejaculation becomes inevitable, but should be started in the early stages of playing with the genitals and continued with interruptions of a few minutes. Compression can be created regardless of whether the phallus is in an erect or flaccid state, but the force of pressure must correspond to the level of erection.

At the start of intercourse, the woman is asked to apply the compression method 3-6 times before attempting to insert the penis. After the penis is completely located in the vagina, she must simply remain inactive for 15-30 seconds, and none of the partners should create frictions at this time; after that, the woman is obliged to remove the phallus from the vagina, re-compress and reinsert it; then the steam may begin to create slow frictions. As the man learns to better control his ejaculation, both partners are taught another version of the contraction method, in which the phallus is compressed at the base so that it is not necessary to interrupt intercourse for repeated contractions.

Compression of the base of the penis

Compression of the penis at the base should be used exclusively during intercourse. It should be started by a man, because after the full insertion of the penis, for purely anatomical reasons, it is easier for him to get to the base of the penis and, of course, it is much easier for him to judge the level of his sexual arousal than for a woman. For the first six months after starting to use the compression method, a man is advised to give up any risky experiments, that is, attempts to find out how close he can come to the state of inevitability of ejaculation before the start of compression. The compression method is much more effective if it is started before the sexual response cycle reaches a plateau.

The treatment of ejaculatory failure is based on a deep analysis of the underlying psychological factors combined with sensation focusing exercises. It consists of several successive stages:

1. ejaculation caused by masturbation alone;
2. ejaculation caused by masturbation in the presence of a partner;
3. ejaculation caused by manual stimulation from the partner;
4. vigorous stimulation of the penis by the partner, carried out until the state of inevitability of ejaculation, and then the rapid introduction of the penis into the vagina.

In most cases, after a man has ejaculated into the vagina once or twice, the suppression of this act or the fear associated with it completely disappears. In some cases, if these procedures fail, ejaculation (induced by manual stimulation) on the woman's vulva may help. After a man gets used to the sight of his sperm on his partner's vulva, he can make intravaginal ejaculation much easier.

Vaginismus is treated by explaining to partners the nature of the involuntary contraction of the muscles of the vagina and demonstrating a reflex in the process of examining the woman's genitals in the presence of her partner, and the examination is prepared in such a way that the woman herself can observe what is happening with the help of a mirror. After that, the doctor teaches the woman some techniques to relax the muscles surrounding the vagina. The most effective way seems to be to deliberately tense these muscles and then simply relax them. The woman is then given a set of dilators of various sizes. The smallest of them - a little thinner than a finger - the doctor gently inserts into the vagina, often to the amazement of a woman who has never been able to insert anything into her vagina. Next, she is shown how to introduce the dilator herself, lubricating it abundantly with a sterile jelly-like cream, and is asked to do this at home several times a day, each time leaving the dilator in the vagina for 10-15 minutes. Most women with vaginismus are able to use the thickest dilator in the kit after 5-6 days, which is the size of an erect penis. If relationship problems have been resolved (often a key point in therapy), then the transition to successful intercourse is not difficult. At this time, it is especially important that the woman herself introduces the penis; this will make her feel that she is in control of the situation.

The strategies used in the treatment of anorgasmia are very dependent on the nature of the disorder. A woman who has never experienced an orgasm before needs a completely different approach than one who achieves orgasm without problems through masturbation, manual stimulation, or oral-genital sex. Strategies also vary depending on the cause(s) of anorgasmia. For example, if a woman thinks her body is unattractive, there are various ways to get her to feel more positive about herself. A woman who is prevented from reaching high arousal by some disturbing fantasies can be taught methods of blocking such thoughts, while another who is unable to go beyond the plateau stage can be advised to resort to fantasies that can push her to orgasm.

When treating anorgasmia, a woman is usually advised to:

1. to study one's own body, especially the genitals, and create light non-persistent stimulation;
2. try to suppress the fear of failure and the desire for self-observation, paying special attention to reducing the psychological pressure from your partner;
3. develop sexual communication in order to learn how to signal to a partner what kind of touch or stimulation is preferred at this moment;
4. weaken the inhibitory factors that limit a woman's ability to excite or block orgasm.

Women who have been helped by this last method are often given "permission" to experience sexual sensations, and they learn to overcome fears that orgasm may cause blackout or involuntary urination. In most cases, these techniques make it very easy for a woman to achieve orgasm when masturbating or being stimulated by a partner. For the transition to orgasm during sexual intercourse, a connecting step is required, consisting in manual stimulation of the clitoris during active frictions.

These methods have been used for more than 30 years to treat sexual disorders, with success achieved in about 4 out of 5 cases. Between 1959 and 1973 each couple was followed up for 5 years after treatment to assess the sustainability of the results achieved. Recently, the observation period has been reduced to 2 years. Approximately one in 20 couples return to the Masters & Johnson Institute at some point for additional therapy after the first two weeks of treatment.

Beautiful women in elegant dresses, makeup and high heels (long extinct in America like dinosaurs), intrigue, suspense, love and sex, nostalgic pictures of the academic world in the late 1950s and 60s, in its golden age when professors were respected and rich people , and even a bit of science - all this you will find in the series "Masters of Sex", a new project whose name is a play on words: on the one hand, it can be translated as "Masters of Sex", and on the other hand, William Masters was a real person, a gynecologist, who, together with his assistant Virginia Johnson, who eventually became his friend and wife, pioneered the nature of the human sexual response.

✷ Virginia Johnson and William Masters as they were in life

Based on their results, they proposed the diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunctions and disorders. Now what they have done is commonplace. But then, in 1957, it was a breakthrough in medical science. The camera and many sensors for measurements, as well as the measurement technique, they came up with themselves. The series is based on the 2009 book of the same name by their biographer Thomas Mayer.

✷ Many years later, when they became famous, they were on the cover of the Times.

The work of Masters and Johnson essentially continued what had been started by Dr. Kinsey, a pioneer in sex research, who in the 1930s and 40s interviewed thousands of men and women about their sexual experiences and published two seminal books on his findings: in 1948 year and 1953 (Sexual behavior of men and women, respectively). These books created an earthquake in American society at the time. Kinsey was a theoretical biologist and did not perform any experiments. But Masters was a practicing gynecologist, and a born experimenter.

✷ And this is what they look like in the show. In the center is Michael Sheen playing the role of William Masters, on the left is Lizzy Caplan as Virginie Johnson. On the right is Masters' first wife (according to the film)

When Masters and Johnson began their work, the vast majority of physicians believed that the physiology of sex was not a proper subject for scientific study. According to Masters, this attitude only perpetuated the taboos and fears that led to sexual dysfunctions that were virtually incurable at the time. "It robs people of joy," he said.

Masters firmly believed that his project would not be successful unless a woman was involved, from beginning to end. In 1956, he hired Virginia Johnson, a divorced and unemployed mother of two. She didn't even graduate from college, where she studied psychology. After her first marriage, she became a singer and performed with an orchestra conducted by George Johnson, her first husband.
According to the biography written by Thomas Mayer and the TV series, they did some of the experiments on themselves, but I did not find this on Wikipedia.

The Masters-Johnson program took many years and was funded by the National Institute of Health, something (mutely and not early on) tossed the University of Washington in St. Louis, where the work was carried out. According to the film, Masters put some of the money out of his own pocket.

Masters and Johnson published the results of their research in 1966 in the book "Human Sexual Responses," intended for medical professionals and written in dry professional language. It, however, became a bestseller, as did their next book, Human Sexual Dysfunctions. These writings essentially created the discipline now called sexology, laid the foundations of sex therapy, and led to a change in attitudes towards sexual behavior, which, as they believed it should be joyful for both men and women.

In the series, there are psychological actors, and drama, and different types, from the vice-rector to the nurse. (I'm so enticing; actually only watched the last two episodes ☺ ☺)…

And only one man - scientist Bill Masters - managed to change this situation. (Personally, we now only talk about sex and do not do it at all!) In the 1950s, the city of St. Louis was a stronghold of American conservatism.

