Britton is one of the few therapists to employ surrogates, whom she prefers to call "sensual guides," since the term "surrogate" implies a substitute. In the past 15 years, she has helped more than 1,200 men and currently employs one male and two female guides. An average course of therapy is three months or 15 to 20 sessions and can cost up to $5,000.

No neon sign swings outside her Santa Monica, Calif., office, winking Sex Therapy! Still, strolling neighbors swivel their necks in "Exorcist"-worthy contortions and a mailman insists on hand-delivering her mail. Clients are referred from other therapists or respond to Britton's ads in holistic magazines. Britton can discern from a phone conversation if someone just wants a shag -- for instance, if the caller is panting.

Her two-room bungalow has hardwood floors and watercolor landscapes on walls painted shades of "Persian melon" and "ember light." Native American flute music swirls with Indian guru incense, but the decor is more Martha Stewart's weekend home than Playboy mansion. Of course, Martha probably doesn't furnish her study with a massage table, a Mr. Hard Throb vibrator, plastic speculums and a dildo that would make Godzilla feel inadequate. Nor would her kitchenette contain a fruit bowl for an exercise called "Tom Jones feast," in which a guide and client feed each other peaches or lick whipped cream off one another.

Since this is calorie-conscious Southern California, yogurt may be substituted. Speculums may be heated before a "sexiological," where the guide and client examine each other's genitalia, using flashlights for dark crevices and diagrams for reference. "Some men are terrified of kissing," Britton explains. "So one guide created the mango exercise, where the client puts his tongue on the mango to get used to the moisture of a kiss. Other props include a foot bath for water rituals and lion and rabbit masks, as the lion mask allows an alpha male to wrestle a woman to the floor."

Surrogate therapy peaked in the swinging '70s, after sex researchers Masters and Johnson reported a 75 percent five-year cure rate using surrogates. After a client sued the pair, claiming abandonment because his wife had sex with a surrogate, surrogate therapy was closeted along with the lava lamps and bell bottoms. In the '70s, Britton founded the (now defunct) Center for Sexual Education and Sensual Enhancement. Seminars were conducted in the sensorium, a simulated bedroom covered in tie-dyed plum silk, with audio-visual controls for dimming lights and tuning in the sounds of ocean surf or a forest rainstorm. A 24-week guide-training curriculum included masturbating while being hooked up to a recorder that measured changes in pulse rate and temperature, along with study groups where classmates have sex with each other. Homework might include observing people at strip joints or swingers' clubs.