Masters and Johnson Lecture Series 2022: Let Young People Tell Their Story: From Robert Rayford to the Current Generation
The Masters and Johnson Annual Lecture honors late sex researchers and founders of modern sex therapy, William Masters and Virginia Johnson. Masters and Johnson conducted clinical sex research at Washington University from the 1950s through the 1970s. Their clinical observation of sexual behavior enabled them to dispel myths about vaginal orgasm, erectile dysfunction, masturbation, and older adult asexuality.
Nationally acclaimed HIV organizer and author Theodore (Ted) Kerr and founder and director of St. Louis's Griot Museum of Black History, Lois Conley, will share the largely untold story of Robert Rayford. Rayford was a 16 year-old Black teenager who died in 1969 in St Louis. In 1985, after testing his saved tissues, it was determined he died with HIV, twelve years prior to the biomedical establishment's recognition of the virus. Kerr and Conley will connect Rayford's life and death with ongoing political and cultural conditions that allow for young people to experience sexual health disparities today.