Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Kinsey (born Alfred Charles Kinsey June 23, 1894 † August 25, 1956), was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology who in 1947 founded the Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University Bloomington, now called the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. Kinsey's research on human sexuality profoundly influenced social and cultural values in the United States and many other countries worldwide during the 1960s with the advent of the sexual revolution.
Biography
It appears that Kinsey had several homosexual lovers.[Source 1]
see Wikipedia for a more complete biography
Birth
Alfred Kinsey was born on June 23, 1894, in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Marriage
Kinsey married Clara Bracken McMillen, whom he called Mac, in 1921. They had four children. Their first-born, Don, died from the complications of juvenile diabetes in 1927, just before his fifth birthday. Anne was born in 1924, Joan in 1925 and Bruce in 1928.
Death
Kinsey died on August 25, 1956, at the age of 62. The cause of death was reported to be heart disease and pneumonia.
Career
Human sexual behavior
Kinsey is generally regarded as the father of sexology, the systematic, scientific study of human sexuality. He initially became interested in the different forms of sexual practices around 1933, after discussing the topic extensively with a colleague, Robert Kroc. It is likely that Kinsey's study of the variation of mating practices among gall wasps led him to wonder how widely varied sexual practices among humans were. During this work, he developed a scale measuring sexual orientation now known as the Kinsey Scale which ranks from 0 to 6, where 0 is exclusively heterosexual and 6 is exclusively homosexual.
In 1935, Kinsey delivered a lecture to a faculty discussion group at Indiana University, his first public discussion of the topic, wherein he attacked the "widespread ignorance of sexual structure and physiology" and promoted his view that "delayed marriage" (that is, delayed sexual experience) was psychologically harmful. Kinsey obtained research funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, which enabled him to inquire into human sexual behavior through interviews of thousands of subjects.
The Kinsey Reports
His Kinsey Reports - starting with the publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948 followed in 1953 by Sexual Behavior in the Human Female - reached the top of bestseller lists and turned Kinsey into an instant celebrity, and are still the bestselling scientific books of all time.
Controversy
Kinsey's work, often associated with the sexual revolution in the United States in the 1960s, has generated substantial controversy since its publication. Both Kinsey's work and private life have been the subject of an enduring controversy over the study of human sexuality (sometimes called sexology) and the impact of Kinsey's work on sexual morality.
Kinsey's research polarized a segment of society. Many in the Christian Right found their religious and socially conservative views in conflict with Kinsey's methods and underlying principles. They saw his supporters as dissolute libertines and his work as morally corrupting. Even today, Kinsey's name can elicit partisan rancor.
Kinsey's most prominent current detractor is Judith A. Reisman. Reisman alleges that Kinsey and his staff sexually abused children to produce some of the data in the Kinsey Reports. Kinsey Institute director John Bancroft claims that the subject of child/adult sexual interaction was deliberately chosen by Kinsey's opponents to discredit him because of the emotions surrounding it: "In recent years, when there has been anxiety bordering on hysteria about child sexual abuse, often resulting in circumstances where the accused is regarded as guilty until proved innocent, what better way to discredit someone?" The Kinsey Institute maintains that Kinsey never had any sexual interaction with children, nor did he employ others to do so, and that he always interviewed children in the presence of their parents.
The Family Research Council (FRC) has been another notable detractor. The FRC echoes Reisman's claims of child/adult sexual interaction in their video The Children of Table 34, but that issue is not their main focus. The FRC is primarily concerned with Kinsey's work on sexual orientation and homosexuality. Kinsey maintained that people do not clearly fall into the categories of exclusive heterosexuality or exclusive homosexuality, but that most can be placed somewhere between, in a continuum of sexual orientations with homo- and heterosexuality at the extremes and bisexuality at the midpoint. The FRC sees Kinsey's work as a force that seeks to legitimize homosexuality, which the organization opposes.
As a result of the work done by Kinsey and others, the American Psychiatric Association, in 1973, removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. However, Kinsey's research was still quite controversial in the APA and was subject to a great deal of scrutiny. It was mainly among the mainstream that his work grew in popularity.
Aside from criticism of the implications of his research, Kinsey had been rumored to participate in unusual sexual practices. In James H. Jones's biography, Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life, Kinsey is described as a bisexual masochist. He is reported to have encouraged group sex involving his graduate students, wife and staff. It is also known that 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. Some have suggested that the films Kinsey made were not scientific, but pornographic in nature. Jones stated that Kinsey's wife had had sex with other men, but that the couple remained married for 35 years in a relationship that remained sexual until Kinsey became ill near the end of his life. Although some of the claims have been confirmed by independent sources, such as his being bisexual, others are disputed by the Kinsey Institute and others.
Although the investigation into sexual behavior carried out by Kinsey resulted in an explosion of knowledge about topics previously considered taboo, there are continuing claims that the Kinsey Reports contain statistical and methodological errors. Nonetheless, his data are still widely cited despite questions by some about their validity.
Kinsey in the media
Kinsey's life was the subject of a 2004 biographical film, Kinsey, starring Liam Neeson as the scientist and laura Linney as his wife Mac.
In 2004, T.C. Boyle published a novel about Kinsey, The Inner Circle.
PBS produced a documentary called Kinsey in 2005, made with the cooperation of Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction|The Kinsey Institute, which allowed access to many of its files.
There is also a musical on the life of Kinsey. Called Dr. Sex, it deals mainly with the relationship between Kinsey, his wife, and their shared lover Wally Matthews (based on Clyde Martin). The play premiered in Chicago in 2003 (winning seven Jeff Awards), and was produced off-Broadway in 2005. The score was by Larry Bortniker, the book by Bortniker with Sally Deering.
A radio play by Steve Coombes with the similar title Mr. Sex, focusing on Kinsey's arraignment at the McCarthy hearings, was broadcast by the BBC on August 11 2006.
Sources
A Personal Note from Robin
- Kinsey Institute sent thirty or so people to the Bay Area and BacKdrop-Richmond to investigate SM in the Bay Area.
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