Men Know What Men Like

Last night's third episode of Masters Of Sex gave us a lot of the elements that characterized the first two: smoldering sexual tension between Dr. Bill Masters (Michael Sheen) and his assistant, Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan); smoldering sexual tension between Bill's wife, Libby (Caitlin FitzGerald) and her gynecologist, Ethan (Nicholas D'Agosto); prostitutes ranging in temperament from businesswoman (did you notice that the matter-of-fact orgasm faker with the frizzy blonde hair is Nicholle Tom, a.k.a. DEADSCOTT'S SISTER SUE SCANLAN FROM 90210???) to rape survivor; and a pouty Bill threatening to shut down the study. But we also got something new: gay stuff! FINALLY.

Oh sure, there's been talk of gay stuff since the series premiere: one of the first things we learned about Bill's first prostitute collaborator, Betty (Annaleigh Ashford, and does her engagement to Greg Grunberg's Pretzel King mean she's done with the show? If so, good; Ashford really can't act), is that outside of instances where she's getting paid, she prefers to sleep with women -- one in particular, named Helen; however, Betty's non-professional sexual life hasn't made it onscreen thus far (and maybe won't; see above). But now that the non-sanctioned sexual response study has relocated to the brothel where Betty works, Masters has been forced to ask her help in recruiting male subjects for the study, specifying that they should be clean, healthy, and above all, statistically average.

But, I guess, since all the johns that come through the cathouse are dirty, sick, and weird, Betty has to reach a little deeper into her address book to find a couple of bros to jerk off for the doctor: Carl (Bobby Campo) and Dale (Finn Wittrock). When Ginny comments that Carl doesn't seem like the kind of man who pays for sex, he corrects her: he doesn't; guys pay him. Down the hall, Bill is shocked to get the same hot scoop from Dale. And when Bill's familiarity with the logistics of gay sex prove to be literally laughable (Dale says he prefers to do what Bill characterizes as "the passive role" on his back, and Bill's like, "Guh?"), Dale generously offers to go grab Carl and let Bill watch while they get down to business. Gay sex ensues.

Bill goes through the range of responses we have grown to expect from this character two and a half episodes into the series. First, he dispassionately observes, as a scientist. Next, literally as soon as Dale and Carl have walked out, he starts bitching to Ginny that all these prostitutes with their various deviations from the statistical norm are wrecking his precious study. Later, when Dale approaches Bill outside the hospital, Bill is juuuuuust on the line of polite as he explains to Dale that using study resources to investigate homosexual behaviour would preclude the study's being taken seriously by the medical community. Finally, he puts the sanctity of the study above his personal relationships, this time by (kind of) blackmailing Provost Scully (Beau Bridges) into reinstating the study by intimating that he knows the provost has had carnal knowledge of this particular male prostitute.

And, look, trying to get your way with a closeted man by hinting at everything he'd lose if he were to be outed was always uncool, even in the 1950s. But though there is, obviously, an edge to what Bill is telling Scully, I don't believe that Bill -- who we also see, in this episode, weeping with gratitude in a flashback to the moment Scully told him he made Bill's hiring a condition of his taking the job at GW -- actually would threaten Scully with exposure. To me, the power of this moment of gentle confrontation is to show us yet another way that conducting this study is opening Bill's mind. Two episodes ago, it never occurred to him why women might fake orgasm; now his contact with matter-of-fact gay men, at least one of whom wants the reality of his sexual life to be treated as legitimate by an actual scientist, has caused Bill to interrogate his own prejudices and expand his conception of what his study must be and do.

Also: it's hot.