# The Sex Researchers By Edward M. Brecher **URL:** **By** Robert Masters **Published:** March 1, 1974 --- “Sex must (a) involve exactly two persons, no more, no less, (b) one of whom must be male, the other female.” Sex must (a) involve exactly two persons, no more, no less, (b) one of whom must be male, the other female. They must (c) be married and (d) have no outside sexual relationships. Furthermore, their love-making must (e) be conducted in private, (f) involve no contraceptives and (g) be consummated in penile-vaginal intercourse, (h) in the missionary position, (j) with the woman playing an entirely passive role. Such was the view of sex in the nineteenth century. _The Sex Researchers_, by Edward M. Brecher, is an entertaining, informative account of the scientists who subjected each of the above restrictions to the fatal question: Why? Brecher defines his theme as “the gradual convalescence of our culture from a debilitating sexual disease,” namely, Victorianism. But beneath this there is a deeper theme: the advance of the scientific attitude, and the concomitant retreat of religion, in our culture. Can it be proven that masturbation is physically or psychologically harmful? What is the evi-dence that premarital sex has ruinous effects? Can it be demonstrated that homosexual relationships are psychologically untenable? What are the known consequences of group sex? Why must women be sexually subordinate? It was questions like these that brought sex out of the Dark Ages. And, from Havelock Ellis to Masters and Johnson, the researchers who asked these questions laid the foundation for the sexual freedoms we are beginning to enjoy only in this last third of the twentieth century. “Victorianism, today as in the past,” Brecher observes, “rests squarely and necessarily on. . . ignorance.” One might add that the same is true of all forms of authoritarianism. Much of _The Sex Researchers_ is painful reading—for instance, the descriptions of the sexually crippled couples who came to Masters and Johnson for help; and the truly heart-breaking accounts of the sexlessness of Victorian women. (“A delicate wife,” according to one observer, “will often confide to her medical advisor. . . that at the very time when mar-riage love seems to unite them most closely, when her husband’s welcome kisses and caresses seem to bring them into profound union, comes an act which mentally separates them, and which must be indifferent or repugnant to her.”) Some parts of the book are near-incredible—for instance, the section on the nineteenth-century “authorities” who taught boys that not only intercourse and masturbation, but even nocturnal emissions were disastrously harmful. But such horrors are only a backdrop to the main emphasis of the book, which is heroism—the simple, quiet heroism of scientists who place facts above conventions and are willing to face moralistic outrage in the name of that choice. Havelock Ellis, painstakingly demonstrating the cultural relativity of sexual taboos—_Alfred Kinsey_, showing in case after case that supposedly forbidden practices were secretly widespread in mid-century America—_Helena Wright_, teaching women to rediscover their sexuality and, in specific detail, to masturbate—_James and Lynn Smith_, applying the field-research techniques of modern psychology to group sex—all emerge as attractive, courageous individuals, the kind of individuals who have the strength to challenge and redirect historical forces. Certain details of selection in Brecher’s narrative are open to criticism: it is particularly puzzling that he omits any mention of Wilhelm Reich. And there is some question as to whether he is sufficiently aware of the social and psychological problems resulting from sexual liberation (problems analogous to those of the liberated slaves after the Civil War). But these are quibbles. Overall, _The Sex Researchers_ is an important, well-written book on a much-neglected aspect of our cultural history—and inspiring reading for anyone who doubts the power of the truth to set us free. _Reviewed by Robert Masters / Psychology (406 Pages) / Bfl Price $1.50_