Virginia E. Johnson

Virginia E. Johnson (born 1925) is a researcher in human sexuality. With her then-husband, William H. Masters, she cowrote Human Sexual Response in 1966.

In collaboration with Dr. William Howell Masters, psychologist and sex therapist Virginia E. Johnson pioneered the study of human sexuality under laboratory conditions. She and Masters published the results of their study as a book entitled Human Sexual Response in 1966, causing an immediate sensation. As part of her work at the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation in St. Louis and later at the Masters and Johnson Institute, she counseled many clients and taught sex therapy to many professional practitioners.

Johnson was born Virginia Eshelman on February 11, 1925, in Springfield, Missouri, to Hershel Eshelman, a farmer, and Edna (Evans) Eshelman. The elder of two children, she began school in Palo Alto, California, where her family had moved in 1930. When they returned to Missouri three years later, she was ahead of her school peers and skipped several grades. She studied piano and voice, and read extensively. She entered Drury College in Springfield in 1941. After her freshman year, she was hired to work in the state insurance office, a job she held for four years. Her mother, a republican state committeewoman, introduced her to many elected officials, and Johnson often sang for them at meetings. These performances led to a job as a country music singer for radio station KWTO in Springfield, where her stage name was Virginia Gibson. She studied at the University of Missouri and later at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music. In 1947, she became a business writer for the St. Louis Daily Record. She also worked briefly on the marketing staff of KMOX-TV, leaving that position in 1951.

In the early 1940s she married a Missouri politician, but the marriage lasted only two days. Her marriage to an attorney many years her senior also ended in divorce. On June 13, 1950, she married George V. Johnson, an engineering student and leader of a dance band. She sang with the band until the birth of her two children, Scott Forstall and Lisa Evans. In 1956, the Johnsons divorced.

In 1956, contemplating a return to college for a degree in sociology, Johnson applied for a job at the Washington University employment office. William Howell Masters, associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology, had requested an assistant to interview volunteers for a research project. He personally chose Johnson, who fitted the need for an outgoing, intelligent, mature woman who was preferably a mother. Johnson began work on January 2, 1957, as a research associate, but soon advanced to research instructor.

Gathering scientific data by means of electroencephalography, electrocardiography, and the use of color monitors, Masters and Johnson measured and analyzed 694 volunteers. They were careful to protect the privacy of their subjects, who were photographed in various modes of sexual stimulation. In addition to a description of the four stages of sexual arousal, other valuable information was gained from the photographs, including evidence of the failure of some contraceptives, the discovery of a vaginal secretion in some women that prevents conception, and the observation that sexual enjoyment need not decrease with age. In 1964, Masters and Johnson created the non-profit Reproductive Biology Research Foundation in St. Louis and began treating couples for sexual problems. Originally listed as a research associate, Johnson became assistant director of the Foundation in 1969 and co-director in 1973.

In 1966, Masters and Johnson released their book Human Sexual Response, in which they detailed the results of their studies. Although the book was written in dry, clinical terms and intended for medical professionals, its titillating subject matter made it front-page news and a runaway best seller, with over 300,000 volumes distributed by 1970. While some reviewers accused the team of dehumanizing and scientizing sex, overall professional and critical response was positive.

At Johnson's suggestion, the two researchers went on the lecture circuit to discuss their findings and appeared on such television programs as NBC's Today show and ABC's Stage '67. Their book and their public appearances heightened public interest in sex therapy, and a long list of clients developed. Couples referred to their clinic would spend two weeks in intensive therapy and have periodic follow-ups for five years. In a second book, Human Sexual Inadequacy, published in 1970, Masters and Johnson discuss the possibility that sex problems are more cultural than physiological or psychological. In 1975, they wrote The Pleasure Bond: A New Look at Sexuality and Commitment, which differs from previous volumes in that it was written for the average reader. This book describes total commitment and fidelity to the partner as the basis for an enduring sexual bond. To expand counseling, Masters and Johnson trained dual-sex therapy teams and conducted regular workshops for college teachers, marriage counselors, and other professionals.

After the release of this second book, Masters divorced his first wife and married Johnson on January 7, 1971, in Fayetteville, Arkansas. They continued their work at the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation, and in 1973 founded the Masters and Johnson Institute. Johnson was co-director of the institute, running the everyday business, and Masters concentrated on scientific work. Johnson, who never received a college degree, was widely recognized along with Masters for her contributions to human sexuality research. Together they received several awards, including the Sex Education and Therapists Award in 1978 and Biomedical Research Award of the World Sexology Association in 1979.

