Editing Masters and Johnson (section)

==Criticisms==
Some [[sex researcher]]s, [[Shere Hite]] in particular, have focused on understanding how individuals regard sexual experience and the meaning it holds for them. Hite has criticized Masters and Johnson's work for uncritically incorporating cultural attitudes on sexual behavior into their research; for example, her work concluded that the 70% of women who do not have orgasms through intercourse are able to achieve orgasm easily by masturbation.<ref name="Hite">{{cite book|last=Hite|first=Shere|author-link=Shere Hite|title=The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality |publisher=[[Seven Stories Press]]|year=2004|location=New York, NY|pages=512 pages|isbn=978-1-58322-569-1|access-date=March 2, 2012|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s3OZaVn2wfkC&q=The%20Hite%20Report%3A%20a%20Nationwide%20Study%20of%20Female%20Sexuality&pg=PP1}}</ref><ref name="Hite2">Shere Hite: "I was making the point that clitoral stimulation wasn't happening during coitus. That's why women 'have difficulty having orgasms' - they don't have difficulty when they stimulate themselves.<br>[[Tracey Cox]]: "It's disappointing that one of Hite's main messages - that 70 per cent of women don't have orgasms through penetration - is not completely accepted today. Plenty of women don't feel comfortable admitting it, even to themselves, for fear their partners will love them less. But women are far more experimental now." {{cite news|title=Shere Hite: On female sexuality in the 21st century|newspaper=[[The Independent]]|date=April 30, 2006|access-date=April 10, 2011|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/shere-hite-on-female-sexuality-in-the-21st-century-475981.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220512/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/shere-hite-on-female-sexuality-in-the-21st-century-475981.html |archive-date=2022-05-12 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Lloyd">{{cite book|first=Elisabeth Anne|last=Lloyd|title=The case of the female orgasm: bias in the science of evolution|isbn = 978-0-674-01706-1|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2005|pages=21–53|access-date=January 5, 2012|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6GFNvA6TvlwC&q=en&pg=PA21|oclc=432675780}}</ref> She, as well as [[Elisabeth Lloyd]], have criticized Masters and Johnson's argument that enough clitoral stimulation to achieve orgasm should be provided by thrusting during intercourse, and the inference that the failure of this is a sign of female "sexual dysfunction".<ref name="Lloyd"/> While not denying that both Kinsey and Masters and Johnson have made major contributions to sex research, she believes that people must understand the cultural and personal construction of sexual experience to make the research relevant to sexual behavior outside the laboratory. Hite's work has also been challenged for methodological defects.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://davidstreitfeld.com/archive/controversies/hite01.html |title=Selected Articles by David Streitfeld<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=2013-02-23 |archive-date=2021-05-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511090900/http://davidstreitfeld.com/archive/controversies/hite01.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Masters and Johnson's research methodology has been criticized. Paul Robinson argues that because many of their participants were sex workers, it is highly likely that these individuals have had more sexual experience and are more comfortable with sex and sexuality in general.<ref>Robinson, P. (1976). ''The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson.'' New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.</ref> He says that one must approach these results with caution, because the participants do not represent the general population. Other researchers have argued that Masters and Johnson eliminated same-sex attracted participants when studying the human sexual response cycle, which also limits the generalizability of their results.<ref name="Hyde">[[Janet Shibley Hyde|Hyde, J. S]]., [[DeLamater, J. D.]], & Byers, E. S. (2012). ''Understanding Human Sexuality'', 5th ed. McGraw-Hill Ryerson.</ref>

Masters and Johnson have been criticized for studying sexual behaviors in the laboratory. While they attempted to make participants as comfortable as possible in the lab by giving them a "practice session" before their behavior was recorded, critics have argued that two people engaging in sexual activity in a lab is a different experience compared to being in the privacy and comfort of one's home.<ref name="Hyde" /><ref>Masters, W. H. & Johnson, V. E. (1966). ''Human Sexual Response''. Toronto; New York: Bantam Books.</ref> Another persistent critique was that despite her extensive years of clinical work, Virginia Johnson never earned a university degree and often did not correct those who referred to her in the press or in person as "Dr. Johnson".<ref name="Maier2009" />