Gynaecologist William Howell Masters and psychologist Virginia Eshelman Johnson pioneered research into the nature of human sexual response and the diagnosis and treatment of sexual disorders and dysfunctions from 1957 until the 1990s. This book examines their influential scientific sex research and its groundbreaking implications for sex therapy and the study of human sexuality.

Until now, these developments have been largely ignored in sociology. The book illuminates how Masters and Johnson have constructed their apparently scientific ideas about sexual function...