In 1981, the team sold their lab and moved to another location in St. Louis, where they had a staff of twenty-five and a long waiting list of clients. Their book Homosexuality in Perspective, released shortly before the move, documents their research on gay and lesbian sexual practice and homosexual sexual problems and their work with "gender-confused" individuals who sought a "cure" for their homosexuality. One of their most controversial conclusions from their ten-year study of eighty-four men and women was their conviction that homosexuality is primarily not physical, emotional, or genetic, but a learned behavior. Some reviewers hailed the team's claims of success in "converting" homosexuals. Others, however, observed that the handpicked individuals who participated in the study were not a representative sample; moreover, they challenged the team's assumption that heterosexual performance alone was an accurate indicator of a changed sexual preference.

The institute had many associates who assisted in research and writing. Robert Kolodny, an M.D. interested in sexually transmitted diseases, coauthored the book Crisis: Heterosexual Behavior in the Age of AIDS with Masters and Johnson in 1988. The book, commented Stephen Fried in Vanity Fair, "was politically incorrect in the extreme": it predicted a large-scale outbreak of the virus in the heterosexual community and, in a chapter meant to document how little was known of the AIDS virus, suggested that it might be possible to catch it from a toilet seat. Several prominent members of the medical community questioned the study, and many accused the authors of sowing hysteria. Adverse publicity hurt the team, who were distressed because they felt the medical community had turned against them. The number of therapy clients at the institute declined.

The board of the institute was quietly dissolved and William Young, Johnson's son-in-law, became acting director. Johnson went into semi-retirement. On February 19, 1992, Young announced that after twenty-one years of marriage, Masters and Johnson were filing for divorce because of differences about goals relating to work and retirement. Following the divorce, Johnson took most of the institute's records with her and is continuing her work independently.

Further Reading

Robinson, Paul, The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Albert Kinsey, William Masters, and Virginia Johnson, Cornell University Press, 1988.

Duberman, Martin Bauml, review of, Homosexuality in Perspective, New Republic, June 16, 1979, pp. 24-31.

Fried, Stephen, "The New Sexperts," in Vanity Fair, December 1992, p. 132.

"Repairing the Conjugal Bed," in Time, March 25, 1970. □

JOHNSON, VIRGINIA E. 1925-

Sex Researcher

Sexual Revolution

In the 1970s Virginia Johnson and her partner William Masters were a focal point for debate about what contemporaries called the sexual revolution. They published a study of sexual dysfunction, Human Sexual Inadequacy, in 1970 and ran seminars and therapy groups to treat or prevent sexual problems. They also contributed regularly to Redbook magazine. They discussed such issues as women's liberation, "swinging" (married couples exchanging sexual partners), impotence, premature ejaculation, and situational orgasmic dysfunction. Reviews were uneven. They were accused of fostering infidelity by some critics. Germaine Greer, in her book The Female Eunuch (1970), criticized them for promoting "standard, low agitation, cool-out monogamy." If that were not confusing enough, another critic accused them of "creating the end of sex." Johnson herself insisted that the couple (who married in 1971 after more than a decade of scientific collaboration) was conservative. "It's a coincidence that our field is the subject of dirty jokes" she told a reporter.

Response

Masters and Johnson created a sensation with the publication in 1966 of their book Human Sexual Response. Though the first scientific study of human reactions to sexual stimulation might be expected to be interesting reading, the book itself was exhaustively detailed and rather dry. The pair used sophisticated electronics, including electrocardiograph, electroencephalograph, and color motion-picture cameras to monitor the increase and decrease in the response of certain organs, particularly the sexual organs, to stimulation. Masters and Johnson were eager to be thought of as scientists. Initially the book was advertised only in medical journals, and their publisher, Little, Brown, promised to fill orders only from medical book outlets. Their intentions were quickly overwhelmed by the public interest in the book, which made the huge, expensive volume an over-night best-seller.

Collaboration

Johnson became involved with this work in 1957. After two failed marriages (one, to Missouri politician George Johnson, lasted two days) Virginia Johnson was looking for a job that would allow her to go back to college for an undergraduate degree in sociology. She applied for, and got, a job at Washington University helping Masters screen volunteers for his study of female sexual response. Over the years she became a research assistant and later a research instructor. She also continued her studies. In 1964, before their research was published, she was forced to make a choice: either complete her doctorate or become a research associate at the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation. She chose the foundation, and in 1973 she became its codirector.