Renowned sex researcher Johnson dies

ST. LOUIS – In an era when even talking about sex was virtually taboo, Virginia Johnson had a way of putting research subjects at ease, persuading them to participate in groundbreaking investigations that changed the way human sexuality was perceived.

Johnson, half of the renowned Masters and Johnson team, was remembered Thursday as one of the key figures in the sexual revolution. Johnson, whose legal name was Virginia Masters, died Wednesday of complications from several illnesses at an assisted living center in St. Louis. She was 88.

“She has one of the most extraordinary lives of any American woman in the 20th century,” said Thomas Maier, author of the 2009 book “Masters of Sex, the Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love.”

“She literally came in without a degree and became one of the most well-known female figures in medicine in her time,” Maier said.

Johnson grew up in rural Missouri, near the small town of Golden City. By the late 1950s she was in her 30s and twice-divorced, raising two small children and looking for a job.

She landed work as a secretary in the medical school at Washington University in St. Louis. That’s where she met Masters, an obstetrician-gynecologist who hired her as his assistant for his research into human sexuality, studies performed first at Washington University and later at the Masters and Johnson Institute in St. Louis.

It was a strange indoctrination: Masters convinced her that having sex with him was part of the job. They eventually became lovers and wed in 1971. (They divorced 20 years later.)

Over time, Johnson grew from an assistant to co-collaborator. They were a good fit together: Masters had impeccable academic and research credentials, a brilliant scientist but aloof and lacking in people skills. Maier said it was Johnson who managed to recruit the countless volunteers needed for the studies – graduate students, nurses, faculty wives and other participants for what was almost certainly the largest human sexuality experiment ever in the U.S.

“He was a rigorous scientist most comfortable in a white coat,” said Dr. Robert Kolodny, who worked alongside the couple for years and was associate director of the Masters and Johnson Institute.

“Ginny had people skills and a warmth about her, and projected an interest in humanity that was a very good foil to his austere scientist demeanor.”

Their research was later discussed in their 1966 book, “Human Sexual Response.” And their 1970 book, “Human Sexual Inadequacy,” explored a therapy they’d developed for men and women with sexual problems.

Both books were best-sellers translated into dozens of languages.

Kolodny said Johnson played a major and creative role in devising their sex therapy, which helped people focus on sensation of touch rather than performance. Before Masters and Johnson, Kolodny said, medicine was in the “dark era” when it came to human sexuality.

“She gave women sort of permission to honor their own sexuality,” Kolodny said.