Picturesque geometric lawns, polished car hoods, polished children on bicycles… An ideal American city, ready to be shot in an advertisement. George Washington University, which was considered one of the best in the country, was also located here, especially its medical faculty. Of course, each department had its own stars and authorities. In the gynecology department, that star was Bill Masters. “If there was a problem in the gynecology department, the only person you wanted to see entering the office was Masters,” one of his colleagues spoke of the 41-year-old surgeon. Masters was known not only for saving lives after unsuccessful abortions or miscarriages, but also for creating a new life. He was among the first doctors to put the process of artificial insemination on stream, and the percentage of successful pregnancies was incredibly high when it was Masters who took over. The line of desperate couples who have tried for years without success to conceive has never been short. "I guarantee you will have a baby" is Masters' catchphrase. "As a gynecologist, I wanted to trace the development of life from its very beginning." Each morning, Bill was one of the first to park his red sports Chevrolet Corvette in the university parking lot. Even earlier, he was jogging around the stadium, not far from his home. He never cheated on a bow tie, explaining this not by foppery, but by necessity: during the inspection, it was not necessary to throw a long tie over his shoulder. Only a very polite person could call Masters cute. He was also neither amiable nor sociable. Dr. Masters did not like idle talk, rarely allowed himself a smile, and to earn his praise was considered among the students the greatest achievement. And no one knew what a dirty and shameful secret hides sleek Bill Masters. She Virginia Johnson knew she wanted the job as soon as she stepped into the medical department at George Washington University in St. Louis on a snowy December evening in 1956. Virginia was in her early thirties, but she was already very, very tired. At home, two small children were waiting for her, in the past two unemployed husbands loomed, from whom, one might say, there was no help. She desperately needed a job, especially at one of the best universities in the country. Subsequently, Virginia will say: "I never really liked the world of medicine, it meant nothing to me." But the clean, large and bright corridors of the new university building and the opportunity to work for one of the best gynecologists in the country clearly impressed her. "She was not beautiful, but she looked very sexy and friendly" - such a diagnosis was made by one of the doctors of the university to Mrs. Johnson. Virginia was short, with straight dark hair and large features. But she had a sense of style and elegance. She knew how to dress and how to present herself. Virginia knew that her main disadvantage was her lack of education. Being the daughter of farmers, she achieved a lot, having already moved to the city, but she could not step above secretarial work. However, on that December evening, she got the job right during the interview. Mrs. Johnson made the most favorable impression on Masters: restrained but unrestricted, resourceful but not intrusive. And most importantly - twice divorced. Such a detail in the biography of a woman of that time could greatly hurt her. Divorces were not only not welcomed, they were condemned. Thousands of housewives preferred electroshock therapy*, which they were prescribed for depression, over divorce. Clearly, Mrs. Johnson was not one of them. It felt the desire for freedom and independence. Besides, she didn't blush, giggle, or faint at the word "sex," the decisive criteria by which Masters chose his secretary. After all, this was exactly what Dr. Masters' new assistant had to do. Sex. * - Note by Phacochoerus "a Funtik: "A method of psychiatric treatment that was popular in those brutal times. Yes, homosexuality was also treated with electroshock therapy" Asexual America We, modern people, for whom sex is a natural part of life and the discussion of which seems to be the norm, do not understand what was happening in the world of the mid-twentieth century. And what was happening was this: sex was a taboo topic. It existed in the confined spaces of marital bedrooms and semi-legal brothels, but it was forbidden to enter the wide world. It was a world of blatant sexual ignorance, which collapsed only at the end of 1960 -x, with the advent of the sexual revolution associated with the advent of various and affordable contraceptives.By the way, about matrimonial bedrooms: the vast majority had not one wide bed, but two narrow ones, so that there was no temptation. I love Lucy" strictly ensured that its characters never uttered the word "pregnant" on the air . It wasn't until the mid-1960s that the double bed was shown on Bewitched, to the awe of viewers across the continent. There was no talk of educating schoolchildren about what was happening to their bodies. Such ignorance sometimes led to anecdotal cases. One day, a young couple came to see Masters, who had been trying in vain for two years to have a baby. When asked by the doctor, in what position the couple most often practices intercourse, the young people, touchingly holding hands, answered: “As it is written in the Bible, we lie side by side on the same bed.” It turned out that they really were just “lying down” and both were innocent, like Adam and Eve before they met the serpent. Unfortunately, it wasn't always funny. In the vast majority of cases, sexual ignorance led to events of varying degrees of unpleasant - from unhappy family life to unwanted pregnancy and often abortion. And if men could still walk to a brothel and learn about the joys of sex there, then women were forced to spend bleak years in cold bedrooms, sincerely considering masturbation a sin and not realizing what an orgasm is. Biologist Alfred Kinsey made the first attempts to open the eyes of society to sex. As early as the 1930s, he began research on human sexuality, which resulted in two bestsellers, Male Human Sexual Behavior and Human Female Sexual Behavior. Kinsey certainly deserves all the credit and all the laurels assigned to him for his courage as a pioneer. But the work of a biologist has one significant drawback: they are all purely theoretical. The conclusions that Kinsey made in his monographs are based on answers from questionnaires (we all know how “honestly” we answer questions about sex). Moreover, as experimental subjects, the biologist, in the absence of decent citizens, chose the residents of prisons - male and female. That is, he could not provide his study with a representative sample. In the absence of scientific facts, sex has been fertile ground for myths and the creativity of individual researchers. This was especially true of female sexuality, it was easier to deal with male sexuality at all times. So Sigmund Freud invented the theory of mature vaginal and immature clitoral orgasms. Like, clitoral orgasm is characteristic of girls who do not know what they are doing, while vaginal is a sign of an adult developed woman. And the vaginal orgasm is many times stronger. When the psychoanalyst's daughter Anna Freud was asked many years later about this dubious differentiation, she replied: "Even if someone wanted to find out the nature of the female orgasm, I can't imagine how he would do it in the laboratory." She did not know William Masters. The peeping brothel for almost a year became Masters' second job: he came here after a shift at the university and scrupulously recorded all the acts that he observed through a peephole in a pseudo-wall. The girls didn't mind, they even encouraged the doctor. First, he gave everyone a free medical examination. Secondly, during his watch they were protected from police raids. The police chief of St. Louis and his wife owed Masters the appearance of an heir in their family, so it was easy for the doctor to negotiate with the peace officer. Then Masters hit a dead end. The observation raised more questions than it answered. It turned out that imitation of orgasm is a common practice for women. How, then, to know when a woman is faking an orgasm, and when she is experiencing it for real? That would be attached to her wiring and take heart rate readings during sex! Dreams, dreams... Masters realized that you couldn't turn around in brothels. So he went to the dean of the medical school for permission to conduct sex research. "What do you know about sex?" asked the indignant dean. "Nothing. And I'm sure you are too," Bill replied unfazed. The dean laughed and gave permission. But with a caveat: the experiments must take place in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy. The dean did not want to risk the reputation of the university and his position. Bill agreed. The matter remained small - to find a female partner. After communicating with the girls from the brothel, Masters realized that if anyone can understand a woman, then only another woman. And when, on a December evening in 1956, Virginia Johnson, self-confident, self-sufficient and far from sanctimonious morality, went into Masters' office, he knew that he had found her, the very one. Single performances There was something strange going on in Masters' office. Every evening women and men came there, individually or together. After that, the door to the waiting room was tightly locked, and attempts by Masters' colleagues to get in there for an unexpectedly needed document were gently but firmly rebuffed by Virginia in a white coat, leaning out of the office. Actually, the most suspicious were the sounds that sometimes broke through the hospital wall. Once Virginia caught a trainee with a stethoscope pressed against the wall: something strange was really going on behind the wall. Volunteers - as Masters called the participants in his study - came and masturbated for a small amount. At the same time, wires were attached to their naked bodies, connected to equipment that monitored the pulse, temperature and other indicators of the body during sexual arousal. Bill and Virginia watched the process through a special glass in the laboratory, if necessary, one of them came into the room and straightened the wires on a volunteer. The doctor and his assistant also called for help from a cameraman filming operations at the university. Masters managed to convince him that what was about to be filmed was also just a medical procedure. The hardest part of the study was finding volunteers. Virginia's tact and sociability helped here. She had many familiar nurses, among them there were those who agreed to such an adventure - of course, on condition of strict anonymity. The invention of Masters also helped - a huge plastic dildo, named Ulysses by the researchers. The volunteer girls adored Ulysses! The next step was the placement of a miniature lens in Ulysses. For the first time in human history, the female orgasm was filmed from within. “The only unnatural sexual act is the one that you can’t do” A. Kinsey Gradually, the fame of a place where you can have fun and earn extra money at the same time (not to mention helping science) began to spread among girls, and then young people (and not too) men. It turned out that both men and women experience four identical stages during sexual intercourse: arousal, plateau (strong arousal, but not orgasm), orgasm, relaxation. Also, Masters and Johnson managed to debunk the myth of Freud with a mature and immature orgasm. It turned out that the reactions of the woman's body are the same in both types of orgasm and that in some cases the clitoral orgasm is even stronger than the vaginal one. This led to the uncomfortable thought that a woman who wanted sexual satisfaction could well do without a man. Pairs Program A few months after starting work, Masters decided to start studying pairs. Since it proved difficult to find a married couple willing to exchange the tranquility of the marital bedroom for the unfamiliar atmosphere of the laboratory, the doctor and his assistant resorted to a risky method. They began to invite strangers and strangers to share the joys of the experiment. To maintain anonymity, they put bags with holes for the eyes on their heads. (Later, Bill Masters' compassionate mother, having learned about her son's experiment, would sew more appropriate silk masks for the subjects.) The number of volunteers grew every month. The study made it possible to enjoy communication with the opposite sex on an anonymous basis, and therefore safe for the social life of the subjects. It was also a big plus that, before including a man or woman in work, Bill and Virginia checked their health for sexually transmitted diseases and admitted only those who passed the test. In addition, caps were installed for women, which gave an almost one hundred percent guarantee against pregnancy. More often than others, married people appeared in the doctor's laboratory: it and others longed to take a break from family happiness in the arms of an unfamiliar partner with a bag on their heads. "I realized late that the scientific world was not ready for such a revelation" "What did Masters need this for?" - You (or the one who reads the article instead of you) may ask. Many years later, the doctor himself gave the answer to this question: “As a gynecologist, I knew everything from how children are born. But what leads to the origin of life was still unclear. I wanted to follow the process from the beginning." Of course, the study couldn't remain a secret for long, especially since Masters brought in two of his most loyal interns. Once, one of them fitted a cap to a test subject, whose face was securely hidden by a mask. But as soon as the trainee turned to the girl who climbed into the gynecological chair, he realized that ... in general, that he knew her well. Indeed, it turned out that the girl was a university student with whom he went on dates several times. In the small world of St. Louis, it was impossible to hide something for long. Masters had no intention of. Five years have passed since the beginning of the work, it was time to present the results. But the most famous gynecological journal in the country, Obstetrics and Gynecology, which usually published Masters' articles, rejected a summary of the study of the body's reactions during sex. Then the doctor decided to demonstrate the result to his colleagues. Scandal and expulsion Usually on Fridays, the doctors of the gynecology department gathered for an informal meeting to discuss difficult cases and simply exchange experiences. Sometimes someone would bring beer to the meeting. This time, Masters offered his colleagues dry vermouth and drew their attention to the projector screen. Soon, two dozen doctors were sitting with their mouths open, completely forgetting about the vermouth. One of Masters' colleagues recalls the presentation: “He showed us a film in which an unknown woman masturbated. It was a close-up of nipples and enlarged breasts. We couldn't see the face of the woman in the film, the frame didn't go beyond the neck and hips." Nothing seemed to shock Masters' colleagues more. But when the cameraman put on the next film, it turned out that it could. This time before the eyes of the doctors appeared a huge female vagina from the inside, filmed during arousal and orgasm. At the end of the premiere, the room was filled with an indignant hum. Even the doctors were not ready for such a degree of frankness. A few days later, Masters was asked to leave his position and to take Virginia and his research with him. “I realized late that the conservative scientific world was not ready for such a revelation. It was a strategic mistake on my part,” Masters admitted years later. At the same time, the expulsion from the scientific paradise gave the doctor an incentive to organize his own business. In 1964, the Center for Reproductive Biological Research was founded with the money of the doctor's loyal fans. This work made life very difficult not only for Bill and Virginia, but for their families. Bill's wife Libby was afraid to open the letters because most of them contained dirty insults from strangers. Children had to be sent to boarding schools in other states in order to save them from the persecution of classmates. The center's reputation was also hampered by rumors of a relationship between Masters and his assistant. Rumors, I must say, are more than true. Office romance Bill and Virginia became lovers in their first year of observing masturbating and having sex together, which is quite natural (imagine that every day you and a colleague of the opposite sex will watch porn films). At first, the intimate relationship between the doctor and his assistant was strictly practical: Masters immediately offered Johnson sex so that, as he put it, they "did not have a transference to one of the subjects." In general, to protect yourself from the temptation. "Bill broke all the rules: he was not a faithful husband to Libby." Over the years, the situation worsened. Masters began to send his wife and children on vacation to another state. And the neighbors, including Libby's friends, watched as Mrs. Johnson took her place on the sunbed by the pool the very next day after Mrs. Masters left. Virginia appeared in society in expensive furs, which were obviously not affordable for her, but affordable for her wealthy employer. Masters' assistant was constantly confused with his wife. Bill and Virginia went out together and developed a charming habit of finishing each other's sentences. They would have been the perfect couple if not for the fact that Bill was already married. And, finally, orgasm The common brainchild of Masters and Johnson - the Center for Reproductive Biological Research - grew stronger before our eyes. But success came with the publication of the book Human Sexual Responses. The work contained statements that were revolutionary for American society, based on laboratory observation of 382 women and 312 men in the age category from 18 to 75 years. Society, in particular, has learned that a woman does not need a man to experience pleasure, and that over the years the libido does not disappear, as was commonly believed, but only decreases, and even then not always. In a couple of weeks, the entire circulation, which consisted of strict books in a brown dust jacket, was snapped up. The book became a bestseller, and its authors were the first people who did not hesitate to talk about sex. The appearance of the book coincided with the beginning of the sexual revolution: gradually society began to turn to sex. Bill, who had recently been excluded from scientific life, was again invited to conferences. Now the focus of his and Virginia's attention was not on the body's response to sexual arousal, but on sexual disorders. Previously, problems such as impotence and vaginismus were treated for years with the help of individual therapy of the partner who had problems. Masters and Johnson patented a method that is still used today: they talked with both partners and gave them "homework", often not directly sexual contact (for example, lying naked side by side without touching each other). The method proved so popular that soon thousands of people flocked to the Masters and Johnson Clinic, as their center was now called, desperate to find sexual satisfaction in their marriage. In 1970, a photograph of Bill and Virginia appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Each TV channel considered it their duty to call this couple on the air, especially since they were now married (when Virginia had a new suitor with serious intentions, Bill finally divorced his wife). The need for sex education and talking about sex between partners has suddenly taken over the whole world. Both Masters and Johnson were the first to claim this. P.S. In 1992, America was shocked by the news of the divorce of Bill and Virginia. They claimed that they would continue to work together after parting. It didn't work out. Masters passed away in 2001. Virginia - in July 2013. Had she lived two more months, she would have seen the pilot of Showtime's Masters of Sex, based on her life and work with Bill. Excellent series, by the way. Recommended. Photo: Getty Images; Fotolia/Photoexpress; Rex Features / Fotodom.ru; Everett Collection / East News.

