406 CHAPTER 10
entirely with prostitutes. He conducted interviews with them and observed them at work.
Although this research was never published, he used the opportunity to think about what
kind of instrumentation he would need to properly measure the sexual responses in a
more controlled setting. Together with psychologist Virginia Johnson, Masters devised
equipment that would allow them to measure sexual responses in humans in a laboratory
setting. These machines were similar to a polygraph machine (a lie detector) but much
more complex in their design and the particular physiological responses (for example,
heart rate, body temperature) they measured. Masters and Johnson also used photogra-
phy and direct observation in the laboratory settings, using prostitutes and other volun-
teers as subjects.
The publication of Human Sexual Response in 1966 was the result of the 12 years
of research. Masters and Johnson became instant celebrities, and the book itself
became a bestseller. This was the beginning of a partnership that lasted over 30 years.
That partnership not only changed many people’s attitudes about what was sexually
normal but also challenged many sexual myths and created the field of sex therapy.
Although direct observational studies can have the disadvantage of affecting the par-
ticipant’s behavior, the work of Masters and Johnson has remained some of the most
important work in the field of human sexuality and is still used in sex therapy and sex
education and by infertility and conception experts (Kolodny, 2001; Masters, John-
son, & Kolodny, 1995).
Questions for Further Discussion
- Would researchers today be able to convince the press (newspapers, magazines, and
television) to keep research into human sexuality secret, as Masters did?
- What problems with their research might have come from the fact that many of their
participants were prostitutes?
- In what ways might this kind of research be easier to conduct today?
- In what ways might this kind of research be more difficult to conduct today?
Different Types of Sexual Behavior
10.7 Summarize the findings of early and recent surveys of human sexual behavior.
While Masters and Johnson focused their research on the physiological responses that occur
during the sexual act, other researchers had already been studying the different forms of sex-
ual behavior. The study of sexual behavior is not the study of the sex act but rather when,
with whom, and under what circumstances sexual acts take place. Although there were other
attempts to study human sexual behavior before the mid-twentieth- century studies of Alfred
Kinsey (Kinsey et al., 1948; Kinsey et al., 1953), his original work remains an important source
of information concerning the different ways in which people engage in the sex act.
What were the findings of the report?
THE KINSEY STUDY In 1948, Alfred Kinsey published a controversial report on the
results of a massive survey of sexual behavior collected from 1938 forward (Kinsey et al.,
1948). His findings concerning the frequency of behavior such as masturbation, anal sex,
and premarital sex rocked many people, who were apparently not ready to believe that
so many people had tried alternative sexual behaviors. Kinsey believed that sexual ori-
entation was not an either/or situation in which one is either completely heterosexual
or completely homosexual but instead that sexual orientation is on a continuum,* with
*continuum: a sequence of values, elements, or behavior that varies by small degrees.
