Senior student talks about sex

By Sharon Nagy, On-Line Forty-Niner

Monday, October 5, 1998

It was the two virgins, an elderly couple, that was the most difficult case for world-renowned sex therapist Marilyn Fithian. "Neither one could figure out what to do when we sent them to the hotel," Fithian said.

Young singles were much easier to work with and offered more rewards, considering they had a whole lifetime ahead of them, she said.

Fithian, who holds a doctorate in human sexuality, has been intertwined in Cal State Long Beach since graduating from high school. She earned her bachelor's degree in sociology from CSULB in 1961 and taught classes part time from 1961 to 1979 in the psychology, comparative literature, English and sociology departments. Now semi-retired, she takes classes through the Senior University program.

Two years ago, Fithian was involved in a car accident that damaged soft tissue in her legs. It made walking difficult for her. Now, Fithian takes the student bus to school and attributes walking from the bus stop to her classes as an important part of her rehabilitation.

At 77, she still finds time to write papers for conferences, conduct interviews, give presentations and take classes at CSULB. Fithian is still sought after for her expertise and advice on sex.

"I get calls from reporters from magazines like Redbook and Cosmopolitan and they say the interview will only take 15 minutes, but we end up talking for hours," she said.

For more than 25 years, Fithian ran a nonprofit organization, the Center for Marital and Sexual Studies, with her late partner, William Hartman, Ph.D.

Singles or couples would come to her center for two-week sessions. Fees would run from $5,000 to $10,000.

Fithian said two weeks is the most effective time frame for resolving problems.

"If it goes on for more than two weeks, people tend to stay in therapy forever," she said. "I had a woman who came in with a $60,000 psychiatric bill, yet we got her problem taken care of in two weeks."

One of the first exercises patients participated in was a test matching names of sexual organs to a drawn-out diagram of male and female genitalia.

"You would be surprised how many people don't know the names of their own body parts," she said. "How can they function sexually if they don't know the territory?

Cal State Los Angeles did an independent study on their center by client evaluations and found a 92 percent success rate.

Fithian's mother taught human sexuality and consequently she grew up feeling comfortable talking about sex. She became involved in the sex-related field after reali-

zing so many acquaintances' problems stemmed from not communicating about sex.

"Nobody talks about sex in the

United States. I think the Clinton situation is a good thing because it forces the issue out into the open," she said.

Fithian and Hartman also funded their own research, observing 751 different subjects having sex, which produced an enormous amount of data on topics.

Fithian had to close the center in 1996, when her partner fell ill and could not continue working. He died Sept. 28, 1997.

This past summer, Fithian presented a 45-page paper on pornography at a conference sponsored by the human sexuality department at Cal State Northridge. To research the paper, she watched 100 adult films spanning the early century to modern day, and read 50 journal articles and 10 books on pornography.