There are many different reasons that make knowledge of sexology necessary for any person; for example, college students attending relevant courses are not guided by academic, but by purely personal motives. After all, awareness in matters of sex, in contrast to knowledge in physical chemistry or mathematical analysis, can be very useful in real life. This does not mean that the problem of human sexuality is not of scientific value (on the contrary); it's just that the knowledge gained in this area can be used more directly than information in other sciences.

An informed person in matters of sex can avoid many problems in his own life and in the sexual education of his children. If problems arise (for example, infertility, sexual impotence, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual harassment), the knowledge gained in this area will help to successfully cope with them. Awareness of the nature of sexuality makes a person more sensitive and attentive to other people, thereby helping to strengthen intimate relationships and achieve more complete sexual satisfaction.

Nowadays, there is another particularly good reason that makes knowledge of sexology simply necessary. In the era of the HIV epidemic (short for the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS), the responsible choice of sexual partners literally saves a person's life. In addition, it is now clear that unless a cure for AIDS is found, in the coming years, each of us will be affected in one way or another by the tragedies associated with the HIV/AIDS epidemic; with accurate information on sex issues, we will become more tolerant and better aware of the burden this disease places on our society, and indeed on the whole world.

Unfortunately, knowledge alone does not make a person happy. There is no guarantee that careful study of this book will help you find (or keep) your loved one. We simply believe that objective information about human sexuality will enable our readers to understand a variety of problems, both purely personal and social or moral, and thereby better know themselves and other people. We also believe that sexual literacy can lead people to act intelligently and responsibly towards each other and help them make important decisions in this area. In short, sexual education is an invaluable preparation for life.

Various aspects of sexuality. Some definitions

For every person, the meaning attached to the word "sexy" seems obvious. First of all, it means something "indecent", something that is not customary to talk about in society (Freud, 1943).

"For both the South Sea Islanders and us, sex is not just some physiological act; it involves love and lovemaking; it forms the core of such time-honored institutions as marriage and the family; it permeates art, endowing it with charm and magic. "In essence, he dominates all areas of culture. Sex in the broadest sense of the word is a sociological and cultural factor, and not just a carnal connection between two individuals" (Malinowsky, 1929).

"Francie, damned slut," I often said, "for lasciviousness, you are not far from a cat." "But you like me, don't you? Men love to fuck, women do too. There's no harm in it, but it's not necessary to love everyone we do it with, is it?" (Miller, 1961).

What is sexuality? As the quotes above show, there is no simple answer to this question. Freud considered sex to be a powerful psychic and biological force, while Malinowski emphasizes its sociological and cultural aspects. Henry Miller painted explicit pictures of sex in his novels in order to philosophically comprehend the very essence of man. In everyday life, the word "sex" has recently come to be used to refer to sexual intercourse ("having sex"). The word "sexuality" is usually understood more broadly, as it refers to everything related to sex. Sexuality is one of the facets of a given person, and not just his ability to have an erotic reaction.

Unfortunately, our language limits the possibility of discussing sex in conversations between people. By distinguishing between sexual activities (such as masturbation, kissing, or intercourse) and sexual behavior (which includes not only sexual intercourse per se, but also flirting, a certain style of dress, reading Playboy, and dating), we have only scratched the surface. to the issue of sexuality. Describing various types of sex as procreative (with the goal of procreation), recreational (with the sole purpose of having fun) and relative ("love-friendship", the opportunity to communicate with a loved one), we are convinced that the categories we have identified are too few. Although we cannot give an exhaustive answer to the question “What is sexuality?” in this chapter, we will consider the various aspects of sexuality that will be discussed in this book.

Real situation

David and Lynn sat in front of the sex therapist's office, anxious as they waited for the appointment. Despite their embarrassment, David and Lynn were determined to find a way out of the sexual problems that had plagued their relationship for the past three months. They had lived together for two years and intended to marry after college, but the feeling of dissatisfaction that entered their lives cast doubt on the reality of these plans.

Entering the doctor's office, they bluntly stated their problems. They met three years ago, when they were 18 years old, in their first year. The novel began on the basis of a common interest and easily turned into an intimate sexual relationship. For both David and Lynn, this was not the first love affair; they experienced a strong sexual attraction to each other. Their first love date was passionate and sensual. The relationship grew stronger and gave them great pleasure. The natural result of these feelings was a life together that brought them joy - until recently.

The first time they failed was during the Christmas holidays when they went to Boston to visit Lynn's parents. David was upset because he and Lynn were given separate bedrooms. Lynn was distressed by the apparently cold reception her parents gave David. The only time they managed to be alone (on a Sunday morning while Lynn's parents were at church), their caresses were hasty and mechanical. They returned to New York with relief and celebrated the new year with friends.

Sexual relations are an integral part of the life of each of us.

The party, during which there was a lot of champagne, lasted until 4 o'clock in the morning. Returning to their room, David and Lynn intended to make love, but David failed to achieve an erection. They laughed about it and went to sleep, glad they were "at home".

The next morning, David had a terrible hangover. He took a few aspirins, had a quick breakfast, and motioned for Lynn to go to bed. She didn't mind, although she didn't really want to, as she, too, was suffering from a bit of a hangover. David and this time failed to achieve an erection. Lynn was sympathetic to this, but David was very worried about his sexual failure all day. Deciding that he needed to rest and calm down before making new attempts, he went to bed that evening.

When he woke up in the morning, he felt energized and immediately turned to Lynn to hug her.

Despite being in good health, David had only a partial erection, but it also disappeared when he tried to have intercourse. From that time on, David constantly experienced some difficulty with erection, and Lynn, who at first tried to help him, became more and more worried. In their relationship, in the past relaxed and pleasant, irritation and harshness began to appear. They talked about going their separate ways, but figured they still loved each other and could, with some help from a specialist, deal with the problem.

With this example, selected from our file cabinet, we want to look at various aspects of sexuality, which are dealt with in more detail in later chapters of the book. The situation that arose in the life of David and Lynn gives us the opportunity to show the importance of the various aspects of sexuality that interact in the lives of each of us.

Biological aspect

Difficulties with erection first arose for David after he drank a lot of champagne. This should not come as a surprise, since alcohol has a depressant effect on the nervous system. Since the nervous system normally transmits physical sensations to the brain and activates some of the sexual reflexes, too much alcohol can block the sexual response in anyone.

However, the biological aspect of sexuality is much broader. Biological factors largely control sexual development from the moment of conception to the birth of a child, and upon reaching puberty - the ability to reproduce. In addition, these factors influence sexual desire, sexual activity and (indirectly) sexual satisfaction. It is even suggested that biological factors determine some of the sex differences in behavior, such as the greater aggressiveness of men compared to women (Olweus et al., 1980; Reinisch, 1981). Asexual arousal, regardless of its cause, has biological consequences: an increased heart rate, a reaction in the genitals, and sensations of warmth and awe that spread throughout the body.

Psychological aspect

David and Lynn reacted differently to the situation. David was worried, could not think of anything else, lost confidence in himself, while Lynn, who at first showed understanding and participation and tried to support him, became increasingly irritable and aloof. It was clear that the nature of their relationship had changed under the stress of the sexual problem. They even began to doubt their feelings for each other and whether they should marry, although during the trip to Lynn's parents, both were convinced of this.

This case illustrates the psychological aspect of sexuality, but at the same time, social factors (the nature of interaction between people) are added to purely psychological factors (emotions, thoughts, individual perception). David's preoccupation with his first sexual "failure" set off a chain of failures, even though the original biological "cause" - too much alcohol - was already gone. The panic that gripped him forced him to make more and more attempts to have sex, but the results were just the opposite of what he and Lynn wanted.

The psychological aspect is inherent in any sexual problem, but in the formation of a person's sexual self-identification in the process of development, it is this aspect that plays a dominant role. A child's awareness of his belonging to the male or female sex is formed mainly under the influence of psychosocial factors. The individual's preconceived notions about his sex role in early childhood (as a rule, they remain after he becomes an adult) are largely based on what parents, peers and teachers inspire him. In addition to the psychological aspect, sexuality has a pronounced social aspect, since sexual relations between people are regulated by laws, prohibitions, as well as public opinion that convinces us of the need to follow accepted norms in our sexual behavior.

Behavioral aspect

After talking with David and Lynn separately, we found that in the three months since their first sexual failure, the relationship between them has changed a lot. The frequency of attempts at sexual intimacy dropped sharply, while before they had sex 4-5 times a week. David began to frequently resort to masturbation (which he had not done for several years), as it turned out that in this way he easily achieves an erection. As for Lynn, she only masturbated once because she felt like she was doing something wrong. Lynn also avoided showing affection towards David, fearing that this might put additional pressure on him.

The described details of the relationship between David and Lynn reflect the behavioral aspect of sexuality. And although human sexual behavior is determined by biological and psychological factors, the study of the behavioral aspect of sexuality is of independent interest. By exploring it, we not only learn what people do, but also better understand how and why they do it. For example, David resorted to masturbation in order to strengthen his self-confidence, to prove to himself that he retained the ability to erect. Lynn tried to avoid physical intimacy with the best of intentions, but David could decide that she was rejecting him.

When discussing this topic, one should not judge the behavior of other people on the basis of one's own criteria and one's own experience. Too often people tend to think about sexuality by dividing all of its manifestations into "normal" and "abnormal". We often consider “normal” what we do ourselves and what we like, while “abnormal” in our eyes is everything that others do and which seems to us “wrong” or strange. Trying to judge what is normal for other people is not only a thankless task, but, as a rule, doomed to failure, because our own principles and existing experience suppress our objectivity.

Clinical aspect

David and Lynn went through two weeks of sexual therapy and resolved all their problems. They not only began to enjoy intimacy as much as before, but also felt that other aspects of their relationship improved as a result of therapy. As Lynn told us: “It was great that we got over the sexual problem, but we also learned so much about ourselves. We have become much closer, and the feelings that bind us are so strong that we will be able to overcome any difficulties. if they occur."

