Abstract
The most famous, best-selling modern sex manual by Alex Comfort, ‘The Joy of Sex’, is currently being updated so that, apparently, the images in the book will represent less dated depictions of bearded, 1970s men than hitherto was the case. It will, therefore, be interesting to see if this edition has moved on from 1970s ideas about sex, and indeed, gender. Ross Morrow's book, which aims to offer a more sustained critique of some aspects of Masters and Johnson's scientific sex research and its clinical applications in the field of sex therapy work, than there has been to date, is therefore timely. Such a text typifies a more general contemporary feeling within the discipline of sociology; that sociologists need to be researching and publishing more in areas which connect with the vagaries of the popular imagination. In this way, sociological concerns may reach a wider audience than is sometimes the case. Morrow is not concerned here with engaging with the full canon of Masters and Johnson's work, but rather, with the sociological analysis and critique of their key works Human Sexual Response (1966) and Human Sexual Inadequacy (1970). However, it is his placing of this endeavour in a wider context of the implications of such concerns for the sociology of sex, which make this of interest to a broader audience than if he had just concentrated on their sex research alone.
To this end, a number of chapters are devoted to analysis of their two texts cited above, as well as an investigation into Masters and Johnson's sex therapy programme. Regarded as two of the most important sex therapists of the last century, the work Human Sexual Response was the result of a sex research study, which, amazingly at the time, married sex with science in an attempt to use laboratory findings from 694 men and women, over the period 1954–65, to construct certain scientific ‘truths’ about human sexual responses. Central to their thesis, which gained them celebrity status in the media at the time, was the idea that men and women's sexual responses were surprisingly similar. Human Sexual Inadequacy provided a radically new system to define the notion of sexual ‘dysfunction.’ This was in contrast to the earlier and dominant psychoanalytical view of dysfunction, and their ideas replaced this perspective with a notion that it was the individuals’ own fear of sexual inadequacy, and subsequent self-policing, which were the most important factors. The treatment suggested by Masters and Johnson was multi-faceted, with the involvement of a range of professionals. Furthermore, their own sex-therapy programme had been a great success.
It is somewhat surprising that since their works were published, analysis of Master's and Johnson has been partial and limited. Therefore, Morrow, carefully and consistently and from a broadly social constructionist viewpoint, critically situates their work in a framework of an inherent essentialism and empiricism, including their belief in their bias and value free findings on sexual responses. After putting Masters and Johnson's work in a historical context in terms of its conception and reception to their findings, he argues that any criticism of them was centred on the methodologies used rather than on any research findings. This is seen as the case despite the fact that their findings were (and still are, according to Morrow) uncritically embraced as proven, scientific gospel. What follows is a nuanced critique of different aspects of their methods and findings, including the model of the human sexual response cycle and their classification of sexual dysfunction, which included gender bias. There is also analysis of the intended goal of their therapy programme, which was ‘to return sex to its “natural context“’ (p. 174), which meant in practice ‘enabling couples to “satisfactorily” perform heterosexual intercourse’ (p. 174). This is something which feminist writers on sexuality, from Shere Hite to Andrea Dworkin, have picked up on in different ways and elaborated further, specifically in the context of gendered power relations. The book ends with some useful and productive recommendations for current sex therapy to consider, including a critical use of Masters and Johnson, and the view that sex therapy needs to look beyond an individual's circumstances and personal issues to include recognition of the influence of society in general on our sexual behaviour and thoughts.
The chapter on theories of sexuality offers a useful review of the essentialist/constructionist debate. Though I would have liked to have seen more emphasis on current debates, for example, in queer theory, as well as acknowledgement of issues which have started to transform the arguments he refers to on the body and social constructionism; for example, recent attempts to embody gender in the context of transgender theories. The conclusion could also usefully have referred back to the earlier theoretical chapters on theories of sexuality and the history of the sociology of sex. However, importantly, in the latter chapter, Morrow contends that the sociology of sex existed well before its oft assumed emergence in the 1960s and 1970s, where new debates on sexuality took hold. The fact that sociologists often, he argues, misunderstand the discipline's history of research on sex stems from the emergence of the classical canon in sociology. This is seen to have changed ideas of the discipline's history and the topics thought worthy of study. Such a view enables us to consider that the field of the sociology of sex is itself socially constructed. In this way, therefore, Morrow's views allow us to wonder what other topics and issues disappeared from view, or were re-written, or uncritically received, if this stance on the development of the discipline is accepted.