The Martin Duberman Reader (32 page)

Masters and Johnson's single most intriguing finding is the high incidence they report in all groups of “cross-preference” fantasies. Among gay men and lesbians, overt heterosexual interaction was the third highest fantasy; to an only slightly lesser degree, straight men and women fantasized about overt homosexual interaction. The last finding is especially remarkable, and for two reasons: the heterosexual subjects were overwhelmingly Kinsey 0 (that is, exclusively heterosexual); during face-to-face discussions and interviews, moreover, they described same-gender sex as “revolting” and “unthinkable.” Yet the same men and women who vitriolically condemned homosexuality showed in their fantasies “a significant curiosity, a
sense of sexual anticipation, or even fears for effectiveness of sexual performance.”

If Masters and Johnson fully recognize the explosive nature of these findings, you'd never know it from their brief and bland discussion of them. On the high incidence of fantasies involving force, their sole comment is to caution against “necessarily” assuming any desire exists to act on such fantasies in “real life”—a statement that exudes less the air of scientific scrupulosity than personal repugnance. Masters and Johnson have never shown—unlike Alex Comfort, say, or Kinsey—much tolerance or understanding of “perverse” variations on the missionary theme. For them to acknowledge the appeal of “force” would be tantamount to admitting that the household staples (coitus, partner manipulation, fellatio/cunnilingus) do not exhaust the imaginations or appetites of even the sexually proficient. It would also mean opening the Pandora's box of sadomasochism, exploring the rising incidence in our society of sexual scenarios involving domination and submission, retrieving the S/M phenomenon from the scummy fringe to which traditional moralists (like Masters and Johnson) have comfortably consigned it.

Their reaction to the “cross-preference” data they present is cut from the same tweedy cloth. They simply warn against assuming that such fantasies indicate “latent or unrealized” attractions. And no more said. Yet it takes no great insight to deduce other plausible readings. It strains neither the evidence nor the imagination to see in the high incidence of cross-preference fantasies confirmation of Freud's hoary suggestion that all human beings are potentially receptive to bisexual stimulation, that even when we have grown up in a homophobic culture and have long since declared ourselves gay or straight, the wish to be both retains a strong subterranean hold.

Masters and Johnson keep to the same adamantly bland posture in the face of their remarkable finding that for both heterosexual men and women, the single most common fantasy is the displacement of their established partner. Five years ago [1975] in
The Pleasure Bond,
their only book aimed at a popular audience (an aim that required the services of a co-author to translate hieroglyphics
into basic English), Masters and Johnson sternly equated infidelity with immaturity. That same animus, in more muted form, pervades
Homosexuality in Perspective
—indeed pervades all of their work. Though enamored of their self-image as “objective scientists” and tireless in referring to their “neutral,” “value-free” approach, their books have always been drenched in ideology. In choosing to deny this, they've merely ensured that their own personal values would contaminate their data more, not less; for when the subjective component isn't acknowledged, its distorting effect is less easy to measure and contain.

Masters and Johnson's therapeutic concern firmly centers on the couple, with the needs of the individual subordinated to those of the marital unit. To maintain or salvage a committed relationship, the individual is expected to sacrifice a certain amount of freedom—especially in pursuing sexual pleasure. Pleasure and union, in this view, are apparently seen as at odds: the sexual drive inherently strong, the marital unit inherently fragile. What then justifies the heroic effort to curtail the one in the name of saving the other? According to Masters and Johnson, the marital unit is the only context in which something called “growth” can proceed. Does that mean “growth” and “pleasure” are discrete, even antagonistic entities? Unlike their Puritan forebears, Masters and Johnson seem never to have posed that question consciously, or thought through an argument for asserting the paramount claims of “growth,” or that “pleasure” can't produce it. All that's clear is that on a subliminal level, they link growth with safety—the kind associated with the security of lifetime pair-bonding. But in substituting muddy hints for a reasoned exposition, they prove unconvincing advocates—especially for those who associate growth with the ability to remain open and take risks, with a willingness to explore the manifold, hidden recesses of desire.

Given Masters and Johnson's theoretical opacity and evasion, it comes as no surprise to find them unwilling to face the subversive implications of their own data. To do so might shake loose some foundation stones in their own wobbly value structure. To
absorb the fact that heterosexual men and women involved in longstanding relationships frequently—almost obsessively, it seems—fantasize about displacing their established partners, might raise the feared specter that familiarity really does breed contempt (or, minimally, loss of erotic interest). For Masters and Johnson to digest their further finding that among the previously unattached couples they studied, “fewer functional failures” turned up during sex than among committed couples, might lead to speculation that people find excitement in the unfamiliar—that outside “spice” provides respite from the familiarity and boredom and dysfunction that commonly assail long-term lovers. Rather than explore such implications. Masters and Johnson simply reiterate their belief in the prime importance of maintaining the marital unit—that “port-in-the-storm,” that “retreat from social pressures.” Security remains their supreme value, the ultimate benefaction, the essence and sum of human needs. We are in the landscape of the 1950s.

—from the
New Republic,
June 16, 1979

W
e arrived at the Calgary Stampede—Canada's “legendary yearly event, the World's Greatest Rodeo”—in July 1948, just before my eighteenth birthday. I was on a Youth Hostel trip with a group of some twenty other teenagers, and we had already put in a month of grueling but happy cross-country biking and backpacking. Calgary was a rest stop. We had heard great tales of its spectacular fairgrounds and rodeo events, and rushed to take it all in. We watched the opening-day parade of high school bands, covered wagons, cows and cowhands, dashed to the arena to see the chuck wagon races, thrilled to the feats of daredevil Dick Griffith as he jumped over a Buick car while straddling two horses.