Despite the fact that sexual activity is one of the natural functions of the body, there are many different circumstances that can weaken the pleasure or immediacy of our love dates. Physical problems such as illness, injury, or drugs can change the nature of our sexual responses or even suppress them altogether.

Feelings of anxiety, guilt, embarrassment or depression and conflicts in our personal relationships can interfere with sexual activity. Searching for ways to solve these and other problems that impede the achievement of sexual health and happiness is engaged in sex therapy.

Great strides have been made over the past two decades in the treatment of a wide variety of sexual disorders. Two points played a key role in this: a deeper understanding of the many-sidedness of the nature of sexuality and the development of a new science - sexology - which studies the problems of sex. Doctors, psychologists, nurses, and other professionals who have completed a course in sexology can use what they have learned, combined with their professional training, to help many of their patients.

Cultural aspect

The life of David and Lynn, like the life of any of us, reflects the characteristics of the cultural environment to which we belong. So, Lynn's parents did not allow her and David to sleep in the same room, although they knew that the young people lived together. Another example is that Lynn's guilt about masturbating was largely due to her upbringing. And David's anxiety about his sexual failures was partly a reaction to the widespread belief among Americans that an erection should occur as soon as a man came on a love date.

The attitude towards sex accepted in our society is far from being universal. Among some peoples, a special affection for a guest or friend is expressed by offering him his wife (Voget, 1961). Tribes are known (Ford, Beach, 1951) whose representatives are not known to kiss. The authors describe their impressions as follows: "When the Tonga first saw Europeans kissing, they began to laugh, saying:" Look at them, they eat each other's saliva and leftover food. "These strange customs may repel or amuse us, but at the same time they help to realize that our views are not shared by everyone and not everywhere.

Sexuality has received a lot of attention and is a topic of much discussion, but disagreements that arise in the course of disputes often depend on the time, place and circumstances of the discussion. Estimates of "morally" or "correctly" are different for different peoples and in different centuries. Many moral principles related to sex are associated with certain religious traditions, but religion does not have a monopoly on morality. People who do not have strong religious convictions can be no less moral than deeply religious people. There is no such system of sexual values ​​that would be true for everyone and everyone, and no moral code can be undeniably correct and applicable in all cases.

In the United States, the ideas about sexual behavior that prevailed in the first half of the 20th century have changed significantly over the past 25 years. If, for example, before they attached great importance to the fact that a girl should keep her virginity before marriage, now the attitude towards premarital sexual relations has become directly opposite. As a result, the age at which sexual activity begins has decreased compared to what it was 20-30 years ago; an increasing number of teenagers are having sex and a significant proportion of prospective spouses live together before marriage. Another illustration of the change in morals is the attitude towards masturbation as a harmless pleasant activity, which differs sharply from the previous views, according to which masturbation is a sign of moral weakness and a path to mental degradation.

Over the past decades, three trends have played an important role in the development of the new American attitude towards sex and sexuality. The first of them is the liberation from sex-role stereotypes. Each person feels himself a being of one sex or another (gender self-identification); how he manifests himself in this capacity is usually called a sex role (Money, Ehrardt, 1972). Traditionally, women and girls were considered to be sexually passive, and men were assigned the role of sexual aggressors. In accordance with the existing stereotype, it is the man who should act as the initiator of sexual relations, and a woman who behaved actively or did not hide the pleasure received from carnal love was looked askance. For many people, these views have now been replaced by ideas about the equality of sexual partners. The second trend is greater openness in matters of sex. This change has affected all media - from television and cinema to the printed word. As a result, sex was no longer viewed as something shameful and mysterious. The third trend is the spread of attitudes towards sex as a way to have fun and relieve stress. The dominance of relative and recreational sex over the past 25 years is partly due to improvements in contraceptives and concerns about overpopulation of the planet.

It would be a mistake to think that sociocultural views can remain unchanged for a long time. Some indications are that the anxiety caused by the increase in the frequency of sexually transmitted diseases, combined with the growing trend towards political and religious conservatism, may soon lead to a rollback from the sexual permissiveness of the 60s and 70s. In fact, many observers believe that the so-called sexual revolution is already over, that we are on the threshold of a new era when duty and fidelity in intimate relationships will prevail over momentary pleasure and sexual permissiveness. However, since cultural trends are notable for their volatility, it is impossible to predict with certainty how development will take this new direction.

The writer's case

A twenty-nine-year-old woman, who won high-profile acclaim with her first novel of skillful writing two years ago, consulted a psychotherapist about the loss of her ability to write: she was supposed to finish her second novel six months ago, and meanwhile for almost a year she has only managed to write more than a few on rare days. paragraphs often she would sit helplessly staring at the hard-coded lines, unable to concentrate.

Soon after such a problem arose in her work, she had difficulties in sexual relations with her husband, although before she was easily aroused and reached orgasm. Gradually, her desire to have sex began to disappear, and she considered the tension created by her creative turmoil to be the main reason for this. She also developed insomnia, which left her feeling tired all day. Sometimes all this brought her to such despair that she burst into tears.

When she was still unable to write after several months of psychotherapy, her doctor advised her and her husband to see a sex therapist, believing that if she could manage her sexual problems, it would help her to start writing again.

At the very first conversations with the patient, the sex therapist suspected that the woman was suffering from clinical depression. Further questioning revealed that she had thought of suicide from time to time, and had lost more than 5 kg over the past six months. In addition, her mother, as well as her maternal aunt, suffered from depression.

After several weeks of taking antidepressants, the woman began to notice that she was able to focus on her novel and good sleep returned to her. And soon renewed interest in sex, and she began to experience an orgasm again.

Comment. As this example shows, not all sexual problems require sex therapy. In this case, the main psychological problem was the loss of creativity, although it was precisely this circumstance that prevented the first psychotherapist from making a correct diagnosis. Depression is very often accompanied by disorders of the sexual sphere; Fortunately, these disorders are usually easy to manage with the right treatment for the depression itself.

Sexuality through the prism of history

The main obstacle to understanding our own sexuality is that we are trapped in old beliefs (Bullough, 1976).

To understand the present, it is useful to study the past. Some views on sex and sexuality are passed down from generation to generation unchanged, but many modern views are very different from the previous ones.

Ancient times

Although we have written historical records dating back almost 5,000 years, information about sexual behavior and attitudes towards sex in different societies earlier than the first millennium BC. there are very few of them. From the available evidence, it appears that already at that time there was a clear prohibition on marriages between close relatives (Tannahill, 1980), and a woman was considered property used to satisfy sexual needs and for procreation (Bullough, 1976). Men could have many women, prostitution was widespread, and sex was seen as essential to life.

With the advent of Judaism, an interesting ambiguity began to emerge in relation to sex. The first five books of the Old Testament contain rules for sexual behavior: adultery is forbidden (one of the Ten Commandments says this), and homosexuality is strictly condemned (Leviticus 18:20, Leviticus 21:13). At the same time, sex is recognized as a creative and pleasurable force, as described in the Song of Songs. Thus, sex was not considered an absolute evil and its role was not limited to reproduction alone.

In contrast, in ancient Greece, some forms of male homosexuality were not only tolerated, but enthusiastic. Sexual relations between an adult male and a boy who had reached puberty were widespread and usually accompanied by the elder's concern for the moral and intellectual development of the youth (Bullough, 1976; Karlen, 1980; Tannahill, 1980). If, however, these relationships were limited to sex only, they were frowned upon, as was homosexual intercourse between adult men. And homosexual contact between adult men and boys who had not reached puberty was prohibited by law. Marriage and family were given great importance, but at the same time, women were second-class citizens, if they could be considered citizens at all: "In Athens, women had no more political rights than slaves; throughout their lives they were in complete subordination to closest male relative... As in all other places in the first millennium BC, women were part of personal chattels, although some of them were extraordinary personalities.For the ancient Greeks, a woman (regardless of age and marital status) - it is only a "gyna", i.e. a maker of children (Tannahill, 1980).

At the dawn of Christianity, attitudes towards sexuality were a mixture of Greek and Jewish attitudes. Unlike Judaism, which did not separate physical from spiritual love, Christian teaching borrowed from the Greeks the distinction between "eros", or carnal love, and "agape", spiritual, incorporeal love (Gordis, 1977). Ballough (1976) writes that the Hellenistic era in Greece (beginning in 323 BC) was marked by the rejection of carnal pleasures in favor of the development of spirituality. This, together with the inevitable end of the world described in the New Testament, led the Christian religion to exalt celibacy, despite the fact that St. Paul wrote, "Though it is good for a man not to touch a woman... it is better to marry than to be inflamed" (1 Corinthians 7:1-9).

By the end of the IV century. AD, despite the existence of small groups of Christians who held less rigid views on sexuality, the attitude of the church as a whole towards it was clearly negative, which was clearly reflected in the writings of one of the church fathers, Blessed Augustine, who, before renouncing worldly pleasures, indulged in various passions. In "Confessions" Augustine denounced himself in harsh words: "I polluted the river of friendship with the abomination of debauchery and muddied its transparent waters with the infernal black river of lust" (Confessions, Book III: I). He believed that lust is the result of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which separated people from God. Thus, sexuality was strongly condemned in all its forms, although Augustine and his contemporaries probably felt that marital procreative sex was a lesser evil than all others.

The sexual theme has been present in the visual arts since ancient times. Interesting examples are this ancient Roman lamp used to ward off evil spirits, and a Greek dish depicting an erotic scene.

The Ancient East

In other parts of the world, ideas about sex were very different from those just described. Much more positive was the attitude towards sex among the followers of Islam, Hinduism and in the Ancient East. As Bulloch writes, "almost everything pertaining to sex was approved by some section of Indian society", and in China "sex was not considered something terrible or vicious; on the contrary, the sexual act was looked upon as an act of worship" and even considered the path to immortality (Bullough, 1976). Around the same time that Augustine was writing his Confessions, the Kama Sutra, a detailed Indian manual on sex, was written; similar books were in China and Japan. They glorified sexual pleasures and their diversity. Such differences in attitudes towards sex continue to exist in our time. In this chapter we will look at the history of sex in the Western world; other cultures are discussed in subsequent chapters.

The art of the East has long been distinguished by its frank depiction of erotic scenes, as can be seen in this 18th-century painting.

Middle Ages and Renaissance

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as the Church gained more and more influence, early Christian attitudes toward sexuality were strengthened in Europe. Theology often became synonymous with the common law, and "official" attitudes towards sex (with the exception of sex for procreative purposes) were, in essence, aimed at its oppression. However, the church itself, while preaching temperance, behaved quite differently: "God's houses have often been hotbeds of debauchery" (Taylor, 1954).

During this period, new customs began to emerge among the upper classes, which led to a sharp division between real life and religious teachings. These customs, called "courtly love", created a new style of behavior in which women (at least high-ranking women) were elevated to a pedestal, and romanticism, mystery and valor were celebrated in songs, poems and books (Tannahill, 1988). Pure love was considered incompatible with sensual pleasure; sometimes lovers put this concept to the test by lying naked in bed together in order to refrain from sexual intercourse, to prove the fullness of their love. Needless to say, courtly love did not always remain as romantic and sublime as it was sung in verse and prose.

