Thomas Maier's Blog
November 8, 2009
Well, well, well, look at how things have finally changed! Looks like Washington University may be warming up to the idea of presenting an honorary degree to Virginia Johnson, who, with Dr. William Masters, conducted much of her landmark sex research at that university.
Arguably, Masters and Johnson's work -- which first documented the basic physiology of human sexuality and then came up with a remarkably successful therapy that toppled Freud and pioneered our current age of the medicalizatio...
Arguably, Masters and Johnson's work -- which first documented the basic physiology of human sexuality and then came up with a remarkably successful therapy that toppled Freud and pioneered our current age of the medicalizatio...
August 27, 2009
August 26, 2009
Sen. Ted Kennedy's passing at age 77 brings the end of an era in America politics, the remarkable legacy of the Kennedys and their sense of public service and their embodiment of many American ideals. My history of the Kennedys -- "The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings" (Basic Books) -- was updated in 2008 for the Warner Bros documentary based on the book and is available at Amazon and at the bookstore of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Sen. Kennedy was very gracious to me personally,
July 18, 2009
Author Thomas Maier takes a fresh look at sex researchers Masters and Johnson
By Dwight Garner
New York Times
Posted: 07/16/2009 12:00:00 AM PDT
Updated: 07/17/2009 04:35:07 PM PDT
By Dwight Garner
New York Times
It's hard to believe, but the word "clitoris" did not appear in Playboy magazine until 1968, in an interview with Masters and Johnson, the famous sex researchers.
Two years earlier, the pair had published "Human Sexual Response," their first book, based on more than 10 years of clinical researc
July 9, 2009
National Academy of Science, Beckman Center lecture.
Wednesday, May 20, 7:00 pm
"Science of Masters & Johnson"
Critically acclaimed biographer Thomas Maier offers an unprecedented look at Masters and Johnson and their pioneering work together based on laboratory observation of sexual behavior. Masters and Johnson explained the physiology of human sexual response and revolutionized treatment methods for impotency, premature ejaculation, and other "dysfunctions"—a term they coined. The talk will hi
July 4, 2009
Here's the Chinese translation from a review in ChinaTimes.com about my bio "Masters of Sex" which has been renamed "Love Guru" for the Chinese. I hope the local phrase sounds better than it does to these ears here in New York. Thanks for the Google translation, here's what the story says...
After Kinsey's sexology By Master hippie movement just to the beginning of 1966, the United States appeared in a book "of human sexual response" (Human Sexual Response). Report this sex accumulated more than
Documenting It
FRIDAY, 3RD JULY 2009
Everything you ever wanted to know about sex researchers, but were afraid to ask... The NYT has a fascinating review of a biography of Masters & Johnson. I always used to think they were a kind of baby lotion:
Can the life of a man who spent most of the waking hours of his adult life either having sex, watching sex or talking sex be sad? The answer, as we see in Thomas Maier's eye-opening "Masters of Sex" is a resounding yes.
Their most detailed experiments were
June 30, 2009
June 28, 2009
June 28, 2009
Practice, Practice, Practice
By CRISTINA NEHRING
MASTERS OF SEX
The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love
By Thomas Maier
Illustrated. 411 pp. Basic Books. $27.50
"I can't imagine anything that would make for more dull reading," the sex researcher William Masters declared when asked, in his 60s, if he wished to write an account of his life. Now that account exists — and it's a bombshell. It is also anything but envy-inducing or
"It often begins in the back seat of a parked car. It's hurry up and get the job done. The back seat of a car hardly provides an opportunity for the expression of personality." — William H. Masters
Into the dark, two beams of light showed the way. The piercing headlights from a Plymouth automobile cut a path through the unrelenting blackness of the Missouri countryside. Slowly the car carrying Mary Virginia Eshelman and her high school boyfriend, Gordon Garrett, rumbled down Route 160, a vast asp