Come evening, we headed out for the midway and amusement park, a vast stretch of dirt road that included (as I gushed in a letter home to my parents) “roller coasters, ice cream and soda stands, circus barkers, gyp joints, international exhibits such as the Ford Company, freak shows, girlie reviews, even Sally Rand herself doing the one and only fan dance!” What I didn't tell my parents was that as the evening grew late and the rest of our group went off to bed, I stayed on alone.

The midway was still feverish with activity, packed with carousers, most of them men, most of them (from my vantage point)
middle-aged, clustered in groups of three or four, noisily drunk, vaguely frightening, and exciting me with their self-confident swagger, their unpredictable shouts, the sudden way they halted at a duck-shoot booth to challenge each other's prowess or to grab a kiss from any woman within reach. The booth owners egged them on, yelling out encouragement even as they scurried to nail down a scuffed tent peg, run test spins on a roulette wheel, line up rows of oversized dolls to tempt the contestants.

Every fourth or fifth booth advertised a fortune-teller. Why so many? I wondered. Didn't everybody know that fortune-tellers were a pack of thieves and liars? Most of them weren't even real gypsies—just renegade Spaniards from Brooklyn. Plus they had every known disease, since they never bathed or washed their hair. Boy, people were gullible! You had to be a dope to hand over real dough to some filthy hag, just to watch her shuffle a deck of cards and spout prepackaged mumbo-jumbo at you. I guess it
could
be fun, if you took it in that spirit, maybe worth a laugh or two, something to write home to the folks about—that is, if it only cost a few bucks, and you kept one eye over your shoulder in case somebody tried to bop you over the head. Yeah, maybe as a joke, a kind of lark, it might be worth trying . . .

She was sitting on a small camp stool in front of a tent. She must have been watching me because when I glanced over I had the feeling she'd already been staring at me. I didn't like that. It felt creepy, like she'd picked
me
out. If I was going to waste money on a parlor trick,
I'd
pick the parlor. She smiled at me. That made me feel really stupid, like I was some scared kid who had to be reassured. So I smiled back. I didn't want to be rude, after all; this was a carnival, where people were supposed to be friendly. Besides, she looked pretty decent; clean, too; and sort of young.

“How are you tonight?” she called over. “Are you having a good time?” I was surprised at her neutral, quiet voice, and that she spoke English. Didn't gypsies speak their own language, called something like “Romanoff”? I told her I'd only been in Calgary a few hours, but it looked fine so far. She asked where I was from. I said New
York and explained that I was with a group of other kids biking across the country for the summer. Before I knew it, we were having a regular chat. She wanted to know about the group, what places we'd been, where we were headed next. She seemed so ordinary, I soon felt at ease. She told me her family were
real
gypsies, that they traveled from fair to fair making a living telling fortunes. She said real fortune-tellers, like real gypsies, were rare, and gestured with disdain toward the other booths nearby: “Fakers, liars! Fortune-telling is an art”—her eyes blazed—“a
heritage
passed down from generation to generation.”

The more we chatted on, the more pleased I felt with myself. I could hardly wait to write my parents about my gutsy encounter with the exotic Gemma (for that turned out to be her name). After we'd talked for some fifteen minutes, Gemma asked me if I “had any interest in learning about what the future held for me”—whether I was “brave enough” to live with such knowledge. I started to feel nervous again.

“Do you mean do I want to have my fortune told?”

“Yes.” She stared hard at me.

I stammered something like, “Gosh, I don't know . . . I mean I've never thought about it.”

“That is untrue. You must never say anything to me that is not true.”

Now I felt really nervous—because she was right. I did want my fortune told, even though I thought it was a lot of hocus-pocus. How did she know I wanted to?

“That is why you came to the midway tonight. That is why you came to me.” Her eyes stayed on me.

“Well, I guess the idea . . . did . . . well, kinda cross my mind.”

“Why are you so afraid?” Her voice was warm again.

“I don't know . . . but I am.” Then to my surprise, I blurted out, “I really don't believe in . . . in anyone being able to . . . in fortune-telling.”

“Only a very few are able. I am one of the few. You showed excellent judgment in seeking me out.”

“I did? I mean . . . did I?”

She smiled at me. “You answer that question.”

“Well, I . . .I did come over to say . . . hello.”

“There is no reason to be afraid.” She was now very calm, dignified.

“But I am afraid.”

“I can tell you why. If you will let me. It doesn't matter whether you believe in my powers. I can still help you. Particularly with the one problem that most troubles you.”

“What problem?” I asked, already knowing what she meant, even if she didn't.

“One question above all others is on your mind. Constantly on your mind. It troubles you far, far more than any other question. Should I tell you what it is?”

“No—NO!” I could feel my panic rising. “Not
here.
Not here, for God's sakes—anybody could overhear us!”

Gemma rose and moved toward the flap opening into her tent.

“I agree,” she said. “It is better said inside.”

“You dumb schmuck!” I silently yelled at myself as I hesitantly followed her into the tent. How can you fall for such an obvious sales pitch? You didn't even ask her how much it would cost!

“Ten dollars is my usual fee,” she said as soon as we were inside. “But I will only charge you five. Money is not important when weighed against pain. You are full of pain. Deep pain. It moves and saddens me. A fine young man like you should not be carrying so heavy a load of pain. I can relieve it. Pay me only what you can afford.”

I fought back tears as Gemma closed the tent flap behind us and secured it with a peg. I put down the five dollars, and she motioned for me to sit on one of the two chairs drawn up to a table in the middle of the room. Above the table was a dim light, and in the center of it sat a large, square-shaped piece of glass.

“What's
that?
” I said, the quaver in my voice compromising my attempt at mockery. “Don't tell me that's a
crystal ball,
for God's sake!”