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Weaving interviews with the notoriously private William Masters and the ambitious Virginia Johnson, Maier offers a titillating portrait of the legendary couple. Entertaining, revealing, and beautifully told, this groundbreaking book sheds light on the eternal mysteries of desire and intimacy, and their complicated roles in the American psyche.
Preface xi
Phase 1
1 Golden Girl 3
2 Heartland 14
3 Mrs. Johnson 22
4 Never Going Home 30
5 A Wonder to Behold 39
6 The Fertility Expert 47
7 The Good Wife 57
8 Academic Freedom 66
9 Through the Peephole 76
Phase 2
10 The Matrix 87
11 The Experiment 95
12 Volunteers 103
13 Noah 116
14 Masks 121
15 Leaving School 134
16 A Matter of Trust 141
17 Revealing Secrets 150
18 The Human Response 156
Phase 3
19 The Excitement of Release 171
20 Focusing Feelings 176
21 Sexual Healing 185
22 Surrogates 196
23 Playboys and Patrons 203
24 Repairing the Conjugal Bed 211
25 The Scent of Love 218
26 Betrayals 225
27 The Marriage Compact 231
Phase 4
28 Feminist Movement 241
29 The Business of Sex 252
30 The Pleasure Bond 260
31 Guide to the Stars 270
32 Conversion and Reversion 281
33 The Promise of a Future 299
34 Beauty and the Beast 307
35 Crisis 319
36 Breakup 331
37 For the Roses 339
38 Couples 345
39 In Memoriam 354
40 Forget-Me-Nots 367
A Note on Sources 377
Notes 379
Selected Bibliography 391
About the Author 397
Index 399
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 MASTERS OF SEX is a well written, solidly researched ('based on interviews, Masters' unpublished memoir, and clinic documents') near exposé of the fascinating lives of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, two creative thinkers who disrupted their private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
This was a very frustrating book because I came away with the feeling that there was a deeper, even more interesting, story to be told about the motivations of the various individuals. I was never sure whether this was conjecture on my part or was being hinted at by the author. On the other hand, I did come away wanting to understand their work, as it is seen today, more fully
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Sculthorpe
Posted March 13, 2009
Listening to this audio book is pure torture. The narrator does not understand that reading out loud requires putting emphasis on the correct words. She constantly puts little pauses in the middle of sentences which disrupt the flow and confuse the meaning of what she is reading. Her sing-song approach becomes maddening after a brief time and is agonizing for extended periods. It is as if she begins reading each sentence with no idea of how the sentence will end. She also has frustrating verbal tics such as putting the emphasis on the first syllable in any word beginning with "un". She swallows words and has trouble with pronunciation. (Spokane, Washington is "spo-can" not "spo-cane.") I simply cannot believe that the publisher had anyone listen to this narration before releasing the book.
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Posted November 27, 2010
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Overview
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 and Johnson began their secret studies in a small Midwest laboratory, and soon became the nation’s top experts on sex. Over the course of more than forty years, they analyzed and explained the secrets of orgasm, emotional fulfillment, and sexual dysfunction. But they divorced after twenty years amid a clash of success, betrayal, and jealousies.Weaving interviews with the notoriously private William Masters and the ambitious Virginia Johnson, Maier offers a titillating ...