Product Description
In Masters of Sex, critically acclaimed biographer Thomas Maier offers an unprecedented look at William Masters and Virginia Johnson, their pioneering studies of intimacy, and the sexual revolution they inspired. Masters… More >>
Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love
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Maier, Thomas. “Masters of Sex”, Basic Books, 2009.
Masters and Johnson
Amos Lassen
William Masters and Virginia Johnson were once household names where we learned that they were doing a study of the sexual proclivities of the American people. Thomas Maier, noted biographer gives us the biographies of the two and he provides us with a lot of information. He uses interviews with the two to punctuate what he has to say about the private Masters and the ambitious Johnson. Just the topic of sex and love is enough to make this very interesting but when you add good writing to a good subject you get a dynamic book and an enjoyable read.
Masters and Johnson probably knew more about sex and love than any other Americans and their research has had a heavy impact on our sexual lives. They studied intimacy and they were one of the reasons for the sexual revolution. They started their study of sex secretly in a small Midwestern laboratory and soon became America’s top experts on sex. Their research went on for over forty years and they analyzed human orgasm as well as emotional fulfillment and sexual dysfunction. This affected their own marriage and they ultimately divorced after a twenty year marriage because of success and betrayal. Maier gives a wonderful looks at their lives in wonderful prose and an objective voice.
Rating: 5 / 5
I wish the author emulated Bill Master, at least to a certain extend, when writing this book. Jon Master, in his unpublished autobiography, focused much more on his works than life. And I’d certainly wish to have heard more about their work on sex, and less about their family dramas and gossips.
Based on the overly descriptive and melodramatic style of writing, I was surprised to find out that the author of the book, Thomas Maier, is a male, not a female. As a male he should have known better that the audience, especially male audience, seeks to read about sex, sex and more sex ! But, maybe he wrote to please female readers with his flowery descriptions, or maybe he was too timid about writing in more graphic sexual details, to avoid being deemed offensive, exploitation or even perverted.
Perhaps had a woman written this book, she would be more willing to focus on detailed, perhaps even pornographic, but readable descriptions of Master & Johnson works (since in our society “pornographic” writings by a woman are apparently more acceptable than that by a man), thus appeal better to her male readers.
Rating: 3 / 5
This book arrived quickly and was just as described. It was a very thorough biography of famed sex-researchers Masters and Johnson. It didn’t sugarcoat the bad parts, like the failure of two of their books or the sex surrogates they employed and it didn’t dwell on them either. The author did a great job at reporting the facts and not editorializing, which is difficult, given the controversial subject matter. It was an accurately told story. They really did feel like real people, with a real story. I guess this review is more a review of this book, than it is of Masters and Johnson. I’d recommend this book.
I ordered the audiobook version and the narrator’s voice was very pleasant. Sometimes the book is great, but the narrator on the audiobook isn’t. This wasn’t the case. She did an excellent job and I’d highly recommend this book or audiobook to anyone who’s interested in learning more about Masters and Johnson, sex research or sex therapy.
Rating: 5 / 5
Their lives were a period piece. Their work would have had no other relevancy but during post war America. Masters was a pioneer in this medical field and Johnson a pioneer in her field of therapy. They were ahead of their time in taking a female inclusive approach to sex therapy. How would the sexual revolution have evolved without this staid Midwestern couple giving couples a means to discuss and/or improve their sex life?
At the end of the book we realize that besides their 1950′s lab techniques, the necessary secretiveness of their work and their reluctance to franchise, they, themselves, were of this time as well. While the author doesn’t speculate, besides Masters’ deterioration with age, deeply rooted values probably affected his later work on homosexuality and AIDS. The norms of their youth and childhoods certainly informed both their attitudes towards each other.
The book is a great read, you can’t put it down. I gave it 4 not 5 stars because there are some significant missing pieces in Johnson’s portrait. While Masters’ family life is well covered, Johnson’s is vague. (How did she/someone else raise her children? “Uncle” Larry, whose death upsets her children had been mentioned only once.) Before and after the divorce, what was the actual governance/ownership of the institute, the copyrights and all the property associated with the partnership? Maier writes that Johnson lost heavily, but how is not clear. She has the very valuable tapes, which implies significant ownership.
The portrait of Virginia Johnson is so provocative it calls for more. Perhaps, someone can build on this and may get also get her cooperation, as had Maier.
Rating: 4 / 5
Thomas Maier has successfully brought to life the lives of two of the more important figures in the history of scientific investigation of human sexual behavior in a manner that would doubtless have made the subjects of this biography giggle in retrospect. MASTERS OF SEX is a well written, solidly researched (‘based on interviews, Masters’ unpublished memoir, and clinic documents’) near exposé of the fascinating lives of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, two creative thinkers who disrupted their private lives to engage the country in a mass retrieval of sexual behavior, characteristics, follies, fantasies and abuses that lead to their magnum opus HUMAN SEXUAL RESPONSE.
By detailing the investigating techniques and the manner in which the couple drew throngs of eager workers to carry out their detailed questionnaires distributed throughout the country makes for reading that is peppered with borderline taste and daring and makes a book about ‘scientific investigation’ as fun to read as a plain wrapper novel! But the end result in reading this lengthy book is best tied to the subtitle of Maier’s choice – ‘The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love’. For all the dalliances Maier takes in uncovering the skills of his workers and the rather rocky life patterns of the subjects of this biography, he still convinces the reader that the work by these two strange but important people truly altered the way we have grown into examining sexuality today. Without their work we may have still been in the Victorian era! Well written and always entertaining, this is a book from which we learn, and a book we enjoy as a bit of a racy novel. Grady Harp, September 09
Rating: 4 / 5