Art Dreesen

Art Dreesen is a psychologist and a former partner of the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation, appearing in Season 4 of Masters of Sex. He is portrayed by Jeremy Strong.

Description
While he can sometimes be deceptive, Art can prove himself to be very caring and emotionally loyal most of the time.

Season 4
After Art's wife Nancy has been accepted as the position of William Masters' new partner, Nancy recommends that Virginia choose Art to be her new partner. Virginia agrees and, after Art is photographed kissing Nancy, it is revealed to Bill and Virginia that the two are married. Despite Bill's strong objections to keeping them on, Virginia insists that they stay--mainly because the previous night, Art found Virginia cheating on "her husband". Art then reveals to Virginia that he and Nancy have an open marriage.

Art invites Virginia to Nancy and him's house to a party--a key party, which Virginia doesn't know, and brings Libby as a date. At the key/coat party, Art (knowingly) selects Virginia's coat and the two enter the bedroom together. They, however, do not have sex, but rather spend the night talking, and Virginia finally realizes she has feelings for Bill.

At the clinic, Virginia hears (via audio recording) that Art told Nancy that he had sex with Virginia. Virginia is furious and insists that Art tell Nancy that was a lie. After Art doesn't, Virginia forces him to, in front of Bill.

With Art and Virginia not speaking, Bill switches up the partnerships so he and Art are partnered, and Virginia and Nancy are partnered. One of Bill and Art's first cases is that of Bob Drag, the Little Brown & Co. publicist who can't successfully achieve an erection with his wife and may be gay. After talking Bob through it, Art's protocol is successful as Bob is able to achieve an erection. However, Barton Scully argues that it was because Bob was listening to Art's voice during the process. This is when Bill realizes that this could be a study, and tasks an eager Art to setting up the groundwork.

While Bill and Virginia are out of town investigating a rival business, Art and Nancy use the time to further their own studies with their own big clients. Nancy reveals that she wants to start her own clinic in New York with Art, and that she wants him to steal the homosexuality study.

Nancy reveals to Art that she is pregnant, and that she wants an abortion because she doesn't know who the father is. Art, however, doesn't want this and insists she keep the baby as he will father the child regardless of who the father is. Nancy nonetheless gets an abortion and Art listens to an audio recording of Barton and Nancy, with Nancy revealing that she knew the father was Art's and she got the abortion anyway.

Furious, Art goes to Bill and Virginia to reveal that Nancy is planning on starting her own clinic, and then leaves Nancy. Nancy is informed that legally she cannot set up a rival business. Meanwhile, Bob Drag kisses Art. In his last phone call with Virginia, he informs her that Bob is in fact gay, and Virginia realizes there may be room in their next book for homosexual conversion after all.

As an act of retaliation, Nancy finds audio of Art and Virginia's phone call, and gives it to her old friend Barton, who was very against conversion therapy and the very idea of it, lobbing a grenade into Barton's relationship with Masters and Johnson.

Appearances

 * Inventory
 * The Pleasure Protocol
 * Coats or Keys
 * Outliers
 * Family Only
 * In To Me You See
 * Topeka
 * Night and Day
 * The Eyes of God