It’s based on a biography titled Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love, by Thomas Maier. Sometimes referred to as “Mad Men with sex,” Masters of Sex has had positive reviews, and the American Film Institute listed the show as one of the top ten TV series of 2013.
The people behind the main characters William Masters and Virginia Johnson were largely forgotten about as the twentieth century ended, but the work they did in the 1950s in the was groundbreaking, and the two had a relationship that didn’t fit the norms of 1950s America. The two met in 1957 when Masters hired Johnson as a research assistant for his comprehensive human sexuality study. At the time, Masters was married, and Johnson was the divorced mother of two. The social conditions of mid-20th century America meant that the study of human sexuality had been neglected, and Masters hoped to address the lack of clinical knowledge of sexuality.
Research on Human Sexuality in America
In the late 1940s, Alfred Kinsey of Indiana University published a two-volume study on human sexual behavior, which was considered quite controversial, although Kinsey’s research was based on personal interviews and documented things like the frequency of certain sexual behaviors in the population. Masters and Johnson, however, observed and measured actual sexual behavior in their laboratory. Though initial study participants were prostitutes, later studies involved ordinary men and women from the community around Washington University in St. Louis. Though the research was a first for using average people in the study of human sexuality, most participants were white, educated, and married, so there were vast ranges of the American population left out.
The physiological data collected by the team laid the foundation for a clinical approach to the treatment of sexual problems like premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction (then called “impotence”), and lack of female orgasm. Until the 1960s and 70s, treatments for these conditions involved years-long psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, and the success rates were low. The talk therapy techniques developed by Masters and Johnson worked with couples rather than individuals, was much quicker, and had higher success rates.
Virginia Johnson was an unusual woman in her era. By age 31 she was twice divorced, and was quite frank and candid about human sexuality. She also had a gift for putting research subjects at ease, and was key to the team’s recruitment of study participants beyond the group of prostitutes who were studied first. She did not have a university degree, and when the two published Human Sexual Response in 1966, Masters dropped the “MD” from his name so that the two appeared on equal footing as authors. Masters and Johnson married each other in 1971, and divorced in 1992.
Later Controversy
Despite the fact that their work was recognized as groundbreaking, a 1979 publication titled Homosexuality in Perspective invited controversy. The book claimed that homosexuality was curable, and it was denounced by the medical establishment. Johnson apparently had serious reservations about the work, and about a later work titled Crisis: Heterosexual Behavior in the Age of AIDS. This book made controversial claims, like that HIV could be contracted by casual contact (with toilet seats, for example), and was widely condemned.
Though the two ran a program from 1968 to 1977 to “cure” homosexuality and claimed a nearly 72% success rate, Virginia Johnson expressed serious doubts about the work to Thomas Maier, saying she suspected that study results may have been fabrications by Masters. Masters, who died in 2001, was not interviewed by Maier for his book.
The Showtime drama takes some artistic license, though it has been praised for its dedication to its 1950s Midwestern setting. Prop masters for the show have had difficulty obtaining accurate information about sexual devices used during the original research. Because the study of sexuality was so taboo at the time, research drawings for things like vibrators and diaphragm sizing kits were practically nonexistent, and show designers had to create their own versions of the various 1950s technology.
The storyline of Masters and Johnson becoming lovers as part of the clinical research more or less adheres to Johnson’s account of the situation, where Masters propositioned her successfully by couching it in terms of clinical language, psychological transference, and scientific precision, but it still raises uncomfortable questions about an era in which sexual harassment was not discussed.
The Virginia Johnson of Masters of Sex is a confident woman, seemingly without regret or indecision in her emotional repertoire, while the real Virginia Johnson was more nuanced. Though liberated, she couldn’t completely escape being a product of her era. However, Masters of Sex has done an exceptional job of bringing these two researchers and their unique contribution to American research back into the conversation. Though its reputation as “Mad Men with sex” is enough of an endorsement, the show is very much its own, and is proving to be an educational and entertaining look at a unique couple working in a unique historical era.
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