Critical Introduction - Old Silent Assumptions

2. The Myth of Therapeutic Impartiality

Self-critical sex therapy
Masters and Johnson and others like them have taken sex therapy out of the traditionally prejudiced psychiatric context and opened it up as never before to scrutiny and dispute. They now offer their cautious, limited, and commonsensical assistance to fully autonomous clients. They also know that, in the past, sexual therapies of various kinds have been used to enforce allegedly "natural" norms on reluctant and even unwilling "patients", and they remain well aware of this embarrassing aspect of the past. In contrast, when we look at the actual practice of sex therapy today, we have no reason to be embarrassed at all. It is precisely the new, behavioral approach of Masters and Johnson, Hartman and Fithian, LoPiccolo and Heiman, Zilbergeld and Barbach, and many others that has pointed sex therapy in a more rationally defensible direction. Most sex therapists today know this and are grateful for it. They do not see sexuality as the beginning and end of human happiness. Neither do they make universal claims for the ultimate effect of their work. Still, in a practical sense, sex therapy is now enriching many lives on a sensual and emotional level. Moreover, it does so without dogmatism and arrogance. All that is needed now is a theoretical framework that reflects these recent positive developments. As its theory catches up with its practice, and as it becomes aware of its untenable silent assumptions, a newly articulate sex therapy will deserve the support of every rational person.