YOUR MARITAL HEALTH/SEXUALITY FROM ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE: : MASTERS AND JOHNSONIAN SEX
William Masters and Virginia Johnson observed the sexual behavior of 382 women and 312 men for a total of 10,000 individual sexual-response cycles. Their courageous and pioneering work not only provided long-needed medical knowledge about sexuality, but allowed the public and medical acknowledgment that sexual problems were a part of many, if not most, sexual relationships. More important, their work provided hope for solving these problems.
The sexual-response model of Masters and Johnson maintains the “energy buildup and release” orientation of the first and second perspectivces, but divides energy buildup into excitement and plateau, and energy release into orgasm and resolution. Sex researchers have questioned this four-phase cycle, suggesting that it is far from accurate in the male response and misleading regarding the female response.
The four-phase model suggests that the refractory period, a phase during which continued genital stimulation is ineffective, even uncomfortable, applies only to men and is somehow separate from the four phases. It suggests that excitement and plateau are separate phases, an assertion that does not bear out in subjective experience. The four phases do not identify such issues as desire, interest, or satisfaction, yet problems with desire are the most frequent of sexual problems.
Masters and Johnson indicate that male and female sexual response is essentially the same. They identify the orgasmic platform, or contractions of the outer third of the vaginal barrel, and vaginal lubrication as generally equivalent to the erection of the male penis. In fact, the third perspective of sex contains a “new feminism” that seems to use the female cycle as a model or standard for the male response.
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