Human Sexual Inadequacy

by William H. Masters, Virginia E. Johnson

The innovative program described in this book revolutionizes the the treatment of sexual dysfunction. During eleven years of daily clinical work, more than five hundred couples have been treated at Masters and Johnson's Reproductive Biology Research Foundation in St. Louis. Here the relationship itself is the patient. The authors stress that there is no uninvolved partner when sex is a problem. Therefore they treat the partners even if only one appears to be sexually dysfunctional. And their therapy techniques have proven successful in 80 percent of all cases treated. The key to this unprecedented record is the role of the dual therapy team. Masters and Johnson have found that it takes both a man and a woman therapist to treat a couple effectively. The dual therapy team acts as a catalyst, encouraging communication between partners when none has existed before. They use psychological and psychological methods of treating impotence, ejaculatory incompetence, premature ejaculation, orgasmic dysfunction in women, vaginismus, and painful intercourse. Basic to all treatment techniques is the premise that attitudes and ignorance rather than any mental or physical illness are responsible for most sexual problems. The two-week rapid therapy program developed by Masters and Johnson includes both counseling and specific instructions for patients to follow in privacy. All results of success or failure reported in Human Sexual Inadequacy Are substantiated by a unique five-year patient follow up program.

Genres: Psychology, Sexuality, Nonfiction

482 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

William 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.

Reviews

[Jason Pettus · Rating 5 out of 5]

(As of August 2014, my arts center is selling a first edition, first printing of this book through its rare-book collection [cclapcenter.com/rarebooks]. Below is the description I wrote for the auction's page at eBay.)

It can be argued that the Postmodernist Era REALLY began the moment the US won World War Two in 1945, thus kicking off the Mid-Century-Modernist age and all the new optimism and curiosity about the world that it inspired; but that this loosening of uptight morals had to occur through baby steps, first coming through such conservative fields as science and medicine before finally invading the arts in the 1960s and then culture at large in the '70s. And certainly the rise of William Masters and Virginia Johnson supports this idea: a team that officially got its start in 1957, after being inspired by the work of proto-"sexologist" Alfred Kinsey in the years directly after WW2, Masters & Johnson were the first such scientists to study human sexual behavior directly through laboratory experiments (versus the reliance on after-the-fact interviews that Kinsey based most of his reports on), leading to rather titillating rumors coming from their offices at St. Louis' Washington University even in the same exact years that "Leave it to Beaver" was the most popular show on television. (How titillating? Well, even 50 years later, their work is the basis of a salacious new show on cable television, mostly known for its high level of nudity and sexual situations.) However, it wasn't until the actual Postmodernist Era that Masters & Johnson finally started releasing books to the general public about their findings, starting with the massive one-two punch of 1966's Human Sexual Response and today's volume being auctioned, 1970's Human Sexual Inadequacy, both of which sold tens of millions of copies and introduced society at large to such ideas as multiple orgasms in women, the four-stage process of arousal, and the fact that humans can continue having enjoyable sex at pretty much any age, given a healthy body and a willing partner. A pair of books that slipped as comfortably into the mainstream's changing perception of sexuality in general as a hand slips into a glove, and the volumes that ushered in such entirely new cultural developments as sex education for teenagers and sexual surrogates as legitimate therapy, we would literally live in a different world if not for these society-changing titles; and at its highly affordable price today, this is a must-have for fellow scientists, collectors of Postmodernist literature, and aging baby boomers looking for a nostalgic trip back to their hippie youths.

[Natalia Cachafeiro Pascual · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bueno para profesionales.

[Philip Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I expected, but an interesting, albeit tedious read at times. I now know how to cure all sexual disfunction. Have no idea how to rate this.