Showtime just debuted a new series called Masters of Sex, starring Lizzy Caplan and Michael Sheen. It's been getting plenty of buzz and it's clear why: the show is based on the 2009 book of the same name, which delves into the lives and research of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, who started researching sexual behavior together in the 1950s.
The pair eventually married, and divorced, making huge steps in sexology along the way. So they shed some light on a taboo topic and addressed a bunch of long-standing sex myths.
Their approach was revolutionary: observation. They observed hundreds of volunteers and tens of thousands of orgasms in order to achieve scientific conclusions. They even used a phallic device with a small camera attached to figure out what goes on inside of a woman during sex!
Some of their findings include:
Sex Has Different StagesThey identified the biological progression that people go through during sex. It includes four stages -
- Excitement phase
- Plateau phase
- Orgasmic phase
- Resolution plase
It's the same for men and women, but the physical details within each stage vary between the two sexes.
Women Can Have Multiple OrgasmsMasters and Johnson proved that women don’t have a refractory period like guys do, so they can climax again and again. Woot!
Penis Size Doesn’t MatterWell this one is still debatable. But according to Masters and Johnson, the vagina adapts to the penis size during sex, so a man's length or girth should technically not affect a woman's pleasure.
