One of my favourite I Love Lucy scenes features Lucy going door to door pretending to be taking a public opinion poll. At one door, the woman answering looks at Lucy with suspicion and asks, "Your name isn't Kinsey, is it?".
Though situation comedies during the 1950s could only get away with snide references like this, the social and cultural revolution launched by Alfred Kinsey's groundbreaking studies into human sexuality was already shaking American society to its roots.
In a real sense, there was nothing new about exploring sexuality from a scientific perspective. Along with early sexologists such as Richard Krafft-Ebbing, Havelock Ellis, and Magnus Hirschfeld, various psychoanalytic and anthropological researchers attempted to present sexuality as a natural part of human behaviour although they tended to be largely ignored by the mainstream culture. While Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa was a bestseller when first published in 1928, her (now controversial) findings seemed to have little relevance for the Americans of her generation. Various animal behaviour studies showing similar findings were also largely dismissed as not being generalizable to human beings.
The Research Begins
And then came Alfred Kinsey...
Although his early devout Christian upbringing showed no indication of the path he would later take in life, Kinsey's fascination with science and nature led him to pursue an academic career in biology. While this meant defying his father, an engineering professor who insisted that his son study engineering as well, he eventually managed to graduate magna cum laude from Bowdoin College with degrees in biology and psychology. Continuing on to Harvard University, Kinsey did his graduate work almost exclusively in entomology (specializing in gall wasps) and received his Sc.D. degree in 1919.
Over the next few years, Alfred Kinsey expanded the gall wasp collection at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and wrote a widely-used high school textbook in biology which he published in 1926. He also married Clara McMillen in 1921 and they would eventually have four children together.
Though at the height of his career during the 1930s, Alfred Kinsey's abrupt transition from entomology to the study of human sexuality may not be as surprising as it seems. In his private life, he was bisexual with numerous affairs with both men and women (apparently with his wife's full consent given the open nature of their marriage). Part of his research into gall wasps focused on mating strategies which, combined with his own fascination with human psychology, led him to speculate on how scientific methods could examine human sexuality as well. Delivering his first public lecture on human sexuality in 1935, he denounced the "widespread ignorance" surrounding sex and the psychological harm stemming from "delayed sexuality", i.e. abstinence.
In a real sense, Kinsey's transition to sexology may have been spurred on by changes happening at Indiana University where he taught. When the university introduced a new course on marriage in 1938, Alfred Kinsey acted as the course coordinator with professors from different faculties (who all happened to be men) providing insights. In running the course, Alfred Kinsey added to his own knowledge of human sexuality by interviewing his students about different aspects of their sex lives. That included age of first sexual experience, number of partners, frequency of sexual activity, etc. It was during this same period when he first developed his classic Kinsey scale ranging from 0 for exclusive heterosexuality to 6 for exclusive homosexuality (X for total asexuality was added later). The concept that all humans fell somewhere on a continuum of sexual orientation was only the first of the startling revelations that Kinsey would reveal during the course of his research.
Along with interviewing students, Alfred Kinsey also read extensively on the subject of human sexuality and built an extensive library on available works relating to the scientific study of sex, many of which were extremely hard to find (sexuality being a largely taboo topics in those days). One of the most valuable libraries on sexuality in the world, which was part of Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute of Sexual Research in Berlin, Germany, had been destroyed by the Nazis just a few years earlier, in 1933.
To supplement his growing library and the information from his students, Kinsey conducted field trips to Chicago in 1939 to conduct more interviews and also interviewed inmates at the Indiana State Penal Farm and their families. Though the university backed his research (with some reservations), Kinsey already faced controversy from several colleagues who had decidedly different views on sexuality. One of them, Thurman Rice, was a professor of bacteriology at the same university where Kinsey taught. Rice had written extensively on sexuality and eugenics and regularly lectured to students on sex as part of a mandatory course in hygiene taught at the university.Very much part of the old mentality when sex was concerned, Rice's lectures on sex focused on issues of morality including the harmful nature of masturbation and premarital sex. He even provided separate lectures for male and female students. As you might guess, Thurman Rice was outraged by Alfred Kinsey's more liberal take on sexuality and argued that his new marriage course violated academic standards.