Almost at the very beginning of the era of courtly love, chastity belts appeared. With the help of these belts, husbands locked their wives, just as they kept their money under lock and key; it is possible that originally chastity belts were invented in order to prevent rape, but at the same time they served to protect "property".

Medieval chastity belts were usually made of metal and covered the woman's crotch, reaching to the back and abdomen. Two holes made it possible to send natural needs, but completely excluded sexual intercourse. At the hips, the belt was locked with a key, which the jealous spouse kept with him (Tannahill, 1980).

Renaissance of humanism and fine arts in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. was accompanied by some relaxation of sexual restrictions, as well as a lesser adherence to the dogmas of courtly love. The Protestant Church, led by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others, was generally more tolerant of sexual problems than the Catholic Church. For example, Luther, although his attitude towards sex can hardly be called liberal, believed that sex cannot be considered sinful in its very essence, just as chastity and celibacy are not in themselves signs of virtue. At that time, a massive epidemic of syphilis broke out in Europe, possibly imported from America, which probably somewhat limited sexual freedom.

Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

When we discuss the customs that existed in this or that historical era, it must be remembered that they differed in different countries, in different strata of society or religious groups. There is evidence to suggest that England and France were quite tolerant of sex in the 1700s (Bullough, 1976), but colonial America was dominated by a Puritan ethic. Extramarital sex was frowned upon and family cohesion was praised; those guilty of premarital sex were punished with whips, pilloried, put in stocks, or forced to publicly repent. Some readers may be familiar with Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Badge of Courage, which describes colonial-era attitudes towards sex.

In America, puritan morality also captured the 19th century, although there was a split in views on sexual problems during this period. As American states expanded and cities became more cosmopolitan, ideas of sexual freedom found more and more adherents. In response to this turn of events in the 1820s and 1830s, a movement was formed in American society to combat prostitution and save the "fallen women" who practiced this trade (Pivar, 1973). Despite the organized resistance of the Society for the Suppression of the Deceit and Vice and the Society of Followers of the Seventh Commandment, prostitution flourished. In the early 1840s, the government sued 351 brothels in Massachusetts alone, and by the start of the Civil War, a guide to the most luxurious brothels in the big cities included descriptions of 106 in New York, 57 in Philadelphia, and dozens more in Baltimore. , Boston, Chicago and Washington (Pivar, 1973).

By the middle of the 19th century, with the beginning of the Victorian era, there was a return to ostentatious modesty and restraint in Europe, but this time it had less to do with religious attitudes. The general trend in this era was the suppression of sexuality and a strong desire for modesty; this was necessary in view of the vaunted purity and innocence of women and children. As Taylor writes, "So subtle was the sensitivity of the Victorians, so easily turned their thoughts to sex, that the most innocent acts were forbidden if they seemed to conjure up seductive images. It became considered discourteous to offer a lady a chicken leg." This conservatism extended to clothes that did not even reveal the neck and did not allow even a glimpse of the ankle (Taylor, 1954). Today, the hypocrisy of that time seems incredible to us: in some houses, crinolines were put on the legs of the piano, and books by authors of the opposite sex were placed side by side on the shelves only if they were husband and wife (Sussman, 1976).

In America, despite the strong influence of Victorianism, various currents periodically shook the moral foundations. So, in 1870, the city council of St. Louis found a loophole in the laws of the state that allowed the legalization of prostitution, which caused a storm of indignation throughout the country. Societies for the fight against sexual promiscuity were again formed, finding allies among the fighters against the use of alcohol. In 1886, in 25 states, it was recognized that those who had reached the age of ten were considered adults (which contributed to the flourishing of child prostitution), but by 1895, thanks to public resistance, such an early term was preserved in only 5 states, and in 8 states the age of majority was raised to 18 years .

Although attitudes towards sex were generally negative in the Victorian era, it was this era that was marked by the emergence of the sexual "underground" - the widespread distribution of pornographic literature and drawings (Marcus, 1967). Prostitution was common in Europe; in the 60s. In the 19th century, the British Parliament passed a law legalizing and regulating prostitution. In addition, Victorian false modesty in sexual behavior and attitudes did not extend to all sections of society (Gay, 1983). The middle and lower classes did not resort to pretense, as was customary in the upper circles. Extreme poverty forced many lower-class young women into prostitution, and middle-class women - contrary to the ideal of the submissive and sexless Victorian lady - not only experienced sexual feelings and desires, but also behaved in this regard in much the same way as modern women. In the Victorian era, women lived sexually (and enjoyed it) with their lawful husbands, and sometimes even started passionate affairs, as can be seen from the numerous diaries that have come down to us, in which they described in detail the number and quality of their orgasms (Gay, 1983). Thus, a survey on the sexual behavior of women, written in 1892 by a lady named Clelia Duel Mosher, has recently been discovered, which contains further evidence that it would be wrong to consider the Victorian era completely anti-sexual. An interesting point of view on the sexuality of women in this era was also expressed by Haller and Haller (Haller, Haller, 1977).

It is clear that many women in the Victorian era suffered from repressive attitudes towards sex, but a closer look at this problem gives the impression that those women who contributed to the emergence of ideas of hypocrisy are in fact very close to today's feminists. Victorian women sought a kind of sexual freedom by denying their sexuality...in an attempt to avoid treating themselves as objects intended for sexual enjoyment. Their feigned modesty was a mask under which it was convenient to hide the "radical" efforts to gain individual freedom.

Science and medicine fully reflected the anti-sexualism of this era. Masturbation has been stigmatized this way and that, accused of damaging the brain and nervous system and causing insanity and a wide variety of other illnesses (Bullough and Bullough, 1977; Haller and Haller, 1977; Tannahill, 1980). Women were seen as having little or no non-sexuality and should be ranked below men both physically and intellectually. In 1878, the prestigious British Medical Journal published letters from doctors claiming that meat touched by a woman during her menstrual period was unfit for food. Even such an eminent scientist as the father of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, in his book "The Descent of Man and Sexual Selection" (1871) wrote that "A man is braver, more pugnacious and more energetic than a woman and has a more inventive mind" and that "in his mental abilities a man, obviously superior to a woman."

At the end of the 19th century, the German psychiatrist Richard von Kraft-Ebing created a detailed classification of sexual disorders. In his book "Sexual psychopathy" (Psychopathia Sexualis, 1886), withstood 12 editions, this problem is considered deeply and comprehensively. Krafft-Ebing's views have remained dominant for more than 75 years (Brecher, 1975). His influence had both positive and negative aspects: on the one hand, Krafft-Ebing insisted on the sympathetic attitude of physicians to so-called sexual perversions and on the revision of laws regarding sexual crimes, and on the other hand, in his book sex, crime and violence were sort of lumped together. He paid much attention to those aspects of sexuality that he considered abnormal: sadomasochism (sexual satisfaction derived from inflicting pain on one's partner, or pain inflicted on oneself), homosexuality, fetishism (sexual satisfaction derived from objects associated with a particular person, and not from himself) and bestiality (sex with animals). Kraft-Ebing very often resorted to macabre examples (sexual murders, cannibalism, corpse laying, and others), which he described on the same pages as less frightening sexual perversions, and therefore many readers of his book had an aversion to almost all forms sexual behaviour. Nevertheless, Kraft-Ebing is often referred to as the founder of modern sexology.

The twentieth century

By the beginning of the XX century. the study of sexuality began to be carried out by more objective methods. Although Victorian ideas still persisted in certain segments of society, the research of such serious scientists as Albert Moll, Magnus Hirschfeld, Ivan Bloch and Havelock Ellis, combined with Freud's dynamic ideas, began a dramatic turn in attitudes towards sex.

FREUD

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), more successfully than anyone before or after him, demonstrated the centrality of sexuality in people's lives. Freud's ingenious discoveries are the result not only of his own observations, but also of his ability to generalize and formulate the ideas of other researchers (Sulloway, 1979). According to Freud, sexuality is the main force motivating all human behavior, and the main cause of all forms of neurosis - a disease, the most striking manifestation of which is a sense of anxiety and a violation of mental adaptation while maintaining an adequate perception of reality. Developing ideas expressed by other sexologists between 1880 and 1905. (Kern 1973; Sulloway 1979), he proved the existence of sexuality in infants and children and formulated a detailed theory of human psychosexual development (see ch. 8).

Freud created many new concepts related to sexuality. The most famous of these, the Oedipus complex, postulates the inevitable sexual attraction of a young boy to his mother, which is accompanied by a mixture of such conflicting feelings as love, hatred, fear and rivalry experienced by the child for his father. Freud also believed that boys are preoccupied with the possibility of losing the penis as some terrible form of retribution (castration fear), while girls feel a certain inferiority and envy due to their lack of a penis (penis desire). According to Freud, this conflict exists mainly at the level of the subconscious, i.e. at a level deeper than the conscious perception of the environment. On this richest theoretical basis, Freud created the clinical method called psychoanalysis; using his method, he investigated and treated conflicts that arise at the subconscious level and lead to psychological problems. Despite the fact that many modern sexologists disagree with Freud's concepts, as we will discuss in detail in subsequent chapters, psychoanalysis is still widely used to treat patients.

ELLIS

Havelock Ellis, thanks to his numerous works, became one of the most respected among the first sexologists.

Around the same time, the English physician Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) published a six-volume work entitled A Study in the Psychology of Sexuality (1897-1910). Ellis anticipated much of what Freud later wrote about in his analysis of childhood sexuality. For example, he acknowledged widespread masturbation by both sexes at all ages, objected to Victorian notions that "decent" women were sexually undesirable, and emphasized the psychological rather than physical causes of many sexual problems. In his works, attention was also paid to the diversity of human sexual behavior; they served as an important counterbalance to the influence of Krafft-Ebing, who considered sexual deviations to be pathological (Brecher, 1969, 1975).

1929-1950s

By the end of the First World War, both in Europe and in America, significant changes in society began, taking it further and further away from the settings of the Victorian era. Greater social and economic freedom, the availability of automobiles, the rise of jazz made people's sexual behavior less and less restrained, and this was accompanied by corresponding changes in fashion, dance and literature. Women actively participated in the approach of the sexual revolution. Margaret Sanger led the birth control movement in the United States. Catherine Davies conducted a survey of the sex lives of 2,200 women, the results of which were published in 1922 and 1927. as a series of scientific articles, and then as a separate book (Davis, 1929). The Englishwoman Mary Slopes wrote a candid guide to married life that was a great success on both sides of the Atlantic. after marrying another scientist, Dr. Reginald Cates, she began to feel that she was deprived of something important in life.After sorting out the reasons for her own dissatisfaction and making sure that her marriage was untenable, Dr. Stope filed for divorce, received it, and subsequently took up writing a book to help other women avoid similar problems (Hanson, 1977).). By 1926 the gynecologist Theodor Van de Velde had published his book The Ideal Marriage, which detailed a wide range of techniques used in sexual intercourse and recognized the permissibility of oral-genital sex; his book immediately became a bestseller all over the world.

