ABSTRACT
A feminist analysis of the patriarchal bias in sexology could do worse than begin with one of the fundamental elements of the new sex therapy: "sensate focus." In Human Sexual Inadequacy, Masters and Johnson (1970) introduced "sensate focus" as an important educational device:
Sensate focus. . . was chosen to provide the sensory experience most easily and appropriately available to marital partners as a medium for physical exchange in reconstituting natural responsivity to sexual stimuli. . . . These "exercises" are designed to free sexual dysfunctional individuals from inhibitions that deprive them of an opportunity to respond naturally to sensory experience.... Sensory awareness and its communication to another person can be extremely difficult for those who have not had the opportunity to develop sensate orientation gradually, under circumstances in which the experience was valued and encouraged, or at least not negated. . . . This educational process, as initiated in therapy by the sensate "exercises," permits gradual modification of negative reactions to sensory stimuli so that learning occurs. (Masters and Johnson, 1970, pp. 76, 77)
