Alfred Kinsey
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Rarely has man been more cruel against man, than in the condemnation and punishment of those accused of the so-called sexual perversions. The penalties have included imprisonment, torture, the loss of life or limb, punishment, blackmail, social ostracism, the loss of social prestige, renunciation by friends and families, the loss of position in school, or in business, severe penalties meted out for convictions of men, serving in the armed forces, public condemnation by emotionally insecure and vindictive judges on the bench, and the torture endured by those who live in perpetual fear that their non-conforming sexual behavior will be exposed to public view. These are the penalties which have been imposed on and against persons who have done no damage to the property or physical bodies of others, but who have failed to adhere to the mandated custom. Such cruelties have not often been matched, except in religious and racial persecutions." --"Concepts of Normality and Abnormality in Sexual Behavior" (1949) by Alfred Kinsey |
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Alfred Kinsey (1894 – 1956), was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology.
Kinsey's research on human sexuality profoundly influenced social and cultural values in the United States and many other countries in the West which went through the sexual revolution starting in the 1960s.
The 2000s have seen renewed interest in Kinsey with the 2004 biographical film Kinsey.
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Controversy
Both Kinsey's work and private life have been the subject of an enduring controversy over the study of human sexuality (sometimes called sexology), Kinsey's ethical decisions, research methodology and the impact of Kinsey's work on sexual morality.
Interviews with pedophiles
In 1981 questions were raised of how Kinsey and his staff gathered the information to produce some of the data in the Kinsey Reports. Attention was directed to Tables 30-34 of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, which report observations of orgasms in over three-hundred children between the ages of five months and fourteen years. Former and current directors of The Kinsey Institute confirmed that some of the information was gathered from nine pedophiles and that Kinsey chose not to report the pedophiles to the authorities, balancing what Kinsey saw as the need for their anonymity against the likelihood that their crimes would continue.
Sex life
Kinsey had been rumored to participate in unusual sexual practices. James H. Jones's biography, Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life, describes Kinsey as bisexual and experimenting in masochism. He encouraged group sex involving his graduate students, wife and staff. Kinsey filmed sexual acts in the attic of his home as part of his research. Biographer Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy explained that using Kinsey's home for the filming of sexual acts was done to ensure the films' secrecy, which would certainly have caused a scandal had the public become aware of them.
Bias
James H. Jones wrote that Kinsey’s appetite for unconventional sex and his disdain for conventional sexual morality, drove Kinsey's agenda to strip sexuality of guilt and to undermine traditional sexual morality. Critics contend that Kinsey allowed his agenda to bias his work. They point to Kinsey's over-representation of prisoners and prostitutes and his classification of couples who have lived together for at least a year as "married".
Significant publications
- "New Species and Synonymy of American Cynipidae," in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History (1920)
- "Life Histories of American Cynipidae," in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History (1920)
- "Phylogeny of Cynipid Genera and Biological Characteristics," in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History (1920)
- An Introduction to Biology (1926)
- The Gall Wasp Genus Cynips: A Study in the Origin of Species (1930)
- New Introduction to Biology (1933, revised 1938)
- The Origin of Higher Categories in Cynips (1935)
- Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America (1943)
- The Kinsey Reports:
- Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948, reprinted 1998)
- Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953, reprinted 1998)