The Roaring Twenties ended in a stock market crash. During the Great Depression that followed, concerns about daily bread pushed sexual problems into the background.

The entry of England and the USA into the Second World War, the depth and drama of the events of those years created the background for a complete change in the nature of sexual relations on both sides of the Atlantic. Women who had to work and even serve in the army suddenly felt economically free and independent, but this freedom also created an atmosphere of chaos of hasty marriages, divorces, loneliness and fear. While the husbands were fighting across the ocean, their wives had affairs; in turn, the men, once out of the house, used every opportunity for sexual entertainment. As one social historian wrote, “The lives and morals of many millions of people were deeply emotionally traumatized, and in the turmoil characteristic of wartime, many social inhibitions lost their restraining power. , led to the pursuit of pleasure and to promiscuity" (Castello, 1985).

In the post-war period, women began to be forced out of industrial enterprises and institutions and returned to their rightful place, i.e. to the house. During this period, characterized by a high divorce rate and significant changes in society, another sexologist suddenly gained wide popularity, who was destined to leave an indelible mark on the history of science.

KINSI

Alfred Kinzie's research on sex problems has been canceled by the seal of immense enthusiasm, although the attitude towards his methods and the results obtained has been very ambiguous.

In the summer of 1938, Alfred Kinzie (1894-1956), a zoologist at the University of pc. Indiana, was invited to lecture on marriage at a local college. Struck by the lack of data on human sexual behavior, he took advantage of his status as a teacher and distributed questionnaires to students in order to collect information about their sex life. Subsequently, Kinzie came to the conclusion that a more reliable method for collecting such material is personal interviews, since they allow for greater flexibility and allow a number of details to be clarified. Ultimately, he interviewed thousands of men and women across the country. Together with his co-authors and colleagues Wardell Pomeroy and Clyde Martin, Kinsey published on January 5, 1948, the monumental work Sexual Behavior of a Man, and 5 years later, in collaboration with Paul Jebhard, Sexual Behavior of a Woman (Kinsey et al., 1953) .

In his writings, Kinsey summarized data from interviews with 12,000 men and women from all walks of life, and many of the results were startling. So, for example, according to his data, 37% of American men after reaching maturity at least once participated in homosexual intercourse, brought to orgasm; 40% of men cheated on their wives, and 62% of the women surveyed masturbated.

The publication of Male Sexual Behavior immediately brought Kinzie's work to the attention of the general public. By mid-March, over 100,000 copies of his book had been sold, and for 27 weeks it remained on the bestseller list.

Despite the fact that Kinzie and his colleagues limited themselves to describing human sexual behavior, without giving any moral or medical assessments, their book provoked severe criticism in methodological and moral terms. The prestigious Life magazine considered it "an attack on the family as the basic unit of society, a denial of moral principles and a glorification of promiscuity" (Wickware, 1948). Margaret Mead criticized Kinzie for treating sex "as a faceless, meaningless act" (New York Times, April 1, 1948), and a professor at Columbia University argued that "a law is needed to prohibit research devoted exclusively to sex" (ibid.). However, all critics agreed that Kinzie "did for sex what Columbus did for geography."

In general, the first book of Kinzie was received positively (Palmore, 1952), which cannot be said about the second part of his work - "The Sexual Behavior of Woman". Many newspapers denounced the book in their editorials and refused to print reviews of it in their news columns. Thus, The Times (New Philadelphia, Ohio) endorsed this decision, declaring: "We believe that this book will disgust a large part of our readers" (August 20, 1953). Church ministers and educators called Kinzie's materials immoral, directed against the family, and even having communist overtones.

Kinzie died in 1956 bitter and disappointed, but the results of his work were fully appreciated later. One of the merits of this scientist is that, together with his colleagues, he created the Institute for Sexual Research at the University of pc. Indiana, which continues to be a major research center to this day.

1950s

After Kinzie's death, a time came in the United States that was characterized by greater sexual freedom than before. Premarital sexual relations became common, although they occurred mainly between people who were about to marry. In books (for example, in the sensational novel "Peyton Place" at the time) and in films (mostly imported to the United States from overseas), explicit sex scenes appeared; sexual themes even appeared in music. One reviewer, horrified by what he had to see and hear, grimly remarked that the "sexualization" of music makes it "naked, seductive... passionate and perverted, and the lowing of the performers is accompanied by the rotation and bending of their bodies in rhythms, sexual the shade of which is beyond doubt" (Sorokin, 1956).

The ideal woman of the 50s. - this is a charming, but brainless creature - about what Marilyn Monroe portrayed in her films. All the thoughts of such a woman should be directed to marriage and motherhood. In January 1950, the Harper's Store remarked: "If an American girl wears ordinary glasses, and not fashionable glasses with colored lenses, then she may think that everything is lost for her - no one will date her." And C magazine (January, 1950) seriously advised its readers to wear padded bras without dedicating their future husband to this before marriage.

Albert Ellis (A. Ellis, 1959) briefly summarized the prevailing mores of those years as follows: "The main rule underlying our sexual behavior can be expressed with absolute and terrifying clarity in two phrases: 1) if you want to have sex, because that it is PLEASANT to you, you should not do it; 2) if it is your DUTY, then it is necessary to fulfill it.

1960s

In the early 1960s In the United States, the sexual revolution began, which turned out to be the most notable event of all that the country had ever experienced. Among the causes of the sexual revolution, the following are usually cited: 1) the appearance of birth control pills; 2) youth protest against the existing bigotry; 3) the revival of feminism in a modern form; 4) greater openness in society and greater sexual looseness. It is impossible to give a definitive historical assessment of the significance of each of these factors in bringing about the sexual revolution, but it is certain that they all played an important role in this.

The birth control pill made sex safer and allowed millions of people to view sex as a way to express their love for a being of the opposite sex, rather than as a way to procreate. The availability of pills gave women a sense of freedom and probably had a greater impact on their sexual behavior than is commonly believed. The youth movement, which began at the same time as the civil rights movement and expanded with the growing loss of faith in the justice of the Vietnam War, led teenagers to challenge their parents' generation. This challenge was expressed not only in clothes, long hair and music of the younger generation, but also in drug use and sexual freedom (their slogan is "Love, not war").

The youth of the sixties, who realized political and social injustice, enthusiastically joined the women's movement as well. Since birth control pills have given women much greater control over their own destiny, it is not surprising that their sexual freedom has become increasingly accepted as a natural state of affairs.

Public reaction to the sexual revolution was mixed. Some warmly welcomed this movement, others considered it to be something temporary, doomed in the end to extinction. It can be argued that a significant part of the population followed this coup with disapproval and anxiety. Most people were concerned about the destruction of the moral foundations of American society taking place before their eyes. Nevertheless, sexuality began to be talked about more, demonstrated and studied; in the sixties, bars with half-naked waitresses appeared, the naked body became familiar to Broadway shows. Finally, it was during these years that a study of human sexual function was published, which made a real revolution in the approach to this problem.

MASTERS AND JOHNSON

Kinsey and his collaborators studied the nature of human sexuality using the interview method. During the conversation, they found out how, when and how often people have sex. Subsequently, the scientific study of sex was expanded within the framework of the same methodology by adding questions that remained unresolved. The new methodological approach was pioneered by physician William Masters and psychologist Virginia Johnson at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

According to Masters and Johnson, to understand all the complexities of human sexual function, people need to know the anatomy and physiology of the reproductive system, as well as psychology and sociology. The authors believed that for the solution of human sexual problems, the data obtained as a result of studying the sexual reactions of animals are insufficient, and only a direct approach will provide the necessary information. In 1954, they began to observe and record the physical characteristics of sexual arousal in humans. By 1965, material had been accumulated on 10,000 episodes of sexual activity in 382 women and 312 men; based on these data, the article "Human Sexual Responses" (Masters, Johnson, 1966) was published, which immediately attracted attention. Some experts quickly grasped the importance of these discoveries, while others were shocked by the methods used. Among the loud accusations of a "mechanical approach" and cries of insulting moral feelings, there were relatively few voices of those who understood that this physiological information is not an end in itself, that it is necessary for the development of methods for treating people with sexual disorders (It should be noted that all medical science based on a knowledge of normal anatomy and physiology, without which essential progress in the treatment of pathology is impossible.In 1966, when the article "Human Sexual Reactions" was published, many doctors seemed to have forgotten this fact, which would be completely indisputable if it was about the study of heart or skin diseases.Our file cabinets for that year contain many indignant letters from doctors criticizing our physiological research for being obscene and deviating from traditional medical "respectability").

1970s and 1980s

In the 1970-1980s. the attitude towards sex has become much more open. In 1970, Masters and Johnson published Human Sexual Inferiority, which marked a new approach to the treatment of sexual disorders that had previously been treated for a long time and, as a rule, without success. With the advent of this book, which, in particular, describes an effective two-week course of therapy, in which failures are only 20%, a new medical specialty has arisen - sex therapy. Following this, in just 10 years, several thousand sex therapy clinics were opened in the country, and thanks to doctors such as Helen Kaplan and Jack Einon, other therapeutic approaches began to develop.

Dozens of special books about sex have been published; among these, the best and most successful (circulation over 9 million copies) was probably "The Joy of Sex" by Alex Comfort (Comfort, 1972). Television also played a significant role in the sexual revolution, covering in a number of programs topics that had previously been banned. Movies, which did not want to be left behind, became more overtly sexual, and in the early days of the American video market, porn films were in the greatest demand.

At the same time, events took place that influenced the attitude of Americans towards sexuality: 1) cohabitation before marriage became commonplace; 2) in 1976, the US Supreme Court legalized abortion, which, of course, increased their safety, but at the same time provoked controversy in society about the morality of such a decision; 3) in 1974, the American Psychiatric Association decided to exclude homosexuality from the list of mental disorders, which created the ground for strengthening the gay rights movement; 4) thanks to the efforts of scientists and activists of the women's movement, society realized that rape is a crime generated not by passion, but by cruelty (Burgess, Holmstrom, 1974; Brownmiller, 1975; Mertzer, 1976). As a result, the procedure for hearing cases of rape was changed by law, and centers for providing psychological assistance to victims of rape began to appear one after another in the country; 5) the development of in vitro fertilization methods made possible the birth in 1978 of the world's first "test-tube baby" (at present, the number of children conceived in this way has exceeded 15,000). In these years, the procedure of bearing a child by a surrogate mother, which is very controversial from an ethical point of view, is becoming more widespread.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s. certain forces in society began to resist what they considered over-permissiveness and even immorality. For example, attempts were made to block sex education in free schools and to counter any form of "promiscuous" sexual behavior, which included anything but marital sex. The right to life movement protested against the legalization of abortion and unsuccessfully tried to introduce an amendment to the constitution that would prohibit abortion in all circumstances. In 1983, the Reagan administration tried to pass a law, ironically called the "denunciation law," which required salespeople to tell parents that their children were buying contraceptives. Fortunately, this proposal has forever remained only a bill.

