Masters and Johnson, the gurus of a sexual revolution. ,

Los años 60′ del siglo pasado fueron una época revulsiva, qué duda cabe. Rebeldes como pocas veces, las masas (particularmente los jóvenes) se oponían a casi todo lo que tuviera forma de obligación impuesta por el Estado o sus socios corporativos. Una de sus «marcas registradas» fue el trabajo de la pareja de sexólogos Masters y Johnson, claros guías de la respuesta sexual humana.

El hipismo, el rock de aquellos tiempos (ya lejos de sus primeras manifestaciones, como Elvis Presley o Bill Haley y lanzado a la más feroz experimentación) las drogas alucinógenas, el rechazo a la guerra de Vietnam, el peligro de la «guerra fría», el asesinato de John F. Kennedy y demás hechos revulsivos, configuraban un panorama de «antes y después».

Sexual behaviour, by the way, was not left out, and had its own revolution. In addition to the enormous relaxation of love-making habits promoted by the youth movements, there was the popularisation of the contraceptive pill. Created in 1956 and which 10 years later had several million users throughout America.

Every revolution has its guides

The couple William Masters y Virginia Johnson have undoubtedly been the most popular sexologists of the past century, due to their research on the human sexual response. His books were bestsellers and had a visibility comparable to that of rock stars. And a similar ability to shock the establishment.

One of the main findings of this study was the discovery of the fundamental role of the clitoris in the female orgasm. Until then, the Freudian idea of the "vaginal orgasm" as the ideal of the female orgasm had predominated. orgasm. Research by Masters and Johnson, the gurus of a revolution in its heyday, showed that vaginal stimulation was not very relevant to female orgasm.

Fue así que «pusieron en valor» un órgano que había sido descubierto por el anatomista y cirujano Mateo Renaldo Colón, en la Italia del siglo XVI. Eso le valió la persecución inquisitorial, porque dijo que ese apéndice no tenía más utilidad que provocar placer.

En realidad, su «descubrimiento», por llamarlo de alguna manera, también se lo atribuyen otros dos anatomistas de la época. Y un historiador contemporáneo a estos científicos manifiesta que en realidad al clítoris se lo conoce desde el siglo II.

However, they were William Masters y Virginia Johnson who made them popular, using the mass media of the time. Another of their contributions was being the fathers of the sex therapies and sexological counselling tal como las conocemos hoy. Por eso se los considera «los gurús de la revolución sexual»

«La respuesta sexual humana»

Such was the title of the book that changed the vision of sex in the West. And as they never stood still, at an advanced age (in 1994) they published another volume that 28 years after the first one gave it another approach. «Heterosexualidad», dándole a su trabajo una visión desde un plano más «afectivo» y contemplando las emociones. Algo muy distinto al muy fisiológico de su obra más famosa.

At its core, Masters and Johnson's model of sex therapy divided the human sexual response into 4 major phases: excitation phase, plateau phase, orgasmic phase and resolution phase. They were differentiated by the method of Alfred Kinsey, the father of sexual research. This scientist, in the 1940s and 1950s, published reports on human sexual behaviour, based solely on interviews he conducted with dozens of people.

Masters and Johnson did something completely different. To the scandal of many, this couple of gurus of the sexual revolution (she a psychologist, he a gynaecologist) went much further: they took notes of the reactions of the volunteers who agreed to be analysed in the middle of the sexual act. They recorded the times. They attached electrodes to pairs of lovers to better monitor them while they were having sex in a laboratory. They used electrocardiographs, vibrators, cameras, etc.

For these methods (which earned them the nickname of perverts, voyeurs and worse) and for the conclusions they drew, Masters and Johnson were a hinge in the research on sex and its perception in the Western world.

THE LEGACY

Además de su obra más conocida, «La respuesta sexual humana» (1966), estos gurús de la revolución sexual publicaron «Incompatibilidad sexual humana» (1970), «El vínculo del placer» (1975), y la ya mencionada «Heterosexualidad» (1994). Todas fueron obras fundamentales de la sexología y grandes bestsellers.

«Simplemente, quiero responder una pregunta: ¿qué ocurre en el cuerpo durante el sexo?»said Virginia Johnson. They answered that and also debunked myths, educated and improved people's sex lives, todo contra los prejuicios de la época. No solo por un tabú moral: la comunidad científica no consideraba el sexo como objeto de estudio muy válido o interesante, hasta que llegaron ellos. Como bien se dijo, «sacaron el sexo de la alcoba y lo pusieron en el laboratorio».

Today, when almost all the prejudices have fallen away and so much of the independent escorts as women of all professions give and receive sexual pleasure without major problems, it is good to remember those who did so much to make it possible.

William Masters died in 2001, at the age of 85, and Virginia Johnson in 2013, with 88.