Birds and the bees and the monkey babies

“When it’s time for souls to meet, there’s nothing on earth that can prevent them from meeting, no matter where each may be located. When two hearts are meant for each other, no distance is too far, no time is too long, and no other love can break them apart.”

I found a very long interview with Virginia Johnson from 1997, presumably for the upcoming tapes she was planning to do for the Virginia Johnson Masters Learning Center. I think her intelligence and knowledge about sex in terms of culture and society comes across very strongly in this interview. I often wondered what Masters and Johnson would think about the sex climate today with all the hypersexualization and availability and she makes some pretty astute observations that still hold true today. At the start, it’s hard to connect this Virginia Johnson to the one in private who was immensely bitter about Bill and their work. At about the 14 minute mark, while talking about the start of her work with Bill and how they were there at the right time, she pauses/hesitates and then apologizes by saying she got marred down in the question. She then goes on to talk about their work for a few minutes.

Later on (around 43:30), the same thing happens when she’s retelling a story of her two grandmothers and about how one grandmother became angry towards men and sexuality and “let it be known in rather cutting little ways” and that’s when she asks to stop for a moment. When they cut back again, the interviewer asks how a couple can take steps to prevent that and to stay interested, etc. Her answer? VJ: “A couple who wants to continue to be exciting to one another and excited by one another has to allow themselves to be themselves in relation to the time and the place and the circumstance. For instance… [pause, she sighs] I really…I’m so wound up in this stupid stuff that I’m not sure I can continue…” Interview: “Do you want to cut for a few minutes?” VJ: “No, it really won’t help, other than to…[long pause]”

Once they cut back after a short break, it’s here where she talks about things like cheating, true love, couples who live in arrangements, chemistry, etc, and I strongly suspect that on some of the topics she’s speaking from the experience of her and Bill’s marriage (to paraphrase: “if a partner has an interest for somebody outside of the marriage, even if it’s not acted upon, then the relationship will die”)

She’s clearly as educated as any doctor but this independent venture would fail because a lot of her credibility came from Bill (combined with the fact that their practices became obsolete with the invention of pills like Viagra), which is incredibly sad when you think about it. How do people get their doctorates? By writing a dissertation. How do people write their dissertations? By conducting research. Virginia did all that and more but because she didn’t have a formal piece of paper from a university saying she did it, she wasn’t seen as a real doctor. She had no reason to be embarrassed or ashamed of that.