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Abstract
Contemporary sexology is fragmented, with the new sexuality studies almost completely split off from the new sexual therapies. Clinical sexology research and practice are in danger of being captured by commercial interests, chiefly the global pharmaceutical industry. One solution to both of these intellectual problems comes from an examination of the all-but-forgotten history of humanistic sexology in the 1970s. It may be that the political involvement, research creativity, body – mind approaches, and respect for sexual diversity that emerge from this history can offer some directions for contemporary sexologists. The New View of Women's Sexual Problems, an educational campaign dedicated to challenging the post-Viagra medicalisation of sexual problems, incorporates some of these humanistic elements in a way that offers some new training directions.
Notes
1. “Queer” is a term that has emerged to incorporate all non-heterosexual sexual orientations and identities such as gay, bisexual, and the various permutations of transgendered.
2. “Humanistic’ is not to be confused with ‘humanism’ or with ‘the humanities.’ Humanism, a religion or life philosophy, is described on the webpages of the American Humanist Association, http://www.americanhumanist.org, and the British Humanist Association, http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms. The humanities, one of the major academic areas coming under the rubric of ‘liberal arts’, includes subjects such as literature, philosophy, languages, religion, art, music and cultural studies. ‘Humanistic’ is a perspective in psychology as described below.
3. In a recent brief history of American sex therapy, Hartman and Fithian (1998), famed competitors of Masters and Johnson, place the beginning of sexual therapies in the gynecological practice of Robert Latou Dickinson in the early 1900s and the behavioural therapy techniques of Joseph Wolpe and Arnold Lazarus in the early 1960s. However, even they regard Masters and Johnson's contributions as “the keystone of modern sex therapy” (Hartman and Fithian, 1998, p. 252).
4. http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-sexresearch40oct02,0,3804904,full.story
5. I rely on the work of sociologist Janice Irvine (1990, 2005) for much of this story.
6. SIECUS, Sex Information and Education Council of the United States; AASECT, American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors & Therapists; SSSS, Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality; BASRT, the British Association for Sexual and Relationship Therapy, came later, in 1976. Many useful historical events and personages are identified on Erwin Haeberle's comprehensive website, http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/CHR07.HTM(visited 20 January, 2006).
7. A brief history of humanistic psychology appears on the Association of Humanistic Psychology website, http://www.ahpweb.org/aboutahp/whatis.html. Another appears on the website of Division 32 (The Division of Humanistic Psychology) of the American Psychological Association, http://www.apa.org/divisions/div32/pdfs/history.pdf(both visited 19 January, 2006).
8. This litany is from a speech given by the former President of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman, in September 1999. http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/lincspeech.htm(visited 20 January, 2006).
9. I spoke on 23 January, 2006 with a gynaecologist who had referred a young married woman with dyspareunia to me. The gynaecologist had seen the woman once, and stated that as part of her standard examination, she had inserted a gloved finger into the woman's vagina asking her to tighten her vaginal muscles, to report whether the feeling was pleasant or unpleasant, and to report whether this simulated in any way the feelings during coitus. This is similar to sexological examinations conducted by Hartman and Fithian.
10. Specifically, in 1984 the FDA approved a machine to treat kidney stones with shock-wave therapy (the lithotripter), eliminating much kidney stone surgery, and benign prostate enlargement began to be treated with medications, eliminating much prostate surgery.
11. The Journal of the History of Sexuality, now in its 14th year of publications, is the best entry into the complex world of social meanings of sexual identities and practices.
15. Archives of Sexual Behaviour, 34, no. 1 (February 2005).