The Big Picture
- Masters of Sex offers a semi-fictionalized but mostly accurate account of the lives of sexologists Masters and Johnson and their groundbreaking research in human sexuality.
- The show accurately portrays the chronology and key events of Masters and Johnson's research, including their observations of thousands of participants and the publication of their book Human Sexual Response.
- While the show takes some creative liberties, such as depicting Johnson as a feminist ally, it still provides an entertaining and well-acted glimpse into the lives and research of Masters and Johnson.
The Showtime TV series Masters of Sex offers a raunchy, semi-fictionalized account of the lives of Virginia E. Johnson and Dr. William Masters, where its four seasons chart both the controversial scientific research and personal affairs of its stars. Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan take on the show’s leading roles as the Masters and Johnson duo, in a show loosely based on the 2009 Masters of Sex biography by Thomas Maier. Masters and Johnson were real-life sexologists, and the show offers a loosely accurate account of their infamous research into human sexuality which spanned the 1950s and '60s.
A lot of what happens in the show seems beyond belief, but much is true to the narrative detailed in Maier’s popular biography, where the author personally interviewed both Masters and Johnson prior to writing his account. The chronology presented in Season 1 in particular is largely true to life. Like the show, Masters began his research seriously in 1954, when he wished to supplement the sociological studies of Alfred Kinsey with scientific physiological data. Like Kinsey, he began by observing prostitutes in Chicago and St Louis, as in the show, but eventually convinced Washington University to let him set up a lab in order to gather more accurate results.
The Real Masters & Johnson Had a Brilliant Meeting of Minds
Two years into his research, Masters hired Virginia E. Johnson as his secretary, and together their groundbreaking work involved measuring physiological responses during masturbation and monitoring anonymized couples having sex through a one-way mirror. As elaborated upon in the show, their aim was to debunk common myths about sexuality, including Freud’s erroneous suggestion that there is a physiological distinction between a clitoral orgasm and a vaginal orgasm. They also managed to disprove the beliefs that masturbation could be harmful, that women shouldn’t have sex during pregnancy, and that humans cease to become sexually active in old age.
Over the years the pair observed thousands of participants, helping them to draw brand-new conclusions about human sexuality that would help to radically change the scientific approach to the subject. This research culminated in the publication of their co-authored book Human Sexual Response, which relied on medical and scientific jargon to dispel any suggestion of lewd content.
One vital and almost unbelievable moment during their research is dramatized in the show, where Masters asks Johnson to participate in the study with him — in other words, the pair had sex in their own laboratory under controlled conditions. This was done in an effort to streamline lab techniques, but their relationship quickly grew outside the lab and developed into an affair. Masters had been married to Elizabeth Ellis since 1942, played in the show by Caitlin FitzGerald. The pair divorced in 1970 as a consequence of Masters’ involvement with Johnson. According to Maier’s account, Johnson received a proposal from wealthy perfume executive Hank Walter, which led Masters to believe that this relationship would threaten the progress of the duo's research. To prevent this, Masters proposed to and later married Johnson himself in 1971.
'Masters of Sex' Took More Creative License with the Real Story
The TV adaptation presents a fairly accurate depiction of these key events. But as the seasons progress, more creative liberties are taken with the source material. Less is known about Masters’ wife Libby, where depictions of her involvement in the American Civil Rights movement are likely to be fictional.
In addition to this, the depiction of Virginia Johnson is an example of the show getting a little creative. Key facts asserted in the early episodes about Johnson’s lack of a formal degree as well as her 1956 divorce are true to life. But Masters of Sex also leans into a representation of Virginia Johnson as a feminist ally, who desires to bring about a sexual revolution. In real life, this wasn’t entirely the case, where both Masters and Johnson were politically conservative, both defending the "marital unit" above all else. Maier’s biography in particular notes Johnson’s anti-feminist views, where she frequently refused to attend feminist rallies, believing that female emancipation typically led to men’s feelings of sexual inadequacy.
Overall, the pair were not overly interested in the wider social context or politics of their research, where they studied only physiological responses for the sake of science, and not to evidence the broader sexual revolution of the 1960s and '70s. In addition to this, the show necessarily presents the relationship between Masters and Johnson as passionate, but it seems that in reality, things were a little less romantic. Their marriage was predominantly an extension of their research, which allowed them to collaborate closely without distraction. Both had other romantic connections throughout their lives, and the pair amicably divorced in 1993.
‘Masters of Sex’ Flounders as It Diverts From the Truth
To account for these anomalies in the real-life story, Seasons 3 and 4 of the show expand outwards into the wider context of the time period, where the initial chemistry between its stars gradually begins to fizzle out. The show’s ratings began to plummet, and it wasn't renewed for a fifth season. This decline in quality reflects the fact that the best parts of the story, which drew from real life, had already been told. The fascinating part of the narrative is the inception of the duo's ostensibly voyeuristic research methods and the mind-boggling involvement of the researchers in their own sex study. These are the parts of the Masters and Johnson story which resonate most palpably in cultural memory, and the dramatization of these moments made for a highly watchable initial season of television.
Ultimately, Masters of Sex is a tantalizing testament to the almost unbelievable lives and research of Masters and Johnson. Despite its decline in quality in later seasons, the show initially offers an entertaining and well-acted watch for anyone eager to learn more about the origins of the pair's famous work.
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The True Story Behind Michael Sheen's 'Masters of Sex' - Collider
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