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Human Sexual Response
This is the Bible of the Sex Revolution of the 1960s, to such an extent that one cannot say whether this book caused the Sex Revolution or the Sex Revolution led to the creation of this book. This book asked and answered questions that had rarely been addressed and had never been answered before. What happens to the woman during the sexual process? Prior to this book, nobody knew the answer. It can be observed that when a woman becomes sexually aroused, her vagina becomes lubricated through vaginal fluids. Where does this arousal take place? Does it happen just in the clitoris or does it also take place deep within the walls of the vagina? These are questions that Masters and Johnson penetrated.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
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943 people want to read
About the author
William H. Masters
27 books39 followersWilliam Masters and research assistant Virginia Johnson pioneered research on human sexuality. They observed participants in various sexual acts and identified four stages of sexual response. In addition, they treated a variety of sexual disfunctions. The two married and stayed together for 22 years before divorcing.
The Showtime program Masters of Sex is based on the research of Masters and Johnson.
The Showtime program Masters of Sex is based on the research of Masters and Johnson.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 7, 2020
My elderly next-door neighbor gave me this book after recovering it from a box of thrift shop books that someone put out for garbage day. I think she thinks I'm a doctor.
Human Sexual Response is an extensively researched collection of intriguing experiments that consisted almost entirely of having prostitutes fuck in a lab. It was published in 1966, ten years before MRIs and a year before CT scans, so when they say "clinical observation", they mean exactly that. Clinicians brought in 118 female prostitutes and 27 male prostitutes, selected, as in all science, by availability, and gathered their sexy, sexy histories. Then they picked the best 11, judged on intelligence, diversity of prostitution experience, communication ability, and general availability and agreeableness. These eight women and three men, these Right Stuff philianauts, had their anatomies studied exhaustively, by both literal and figurative definitions of the word.
Those of you with a background in science might be saying "wait, a participant pool of eleven? To generalize the entire human sexual response? That's outrageous!" To which I say: shut up, nerd. This was the only game in town.
I've got to reiterate that this was before resonance imaging was available to the game. Masters brought in a team of grad students and put their noses right to the grindstone, around where the lenses would be on pornography camcorders, and had them scribbling medical jargon on clipboards while these prostitutes that science found absolutely went to town on each other.
It made for some interesting reading. For its design flaws, it seemed painstakingly controlled, and the literature always specified the differences that the anatomies would register dependent on whether a woman was nulliparous, which I learned means "has not made a baby". Breast tissue swells during what Masters operantly defined as the "plateau" stage of sexual arousal, so you're not imagining that, they do get bigger. There's also a sort of mood-ring effect to the labia minora approaching and during orgasm, so if you bust out a Mag-Lite real quick you can check if she's faking.
What? They do that?
The section on males was less fleshed out (a-ha-ha), partly because of the pitiful sample size, partly because I doubt that was Masters et al.'s priority with this sequence of studies. It talked about penile size change averages pre and post-arousal, but in centimeters, so that's anyone's guess. Allegedly, the oldest sexually active participant was 89, so that's heartening.
To speak in good faith, the prostitute voyeurism was only the first part of the study. A lot of the literature was drawn up by self-report questionnaires and interviews conducted with hundreds of other participants. That 89 year old guy was probably not one of the three male prostitutes whose wieners they studied.
Above board, it was a fascinating read, if you can keep in mind the constraints of design, the prevailing science at the time, and the weird sex hangups of the 50s and their subsequent 60s reaction formation.
Also, I pounded through it in an hour, so it must be written accessibly. Four stars. It would've been five stars if Masters had given into the temptation to make a dick joke, like a real intellectual, like fucking Shakespeare, but he remained haughtily professional and academic the whole time. Which is a real mood-killer, unless you're into that sort of thing.
Human Sexual Response is an extensively researched collection of intriguing experiments that consisted almost entirely of having prostitutes fuck in a lab. It was published in 1966, ten years before MRIs and a year before CT scans, so when they say "clinical observation", they mean exactly that. Clinicians brought in 118 female prostitutes and 27 male prostitutes, selected, as in all science, by availability, and gathered their sexy, sexy histories. Then they picked the best 11, judged on intelligence, diversity of prostitution experience, communication ability, and general availability and agreeableness. These eight women and three men, these Right Stuff philianauts, had their anatomies studied exhaustively, by both literal and figurative definitions of the word.
Those of you with a background in science might be saying "wait, a participant pool of eleven? To generalize the entire human sexual response? That's outrageous!" To which I say: shut up, nerd. This was the only game in town.
I've got to reiterate that this was before resonance imaging was available to the game. Masters brought in a team of grad students and put their noses right to the grindstone, around where the lenses would be on pornography camcorders, and had them scribbling medical jargon on clipboards while these prostitutes that science found absolutely went to town on each other.
It made for some interesting reading. For its design flaws, it seemed painstakingly controlled, and the literature always specified the differences that the anatomies would register dependent on whether a woman was nulliparous, which I learned means "has not made a baby". Breast tissue swells during what Masters operantly defined as the "plateau" stage of sexual arousal, so you're not imagining that, they do get bigger. There's also a sort of mood-ring effect to the labia minora approaching and during orgasm, so if you bust out a Mag-Lite real quick you can check if she's faking.
