Home > Encyclopedia of Psychology > Virginia E. Johnson

1925-
Researcher in human sexuality who co-wrote with her then-husband, William H. Masters, Human Sexual Response in 1966.

In collaboration with Dr. William Howell Masters, psychologist and sex therapist Virginia E. Johnson pioneered the study of human sexuality under laboratory conditions. She and Masters published the results of their study as a book entitled Human Sexual Response in 1966, causing an immediate sensation. As part of her work at the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation in St. Louis and later at the Masters and Johnson Institute, she counseled many clients and taught sex therapy to many professional practitioners.

Johnson was born Virginia Eshelman on February 11, 1925, in Springfield, Missouri, to Hershel Eshelman, a farmer, and Edna (Evans) Eshelman. The elder of two children, she...