Shirley Zussman, a sex therapist who was trained by William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, the researchers who demystified the mechanics of sex, died Dec. 4 at her home in Manhattan. She was 107.

Shirley Zussman and her husband Leon trained at the Masters and Johnson Institute, and by the mid-‘70s were co-directors of the Human Sexuality Center at Long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center.

“Shirley was a pioneer in sex therapy and an excellent role model,” said Ruth Westheimer, who was a program director at Planned Parenthood and studying sexuality at Columbia University when she took a course in sex therapy taught by Dr. Zussman and her husband at their Long Island clinic. It was the first experience with the discipline for Dr. Westheimer, the buoyant Holocaust survivor and sexologist who later became a familiar face on television. “They were trailblazers, because she was a therapist and her husband was a gynecologist, and that validated the work,” she said.

“Men and women want intimacy,” Dr. Zussman said. “They want closeness. They want understanding. They want comfort. And they want somebody who really cares about them beyond going to bed with them. And I think people are always seeking that in every generation.”