Of particular concern in society at the turn of the 1970-80s. caused epidemics of hitherto unknown sexually transmitted diseases: genital herpes, mainly among heterosexuals, and AIDS, which in the United States initially affected men, both homosexual and bisexual, but soon spread to heterosexuals. (AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, results from infection with a virus that attacks the body's immune system, leading to a variety of serious infectious, cancerous, and nervous diseases.) The AIDS epidemic, sometimes called the modern plague, is especially worrisome because it firstly, this disease is now invariably fatal and, secondly, according to expert estimates, the number of people infected with the AIDS virus (HIV) in the United States has already reached two million. Since both genital herpes and AIDS are indisputably associated with promiscuity, it is believed that the epidemics of these diseases are a kind of retribution sent down by God to mankind for its sinful sexual behavior.

The avalanche of reports of AIDS that hit people, as well as the realization that infection can be definitely avoided only by completely abstaining from sexual activity or limiting it to only one, obviously healthy partner, forced millions of citizens to change their sexual behavior, with some choosing celibacy, while others became more selective in their sexual partners (Kolodny and Kolodny, 1987; Stevens, 1987; Winkelsteinet al., 1987). Some people have taken known precautions (such as using condoms). A detailed analysis of changes in the sexual life of different strata of society in connection with the spread of AIDS has yet to be carried out, but it seems to us that in the 1990s. an increasing number of people are beginning to think about their sexual behavior.

Of course, we cannot predict whether the changes and trends that seem significant today will really have any lasting impact on our sexual behavior in the future. Nor can we be sure that, a hundred years later, historians will not label our era with a single word (like "Victorian") and reduce the many complexities of our sexual attitudes to a single concept. The only certainty is that our attitudes and behavior will continue to change; however, it is impossible to predict with any certainty which direction these changes will take.

Determining your personal relationship with abortion

One of the sex-related issues that is particularly divisive in society today is the issue of abortion. If you are interested in knowing how you yourself feel about this problem, express your opinion on the positions below.

This voluntary study by you is not a test. An opinion on any point cannot be right or wrong, so just express it as honestly as possible. You are invited to express your attitude towards legal abortion (removal of the fetus from the mother's body during the first three months of pregnancy, to which the mother goes voluntarily and is performed by a person with a medical education).

Express your opinion on each item by circling one of the suggested answers.

Meanings of letter answers: BS - unconditionally agree; C - agree; START - agree, but not quite; SNA - rather disagree; NS - disagree; KNS - strongly disagree.

1. The Supreme Court should ban abortion in the US.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

2. Abortion is a good way to end an unwanted pregnancy.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

3. A mother should feel obliged to give birth to the child she has conceived.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

4. Abortion is unacceptable under any circumstances.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

BS S START SNS NS KNS

6. The decision to have an abortion should be made by the pregnant woman.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

7. Every child conceived has the right to be born into the world.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

8. A pregnant woman who does not want to have a child should be advised to have an abortion.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

BS S START SNS NS KNS

10. People should not judge those who decide to have an abortion.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

11. Abortion is perfectly acceptable for an unmarried underage girl.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

12. Individuals should not be given the right to decide the life or death of the fetus.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

13. You should not bring unwanted children into this world.

BS S START SNS NS KNS

First stage

For items 2,5,6,8,10,11 and 13

BS = 6 points

C = 5 points

START = 4 points

SNA = 3 points

NA = 2 points

KNS = 1 point

For items 1,3,4,7,9,12 and 14

BS = 1 point

C = 2 points

START = 3 points

SNA = 4 points

NA = 5 points

KNS = 6 points

Step 2: Add up your scores for all 14 items.

0-15: Absolutely for the preservation of the fetus

16-26: Rather for the preservation of the fetus

27-43: Not sure

44-55: Rather pro-abortion

56-70: Definitely for abortion

CONCLUSIONS

1. Human sexuality is a multidimensional phenomenon that has biological, psychosocial, behavioral, medical, moral and cultural aspects. None of these aspects of sexuality can be considered absolutely dominant.

2. History teaches us that attitudes towards sex and sexual behavior vary greatly from time to time and from country to country. For more than 2,000 years, religion has been a major force in shaping attitudes towards sex. Emerged in the 19th century The science of sexology—from the early work of Kraft-Ebing, Havelock Ellis, and Sigmund Freud, to the sensational scientific research of Kinzie and Masters and Johnson—has had a profound effect on modern understanding of sex and sexuality.

3. One should beware of overly simplistic interpretation of sexual behavior. For example, despite the prudish attitude towards sex characteristic of the Victorian era, during this period prostitution flourished, pornographic literature was widespread, and the middle and lower classes paid little attention to the sexual pretentiousness of high society.

4. 1960s considered to be the start of the sexual revolution. Four factors contributed to its approach: the availability of contraceptives, the protest of young people, the struggle of women for their rights and greater openness in society, both in the discussion of sex and in its manifestations.

5. Anxiety caused by new epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), together with an increasing trend towards conservatism, seems to have stalled the sexual revolution. Nowadays, millions of people are starting to be more cautious about sex; if the AIDS epidemic intensifies, further changes in this direction are likely to occur.

6. Predicting what kind of shifts in sexual thinking and behavior will occur in the future is difficult to say the least. We can only be sure that our attitudes and behavior will certainly change in one way or another.

1. The authors argue that "there is no such system of sexual values ​​that would be true for everyone and everyone, and that no moral code can be indisputably true and applicable in all cases." Do you agree with this? Or are there some sexual values ​​that are undeniably and universally considered either true or false?

2. The text states that sexuality has biological, psychological and social aspects. However, many people and some religious teachings consider sexual contacts justified only if they are for the purpose of procreation. How would our attitudes about acceptable sexual expression change if that were true? What kind of sexual relations would society prescribe, and what would it prohibit?

3. Some people consider Kinzie, Freud, and even Masters and Johnson to be "dirty old men" because they are interested in the scientific study of sexuality. How widespread is this attitude and is it justified? What can motivate a person to devote his whole life to the study of sex?

4. "Love, not war" - that was the slogan of the sixties. Is there any connection between these two activities? Is there any relationship between the suppression of sex and war, or between sexual freedom and peace? Or maybe this slogan is just a nice-sounding, but meaningless phrase?

5. Has there really been a real sexual revolution in the past few decades, or is it a myth? Is our society moving towards more (or less) diversity and freedom in sexual manifestations?

6. As this chapter argues, prostitution and pornography flourished during the Victorian era. Is there some kind of causal relationship here? Does the suppression of sexuality contribute to the development of underground forms of its manifestation? In addition, the repression of sexuality characteristic of the Victorian era affected men and women, as well as members of different social strata, in different ways. How can this be explained?

It’s scary to imagine that some half a century ago they didn’t talk about sex, and if they did it, it was only on the sly. And only one person - the scientist Bill Masters - managed to change this situation. (Personally, we now only talk about sex and do not do it at all!)

In the 1950s, the city of St. Louis was a stronghold of American conservatism. Picturesque geometric lawns, polished car hoods, polished kids on bicycles… An ideal American city, ready to be shot in an advertisement. George Washington University, which was considered one of the best in the country, was also located here, especially its medical faculty.

Of course, each department had its own stars and authorities. In the gynecology department, that star was Bill Masters.

“If there was a problem in the gynecology department, the only person you wanted to see entering the office was Masters,” one of his colleagues spoke of the 41-year-old surgeon. Masters was known not only for saving lives after unsuccessful abortions or miscarriages, but also for creating a new life. He was among the first doctors to put the process of artificial insemination on stream, and the percentage of successful pregnancies was incredibly high when it was Masters who took over. The line of desperate couples who have tried for years without success to conceive has never been short. "I guarantee you will have a baby" is Masters' catchphrase.

Every morning, Bill was one of the first to park his red Chevrolet Corvette sports car in the university parking lot. Even earlier, he was jogging around the stadium, not far from his home. He never cheated on a bow tie, explaining this not by foppery, but by necessity: during the inspection, it was not necessary to throw a long tie over his shoulder. Only a very polite person could call Masters cute. He was also neither amiable nor sociable. Dr. Masters did not like idle talk, rarely allowed himself a smile, and to earn his praise was considered among the students the greatest achievement. And no one knew what a dirty and shameful secret hides sleek Bill Masters.

Virginia Johnson knew she wanted the job as soon as she stepped into the medical department at George Washington University in St. Louis on a snowy December evening in 1956. Virginia was in her early thirties, but she was already very, very tired. At home, two small children were waiting for her, in the past two unemployed husbands loomed, from whom, one might say, there was no help. She desperately needed a job, especially at one of the best universities in the country. Subsequently, Virginia will say: "I never really liked the world of medicine, it meant nothing to me." But the clean, large and bright corridors of the new university building and the opportunity to work for one of the best gynecologists in the country clearly impressed her.

"She was not beautiful, but she looked very sexy and friendly" - such a diagnosis was made by one of the doctors of the university to Mrs. Johnson. Virginia was short, with straight dark hair and large features. But she had a sense of style and elegance. She knew how to dress and how to present herself. Virginia knew that her main disadvantage was her lack of education. Being the daughter of farmers, she achieved a lot, having already moved to the city, but she could not step above secretarial work. However, on that December evening, she got the job right during the interview.

Mrs. Johnson made the most favorable impression on Masters: restrained but unrestricted, resourceful but not intrusive. And most importantly - twice divorced. Such a detail in the biography of a woman of that time could greatly hurt her. Divorces were not only not welcomed, they were condemned. Thousands of housewives preferred electroshock therapy to divorce (a popular method of psychiatric treatment in those brutal times. Yes, homosexuality was also treated with electroshock therapy), which they were prescribed for depression. Clearly, Mrs. Johnson was not one of them. It felt the desire for freedom and independence. Besides, she didn't blush, giggle, or faint at the word "sex," the decisive criteria by which Masters chose his secretary. After all, this was exactly what Dr. Masters' new assistant had to do. Sex.

Asexual America

We, modern people, for whom sex is a natural part of life and the discussion of which seems to be the norm, cannot understand what was happening in the world of the middle of the 20th century. And the following happened: sex was a taboo topic. He existed in the confined spaces of marital bedrooms and semi-legal brothels, but he was barred from entering the wide world. It was a world of blatant sexual ignorance that collapsed only in the late 1960s, with the advent of the sexual revolution associated with the advent of diverse and affordable contraceptives. By the way, about the matrimonial bedrooms: the vast majority had not one wide bed, but two narrow ones, so that there was no temptation.

The producers of the super-popular 1950s family series I Love Lucy made sure that its characters never used the word "pregnant" on air. It wasn't until the mid-1960s that the double bed was shown on Bewitched, to the awe of viewers across the continent.

There was no talk of educating schoolchildren about what was happening to their bodies. Such ignorance sometimes led to anecdotal cases. One day, a young couple came to see Masters, who had been trying in vain for two years to have a baby. When asked by the doctor, in what position the couple most often practices intercourse, the young people, touchingly holding hands, answered: “As it is written in the Bible, we lie side by side on the same bed.” It turned out that they really were just “lying down” and both were innocent, like Adam and Eve before they met the serpent. Unfortunately, it wasn't always funny. In the vast majority of cases, sexual ignorance led to events of varying degrees of unpleasant - from unhappy family life to unwanted pregnancy and often abortion.

