--- title: A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now | TIME description: A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium. canonical: https://time.com/video/uJFYIrvP/ og:title: A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now og:description: A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium. og:url: https://time.com/video/uJFYIrvP/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/uJFYIrvP/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now twitter:description: A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/uJFYIrvP/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now [Watch (HLS stream): A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8) (3:13)  _Published 2014-08-20. A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium._ --- Jul 27, 2023 5:09 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Woman Who Had Sex With 14-Year-Old Planned to Murder Her Husband](/video/LOuzWNK5/) ### Woman Who Had Sex With 14-Year-Old Planned to Murder Her Husband [How I Learned About Sex](/video/5AudUKuq/) ### How I Learned About Sex [Rescued Stray Becomes a Therapist](/video/9Qtz7Y7Y/) ### Rescued Stray Becomes a Therapist --- ## Transcript Sexual pleasure is only one part of what men and women want from each other. They want intimacy, they want closeness, they want understanding, they want comfort, they want fun, and they want somebody who really cares about them beyond going to bed with them, and I think people are always seeking that. In every generation. [ MUSIC ] My name is Shirley Zussman. I just reached a hundred years of age, and I am a practicing sex therapist. I was invited with my husband to a lecture in New Jersey, in 1966. Masters and Johnson were the speakers. No body knew about them. Human sexual response had just been published, what I saw was a couple who will say that people had problems in an area in their lives that was very important and they were recognizing that it was all not just. Glamorous and wonderful to be sexual. One had to almost had to learn how to be a good partner and to endure the pleasure not only for yourself but for each other. And I thought we can do that. Why can't we do that? And we applied for training with Masters and Johnson at that time. The patients that came to us were people who read the paper. The only way they do anything about the work that was being done there. And the problems they came with, was somewhat different than the problems they come with today. Mostly, women came because would put out orgasmic, they didn't know how to achieve an orgasm, but they wanted one. It was so over that ,. Goal they had for themselves and how do I get there. That was one Masters and Johnson's contribution that there was a relatively simple way to start learning about your body. In other words, get, get to know your, who you are sexually and physically and that was. And encouragement for masturbation for learning what makes you feel good. I see a big change in the we view casual sex. In the 60's I think it was not just casual it was frantic. I'm shocked at the lack of connection with people; because of iPhones, even I love my iPhone. There is so much less actual physical connection, there's less touching, there's less talking, there's less holding, there's less looking, [ INAUDIBLE ]. People get pleasure from looking at each other. But the most common problem, I would say, in the sex therapy that I live in, is a lack of desire. You have to look at your priorities. You have to decide what is important to make you feel good about yourself and your life. 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