Sex researcher's son charged with indecency

A Southampton man whose father was half of the pioneering sex research team Masters and Johnson has been arrested in a rural Michigan sting operation on charges of exposing himself to two female undercover investigators at a park.

The arrest Saturday of William H. Masters III, 60, on the bank of the Pinnebog River, in Huron County, follows a similar incident in May in Central Park.

Masters, whose primary residence is in Southampton but who also has a home in Pointe Aux Barques Township, Mich., is charged with aggravated indecent exposure, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 2 years in jail and a $2,000 fine. He wasn't represented by an attorney at an initial court appearance Tuesday. Neither he nor his wife returned phone messages seeking comment.

Masters was freed on a $5,000 cash bond. His next court hearing will be Thursday.

Masters was arrested May 9 in Manhattan after a police officer reported seeing him expose himself in Central Park. Court records show he was ordered to perform two days of community service under an agreement with prosecutors, who said the Michigan arrest might now affect the New York case.

Dr. William H. Masters, who died in 2001, and his partner Virginia Johnson conducted interviews and observed sex in the act while researching the biological responses to sexual arousal. He and Johnson, whom he later married, wrote 1966's "Human Sexual Response," which was a bestseller.