And if men could still walk to a brothel and learn about the joys of sex there, then women were forced to spend bleak years in cold bedrooms, sincerely considering masturbation a sin and not realizing what an orgasm is.

Biologist Alfred Kinsey made the first attempts to open the eyes of society to sex. As early as the 1930s, he began research on human sexuality, which resulted in two bestsellers, Male Human Sexual Behavior and Human Female Sexual Behavior. Kinsey certainly deserves all the credit and all the laurels assigned to him for his courage as a pioneer. But the work of a biologist has one significant drawback: they are all purely theoretical. The conclusions that Kinsey made in his monographs are based on answers from questionnaires (we all know how “honestly” we answer questions about sex). Moreover, as experimental subjects, the biologist, in the absence of decent citizens, chose the residents of prisons - male and female. That is, he could not provide his study with a representative sample.

In the absence of scientific facts, sex has been fertile ground for myths and the creativity of individual researchers. This was especially true of female sexuality, it was easier to deal with male sexuality at all times. So Sigmund Freud invented the theory of mature vaginal and immature clitoral orgasms. Like, clitoral orgasm is characteristic of girls who do not know what they are doing, while vaginal is a sign of an adult developed woman. And the vaginal orgasm is many times stronger. When Anna Freud, the psychoanalyst's daughter, was asked many years later about this dubious differentiation, she replied: "Even if someone wanted to find out the nature of the female orgasm, I can't imagine how he would have done it in the laboratory." She did not know William Masters.

peeping

For almost a year, the brothel became Masters' second job: he came here after a shift at the university and scrupulously recorded all the acts that he observed through a peephole in the pseudo-wall. The girls didn't mind, they even encouraged the doctor. First, he gave everyone a free medical examination. Secondly, during his watch they were protected from police raids. The police chief of St. Louis and his wife owed Masters the appearance of an heir in their family, so it was easy for the doctor to negotiate with the peace officer.

Then Masters hit a dead end. The observation raised more questions than it answered. It turned out that imitation of orgasm is a common practice for women. How, then, to know when a woman is faking an orgasm, and when she is experiencing it for real? That would be attached to her wiring and take heart rate readings during sex! Dreams, dreams... Masters realized that you can't turn around in brothels. So he went to the dean of the medical school for permission to conduct sex research. "What do you know about sex?" asked the indignant dean. "Nothing. And I'm sure you are too," Bill replied unfazed. The dean laughed and gave permission. But with a caveat: the experiments must take place in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy. The dean did not want to risk the reputation of the university and his position. Bill agreed.

The matter remained small - to find a female partner. After communicating with the girls from the brothel, Masters realized that if anyone can understand a woman, then only another woman. And when, on a December evening in 1956, Virginia Johnson, self-confident, self-sufficient and far from sanctimonious morality, went into Masters' office, he knew that he had found her, the very one.

Single appearances

There was something strange going on in Masters' office. Every evening women and men came there, individually or together. After that, the door to the waiting room was tightly locked, and attempts by Masters' colleagues to get there for an unexpectedly needed document were gently but firmly rebuffed by Virginia in a white coat, protruding from the office. Actually, the most suspicious were the sounds that sometimes broke through the hospital wall. Once Virginia caught a trainee with a stethoscope pressed against the wall: something strange was really going on behind the wall.

Volunteers - as Masters called the participants in his study - came and masturbated for a small amount. At the same time, wires were attached to their naked bodies, connected to equipment that monitored the pulse, temperature and other indicators of the body during sexual arousal. Bill and Virginia watched the process through a special glass in the laboratory, if necessary, one of them came into the room and straightened the wires on a volunteer. The doctor and his assistant also called for help from a cameraman filming operations at the university. Masters managed to convince him that what was about to be filmed was also just a medical procedure.

The hardest part of the study was finding volunteers. Virginia's tact and sociability helped here. She had many acquaintances of nurses, among them there were those who agreed to such an adventure - of course, on condition of strict anonymity. The invention of Masters also helped - a huge plastic dildo, named Ulysses by the researchers. The volunteer girls adored Ulysses! The next step was the placement of a miniature lens in Ulysses. For the first time in human history, the female orgasm was filmed from within.

"The only unnatural sexual act is the one you can't do"
A. Kinsey

Gradually, the fame of a place where you can have fun and earn extra money at the same time (not to mention helping science) began to spread among girls, and then young (and not too young) men.

It turned out that both men and women experience four identical stages during sexual intercourse: arousal, plateau (strong arousal, but not orgasm), orgasm, relaxation. Masters and Johnson also managed to debunk Freud's myth of mature and immature orgasm. It turned out that the reactions of the woman's body are the same in both types of orgasm and that in some cases the clitoral orgasm is even stronger than the vaginal one. This led to the uncomfortable thought that a woman who wanted sexual satisfaction could well do without a man.

Pair program

A few months after starting work, Masters decided to start studying couples. Since it proved difficult to find a married couple willing to exchange the tranquility of the marital bedroom for the unfamiliar atmosphere of the laboratory, the doctor and his assistant resorted to a risky method. They began to invite strangers and strangers to share the joys of the experiment. To maintain anonymity, they put bags with holes for the eyes on their heads. (Later, Bill Masters' compassionate mother, learning about her son's experiment, would sew more appropriate silk masks for the subjects.)

Every month the number of volunteers grew. The study made it possible to enjoy communicating with the opposite sex on an anonymous basis, which means it was safe for the social life of the subjects. It was also a big plus that, before including a man or woman in the work, Bill and Virginia checked their health for sexually transmitted diseases and admitted only those who passed the test. In addition, caps were installed for women, which gave an almost one hundred percent guarantee against pregnancy. More often than others, married people appeared in the doctor's laboratory: both of them longed to take a break from family happiness in the arms of an unfamiliar partner with a bag on their heads.

“I realized late that the scientific world was not ready for such a revelation”

"What did Masters need it for?" - You (or the one who reads the article instead of you) may ask. Many years later, the doctor himself answered this question: “As a gynecologist, I knew everything about how children are born. But what leads to the origin of life was still unclear. I wanted to follow the process from the beginning." Of course, the study couldn't remain a secret for long, especially since Masters brought in two of his most loyal interns. Once, one of them fitted a cap to a test subject, whose face was securely hidden by a mask. But as soon as the trainee turned to the girl who climbed into the gynecological chair, he realized that ... in general, that he knew her well. Indeed, it turned out that the girl was a university student with whom he went on dates several times.

In the small world of St. Louis, it was impossible to hide something for long. Masters had no intention of. Five years have passed since the beginning of the work, it was time to present the results. But the most famous gynecological journal in the country, Obstetrics and Gynecology, which usually published Masters' articles, rejected a summary of the study of the body's reactions during sex. Then the doctor decided to demonstrate the result to his colleagues.

Scandal and exile

Usually on Fridays, the doctors of the gynecology department gathered for an informal meeting to discuss difficult cases and simply exchange experiences. Sometimes someone would bring beer to the meeting. This time, Masters offered his colleagues dry vermouth and drew their attention to the projector screen. Soon, two dozen doctors were sitting with their mouths open, completely forgetting about the vermouth. One of Masters' colleagues recalls the presentation: “He showed us a film in which an unknown woman masturbated. It was a close-up of nipples and enlarged breasts. We couldn't see the face of the woman in the film, the frame didn't go beyond the neck and hips."

Nothing seemed to shock Masters' colleagues more. But when the cameraman put on the next film, it turned out that it could. This time before the eyes of the doctors appeared a huge female vagina from the inside, filmed during arousal and orgasm. At the end of the premiere, the room was filled with an indignant hum. Even the doctors were not ready for such a degree of frankness. A few days later, Masters was asked to leave his position and to take Virginia and his research with him.

“I realized late that the conservative scientific world was not ready for such a revelation. It was a strategic mistake on my part,” Masters admitted years later. At the same time, the expulsion from the scientific paradise gave the doctor an incentive to organize his own business. In 1964, the Center for Reproductive Biological Research was founded with the money of the doctor's loyal fans. This work made life very difficult not only for Bill and Virginia, but for their families. Bill's wife Libby was afraid to open the letters because most of them contained dirty insults from strangers. Children had to be sent to boarding schools in other states in order to save them from the persecution of classmates. The center's reputation was also hampered by rumors of a relationship between Masters and his assistant. Rumors, I must say, are more than true.

Love affair at work

Bill and Virginia became lovers in their first year of observing subjects who masturbated and had sex together, which is quite natural (imagine watching porn movies with a colleague of the opposite sex every day). At first, the intimate relationship between the doctor and his assistant was strictly practical: Masters immediately offered Johnson sex so that, as he put it, they "did not have a transference to one of the subjects." In general, to protect yourself from temptation.

"Bill broke all the rules: he was not a faithful husband to Libby"

Over the years, the situation has worsened. Masters began to send his wife and children on vacation to another state. And the neighbors, including Libby's friends, watched as Mrs. Johnson took her place on the sunbed by the pool the very next day after Mrs. Masters left. Virginia appeared in society in expensive furs, which were obviously not affordable for her, but affordable for her wealthy employer. Masters' assistant was constantly confused with his wife. Bill and Virginia went out together and developed a charming habit of finishing each other's sentences. They would have been the perfect couple if not for the fact that Bill was already married.

And finally orgasm

The common brainchild of Masters and Johnson - the Center for Reproductive Biological Research - grew stronger before our eyes. But success came with the publication of the book Human Sexual Responses. The work contained statements that were revolutionary for American society, based on laboratory observation of 382 women and 312 men in the age category from 18 to 75 years. Society, in particular, learned that a woman does not need a man to experience pleasure, and that over the years, libido does not disappear, as was commonly believed, but only decreases, and even then not always.

In a couple of weeks, the entire circulation, which consisted of strict books in a brown dust jacket, was snapped up. The book became a bestseller, and its authors were the first people who did not hesitate to talk about sex. The appearance of the book coincided with the beginning of the sexual revolution: gradually society began to turn to sex. Bill, who had recently been excluded from scientific life, was again invited to conferences.

Now the focus of his and Virginia's attention was not on the body's response to sexual arousal, but on sexual disorders. Previously, problems such as impotence and vaginismus were treated for years with the help of individual therapy of the partner who had problems. Masters and Johnson patented a method that is still used today: they talked with both partners and gave them "homework", often not directly sexual contact (for example, lying naked side by side without touching each other).

The method proved so popular that soon thousands of people flocked to the Masters and Johnson Clinic, as their center was now called, desperate to find sexual satisfaction in their marriage. In 1970, a photograph of Bill and Virginia appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

Each TV channel considered it their duty to call this couple on the air, especially since they were now married (when Virginia had a new boyfriend with serious intentions, Bill finally divorced his wife). The need for sex education and talking about sex between partners has suddenly taken over the whole world. Both Masters and Johnson were the first to claim this.

P.S. In 1992, America was shocked by the news of the divorce of Bill and Virginia. They claimed that they would continue to work together after parting. It didn't work out. Masters passed away in 2001. Virginia - in July 2013. Had she lived two more months, she would have seen the pilot of Showtime's Masters of Sex, based on her life and work with Bill.