Sex Researchers:

Background

William Masters was born in Cleveland Ohio in December of 1915. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in 1938 from Hamilton College and then enrolled at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. After graduating with his medical degree, he accepted an intern position in obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University in St. Louis where he worked extensively with researcher, clinician and educator Dr. George Washington Corner. Masters was appointed to the teaching staff of Washington University Medical School in 1947. While at the Washington University Medical School, Masters researched and developed valuable work in hormone replacement therapy as a counter agent for various imbalances and effects of aging. During this time he married and had two children. He later divorced his wife to marry Virginia Eshelman Johnson who became his research assistant in 1957 as Masters started researching the nature of sexuality and the sexual experience.

Theory/Research

William Masters together with Virginia Johnson began revolutionary studies on the structure, psychology and physiology of sexual behaviors. Masters and Johnson developed polygraph-like instruments that measured human sexual response. Using these instruments they conducted a study on 700 men and women while they were engaged in sexual activity. Based on the data collected, they wrote Human Sexual Response in 1966, and has been recognized as one of their most enduring and important results of their research. In this book, they describe and identify the four phases of the human sexual response cycle: excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.
In 1970, Masters and Johnson published Human Sexual Inadequacy, which described the treatment of impotence, premature ejaculation, frigidity and other sexual problems. In 1988, another groundbreaking book was published, Crisis: Heterosexual Behavior in the Ages of AIDS, dispelling the myth that homosexuality is a mental disease.

References

Davidson, J. K., & Moore, N. B. (2001). Speaking of sexuality: Interdisciplinary readings. Los Angeles: Roxbury.

The Internet Obituary Network. Retrieved September 12, 2004, from http://obits.com/masterswilliamh.html

Sinclair Intimacy Institute (2002). Retrieved September 12, 2004, from .http://health.discovery.com/centers/sex/sexpedia/mandj_print.html