Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love

by Thomas Maier

Overview

Now a New Showtime Original Series

Showtime's dramatic series Masters of Sex, starring Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan, is based on this real-life story of sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson. Before Sex and the City and ViagraTM, America relied on Masters and Johnson to teach us everything we needed to know about what goes on in the bedroom. Convincing hundreds of men and women to shed their clothes and copulate, the pair were the nation’s top experts on love and intimacy. Highlighting interviews with the notoriously private Masters and the ambitious Johnson, critically acclaimed biographer Thomas Maier shows how this unusual team changed the way we all thought about, talked about, and engaged in sex while they simultaneously tried to make sense of their own relationship. Entertaining, revealing, and beautifully told, Masters of Sex sheds light on the eternal mysteries of desire, intimacy, and the American psyche.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465079995
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	07/30/2013
Edition description:	Media tie-in
Pages:	440
Sales rank:	544,556
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Thomas Maier is the author of The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings, which was adapted for Warner Home Video DVD, and the critically acclaimed Dr. Spock, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He is a special writer at Newsday. He lives in Long Island, New York.
www.thomasmaierbooks.com

Table of Contents

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

Editorial Reviews

Nelson DeMille, bestselling author of The Gold Coast and The Gate House
“The subject of this book—sex and love—should interest just about everyone. As a bonus, Thomas Maier is a very fine writer, an accomplished biographer, and an astute reporter. If you read only one biography this year, it should be this first-ever look at the secretive lives of Masters and Johnson.”

Gay Talese, author of Thy Neighbor’s Wife and A Writer’s Life
“A well-written and insightful account of Masters and Johnson, who, in a clinical sense, probably knew more about sex and marital love than any other couple in America”

Debby Applegate, Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for

The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
“Masters of Sex is a terrific book about the unlikely couple who touched off the sexual revolution. More than a biography, this is an intimate history of sex in the twentieth-century.”

Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer
“No novelist could come up with something as remarkable as the real life story of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the married experts giving advice to America on sex and love. With insightful reporting and writing, Thomas Maier has captured this extraordinary relationship between these male and female sex researchers, a legacy that transformed the way couples live today.”

Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D., Past President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, and author of

From the Publisher

Dorie Barton provides listeners with great direction and emphasis as she recounts the lives of the twentieth century’s most well-known sex pioneers. Maier crafts an honest and intricate account of William Masters and Virgina Johnson, revealing how their personal relationships (including with each other) came to play a role in their professional lives as well. Barton complements Maier's writing style, taking on two distinct voices to represent the different viewpoints and lives of Masters and Johnson. Some elements that Maier includes may initially seem superfluous, but in the end, they prove essential for understanding these two iconic scientists. L.E. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

MAY 2009 - AudioFile