Remembering Noted Sex Therapist Virginia Johnson Masters

Word spread Thursday of the passing of Virginia Johnson, described by The New York Times as "a writer, researcher and sex therapist who with her longtime collaborator, William H. Masters, helped make the frank discussion of sex in postwar America possible if not downright acceptable, died on Wednesday in St. Louis at an assisted living center. She was 88."

Of the books written by the couple, The Associated Press reported, "Hundreds of couples, not all of them married, would participate in the observed research, later discussed in their 1966 book, "Human Sexual Response." That book and their second, 1970's "Human Sexual Inadequacy," were both best-sellers."

Johnson later operated the the Virginia Johnson Masters Learning Center in Creve Coeur, which the New York Times reported was designed to help deal with sexual disfunction. Records show that the facility operated in the building which now houses the National Kidney Foundation office on Olive Boulevard.

Masters and Johnson divorced in 1993. Masters died in 2001.