What? They do that?
The section on males was less fleshed out (a-ha-ha), partly because of the pitiful sample size, partly because I doubt that was Masters et al.'s priority with this sequence of studies. It talked about penile size change averages pre and post-arousal, but in centimeters, so that's anyone's guess. Allegedly, the oldest sexually active participant was 89, so that's heartening.
To speak in good faith, the prostitute voyeurism was only the first part of the study. A lot of the literature was drawn up by self-report questionnaires and interviews conducted with hundreds of other participants. That 89 year old guy was probably not one of the three male prostitutes whose wieners they studied.
Above board, it was a fascinating read, if you can keep in mind the constraints of design, the prevailing science at the time, and the weird sex hangups of the 50s and their subsequent 60s reaction formation.
Also, I pounded through it in an hour, so it must be written accessibly. Four stars. It would've been five stars if Masters had given into the temptation to make a dick joke, like a real intellectual, like fucking Shakespeare, but he remained haughtily professional and academic the whole time. Which is a real mood-killer, unless you're into that sort of thing.
September 21, 2024
5 Clinical Stars
A GR friend reminded me that I read this eons ago in Nursing School. Really, a must read for every Human.
A GR friend reminded me that I read this eons ago in Nursing School. Really, a must read for every Human.
Read
November 4, 2013this book is ridiculously hard to find! With the show out you think it would be out in reprint!
May 9, 2022
Basically a physiology of sexuality. That whole birds and the bees thing makes so much sense now! Possibly a little dated (came out in 66).
June 9, 2023
I always prefer to bring things to a logical end. So I watched all seasons of Masters of Sex, a series that basically described how this book had seen the world. But nevertheless, it seemed not enough to be. Reading the book the series is about was an end for me.
First of all, it's very technical and dry. I'm even not sure whether it makes so much sense to read this book for amateurs, those who are outside the fields of physiology and human anatomy, as I am. But this degree of technicality is the very reason I was particularly interested in this book. One can find plenty of literature devoted to the topic of sex, but few can describe it in such scientific and objective language.
One should also remember that this book was written in 1960s and was pioneering in its field. So for those who are curious but haven't seen the series, I would recommend more recent studies, which probably should be more complete in their analysis and conclusions. But one more reason to pay attention to this book, in particular, is its historical value. It partially shows the state of sexual education in the middle of the previous century. And it's very easy to recognize that, for that time of taboos and prejudices concerning sex even in the most developed countries, the book did a tremendously good job and maybe even contributed to the so-called Sex Revolution.
Logically, for me as a male, the most groundbreaking half of the book was about the female sexual response. Some of the facts, in particular regarding the processes of clitoral shift and impregnation, were entirely new to me. But in the middle of the chapter about female physiology, I realized I'd like to finish it as soon as possible to start the male chapter, too. It's also kinda interesting to read the things you're more aware of because you have a baseline to compare with, basically yourself.
If you're the same sex you're reading about, be ready to be worried if your behavioral and physiological patterns slightly differ from the content of the book. I reckon it might happen quite easily, even though the space of normality in sexual response is pretty wide. But that's a good reason to pay attention to the 2nd book of Dr. Masters - Human Sexual Inadequacy. Perhaps this book also isn't a sufficient end for me in this topic and I'll go even deeper.
First of all, it's very technical and dry. I'm even not sure whether it makes so much sense to read this book for amateurs, those who are outside the fields of physiology and human anatomy, as I am. But this degree of technicality is the very reason I was particularly interested in this book. One can find plenty of literature devoted to the topic of sex, but few can describe it in such scientific and objective language.
One should also remember that this book was written in 1960s and was pioneering in its field. So for those who are curious but haven't seen the series, I would recommend more recent studies, which probably should be more complete in their analysis and conclusions. But one more reason to pay attention to this book, in particular, is its historical value. It partially shows the state of sexual education in the middle of the previous century. And it's very easy to recognize that, for that time of taboos and prejudices concerning sex even in the most developed countries, the book did a tremendously good job and maybe even contributed to the so-called Sex Revolution.
Logically, for me as a male, the most groundbreaking half of the book was about the female sexual response. Some of the facts, in particular regarding the processes of clitoral shift and impregnation, were entirely new to me. But in the middle of the chapter about female physiology, I realized I'd like to finish it as soon as possible to start the male chapter, too. It's also kinda interesting to read the things you're more aware of because you have a baseline to compare with, basically yourself.
If you're the same sex you're reading about, be ready to be worried if your behavioral and physiological patterns slightly differ from the content of the book. I reckon it might happen quite easily, even though the space of normality in sexual response is pretty wide. But that's a good reason to pay attention to the 2nd book of Dr. Masters - Human Sexual Inadequacy. Perhaps this book also isn't a sufficient end for me in this topic and I'll go even deeper.
September 21, 2024
I read this long ago when I was in college. I was working in the library and so got first chance at it.
Highly recommended.
Date read is a guess!
Highly recommended.
Date read is a guess!
March 6, 2011
A groundbreaking work. One of the three books about sex that everyone should read.
October 10, 2015
This is a masterpiece,is this book available on this app?
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews