You can’t work in the sexual health field without hearing about the pioneering work of Virginia Johnson. To honour her journey I am reposting The Australian post which shares a little about her life journey.
BEFORE she became famous as a pioneering sex researcher, Virginia Johnson was a twice-divorced mother of two who came to St Louis in 1957 looking for secretarial work.
She met William Masters, a prominent obstetrician-gynaecologist at Washington University School of Medicine. He asked whether helping with sex research would bother her.
“I can’t imagine why,” she answered. “But why does anyone need it?”
She had grown up on a Missouri farm and sex was no mystery – she took it for granted.
“Ginie” Johnson went from secretary to assistant to full research partner with Masters. According to her biographer, Masters told Johnson that her job would require having sex with him. They married in 1971.
They opened the Masters & Johnson Institute in St Louis and opened the world’s eyes to sexuality. They transformed knowledge about the human body and helped couples become more comfortable with sex.
They created the field of Sex Therapy.