Sexology on the Defensive

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Why did it take a decade for experts to find fault with the M & J data? Says Psychiatrist Raul Schiavi, director of the Mount Sinai Hospital Human Sexuality Program in New York City: "Masters was the prototypical godlike figure that people hesitated to challenge. And people were so taken by the initial optimism about sex therapy that they did not actually look at the long-term outcome data as carefully as they should have." M & J's defenders stress the debt that all sex therapists owe to their early efforts. "A midget can see farther than a giant if he's standing on the shoulders of a giant," insists Wardell Pomeroy, academic dean at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. "Masters and Johnson are giants in their field."

Some sexologists fear that the current debate over the Masters and Johnson research will be used by "enemies" to discredit the whole arena of sexual inquiry. "The public wants to find us bad, and that includes some of the media," says Mary Calderone, a noted expert on family planning and sex education. "There is a tendency to snigger. They report that we go around telling each other about our sex lives. We don't do that. None of us are voyeurs. This is a serious business. We've been serious about it for years." Lewis Durham, executive director of the Association of Sexologists in San Francisco, is more worried about his colleagues: "We think sexology is a science, but it remains a debatable issue. Psychologists might look down on sexology and say they can handle sexual problems. And there's also the factor of professional jealousy."

More damaging, perhaps, has been sexology's seeming inability to shake its association with what is widely perceived as pornography. Editor Nobile's interview with Zilbergeld in Forum, which is published by Penthouse, appears along with sexual-aid ads and letters from readers describing their steamy sex fantasies. Another article in the issue argues that the relationship between Batman and Robin is probably homosexual. Nobile considers Masters' claim that Forum is an inappropriate place to debate Zilbergeld's charges to be "the last refuge of a scoundrel. Dr. Masters' work has appeared in Forum as recently as last December, and he offered through his spokesman to be interviewed by Forum for $3,000, and I didn't take him up on it." Johnson last week flatly denied that either she or Masters sought payment for an interview.

If Masters refused to answer his critics in Forum, he was much more forthcoming at the congress. At a panel meeting an hour before the press conference, Masters and Johnson released a printed version, perhaps the first, of criteria for their studies. Among the standards for successful treatment: three erections in every four attempts in cases of impotence; two orgasms in every four tries for anorgasmic women. Said Zilbergeld derisively: "After 13 years and all this pressure, their standards are finally on the record."

—By Guy D. Garcia. Reported by June Morrall/San Francisco and Jack E. White/New York