en
Book chapter
Open access
French

Masters of Sex: sciences, orgasme et société dans l’Amérique de la guerre froide

ContributorsGardey, Delphineorcid
Published inThe Historians. Saison1. Les séries décryptées par les historiens, Editors Bréro, Thalia, Farré, Sébastien, p. 115-138
PublisherGenève : Georg Editeurs
Publication date2017
First online date2017
Abstract

This contribution deciphers the television series "Masters of Sex" from a historical perspective. Created by Michelle Ashford and gathering a collective of women producers and scriptwriters, the series reports on the life and work of a couple of extraordinary scientists, William Masters (1915-2001) and Virginia Johnson (1925-2013), major characters in the history of sexology, at the origin of laboratory sexology and a new clinic of sexuality. Beyond the astonishing epic of these two explorers of human sexuality, the series allows us to revisit the conditions of love and erotic life in post-war America, the moral and social norms that prevailed at the time, and thus highlights for the contemporary public the extent of the transformations that have taken place in social and gender relations as well as in love and sexual life since this period. The aim of this contribution is to account for these characteristics and to analyze in particular the concrete modalities of production of knowledge on sexuality implemented by Masters and Johnson. The contribution reviews the quest for knowledge of the obstetrician gynecologist William Masters, the setting up of the "brothel" in the laboratory and the staging of hero-sexual coitus in the laboratory, the description of the orgasm and the female orgasm, the exceptional destiny of Virginia Johnson as a self made scientist and questions the singularity of this "creative couple of science" between transgression and conservatism.

freeng
Citation (ISO format)
GARDEY, Delphine. Masters of Sex: sciences, orgasme et société dans l’Amérique de la guerre froide. In: The Historians. Saison1. Les séries décryptées par les historiens. Genève : Georg Editeurs, 2017. p. 115–138.
Main files (1)
Book chapter (Accepted version)
accessLevelPublic
Identifiers
  • PID : unige:161151
ISBN2825710679
244views
18downloads

Technical informations

Creation05/28/2022 9:14:00 AM
First validation05/28/2022 9:14:00 AM
Update time03/16/2023 6:39:58 AM
Status update03/16/2023 6:39:57 AM
Last indexation02/01/2024 8:17:51 AM
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of GenevaunigeBlack