Virginia Johnson—human sexuality pioneer

While Virginia Johnson, was born as Virginia Eshleman on February 11, 1925 in Springfield, Missouri, she came to be known as the research assistant, wife, and former wife of William H. Masters, M.D. (1,2). She was the “soft” side of the “Masters and Johnson sexual research team”. Dr. Masters was a gynecologist on faculty at George Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He had a plan to do sexuality research and had the funding, yet needed an assistant to help him in the process. Mrs. Johnson, had been married twice previously and responded to an ad by Dr. Masters for a research assistant in 1957 (1,2). After she had a career in music and singing, she was pursuing a degree in sociology, which was never completed. Once she applied for a research assistant position with Dr. Masters, her educational aspirations were over (1). It was said that after Dr. Masters hired Ms. Johnson as his assistant, it didn’t take long for their professional relationship to become personal (3), and they married in 1971 (1). While some sources stated she was a “sexologist and psychologist”, she actually never completed a bachelor’s degree (1,2,4).