Rice also opposed Kinsey's attempt at a scientific analysis of sexuality since it maintained that it was a purely moral issue. Not only did he accuse Kinsey of inappropriate behaviour (such as asking female students about the length of their clitorises) but also demanded the names of his students so he could question them himself about possible infractions. His complaints helped stir up controversy and parents of students began asking awkward questions as well. Indiana University president Herman Wells finally offered Alfred Kinsey a choice: either continue teaching the marriage course or end his sexology research. Kinsey chose the second option.
Kinsey's Research
Armed with a research grant from the Committee for the Research in Problems in Sex, Alfred Kinsey launched what would be a revolutionary research project into human sexuality. As far as the Committee was concerned, Kinsey seemed the perfect candidate for such a project. Not only was he an established scientist, but he was also married with children (his bisexuality being a carefully guarded secret). The Committee chairman, Robert Yerkes, was especially open to Kinsey's reputation as a serious researcher who could be counted on to carry out such a project to completion. Kinsey, for his part, had very definite ideas on how his sexual research should be carried out. He felt that most previous research studies were either grounded in abstract theories with little real-world value (including Freud) or too afraid of offending morality to ask the hard questions.
In many ways, it was an ideal pairing. Both Kinsey and the Committee were a perfect fit and Alfred Kinsey's ambitious research project was fully funded. As the Committee's lead researcher, he would eventually receive more than half the research money in their budget and the sexual revolution that Alfred Kinsey would launch was underway.
Ultimately, it was the development of safe and effective antibiotics that helped spur the sexual revolution Alfred Kinsey documented in his research. Fear of syphilis and gonorrhea had contributed to the repressed sexual culture characterizing much of American society up to that time. When sulfa drugs were introduced in 1935 (followed by penicillin after World War 2), the stigma associated with "loose living" began slowly lifting. There was still the risk of pregnancy though the release of the first oral contraceptive in 1960 helped change attitudes about that as well.
Alfred Kinsey's research study began at the perfect time to catch the slow evolution of American society along with the birth of the sexual revolution. And he was definitely a pioneer. Not only did Kinsey insist on treating sexuality as a serious scientific subject (and not the object of moralizing that many of his predecessors did), but he would eventually create one of the world's great resource libraries on the subject.
The key to his research rested on the more than 18,000 in-depth face to face interviews that he and his research assistants collected. To ensure absolute confidentiality and to provide a permanent home for his interview data, the Institute for Sex Research was founded in 1947 with Alfred Kinsey as Director. Still affiliated with Indiana University, the Institute was housed on campus in the Biology Hall. After selling all of his research materials to the Institute for the sum of one dollar, Kinsey carefully trained all of his interviewers in the rigorous interview methodology he developed.
Knowing the sensitive nature of the questions he and his interviewers would be asking and sensitive to the likelihood of deception, Alfred Kinsey set up a careful coding system to detect fraud or exaggeration. Despite later criticisms of his research methods (especially by conservatives), many of these innovations are still used by researchers today. Kinsey also insisted on face-to-face interviews since he felt that mail surveys were not as reliable in measuring sexual behaviours. Through direct interviewing, participants could be carefully questioned about inconsistencies or possible exaggerations in their sexual histories. He also developed a procedure for cross-checking responses over time by interviewing the same subjects on different occasions (with an average of four years between interviews). When married couples were separately interviewed, the responses were also cross-checked between spouses.
Recognizing that interviewer bias could skew the results, all interviews were conducted by four interviewers: Kinsey himself, Ward Pomeroy, Clyde Martin and Paul Gebhard. Not only did Kinsey train the other interviewers but they met regularly to ensure they all followed the same rating scheme. Though Kinsey had originally intended to gather 100,000 interviews, his Institute would only complete 18,000 during his lifetime.
The basic interview covered anywhere from 350 to 521 items depending on the sexual history of the respondent. No question sheets were used since the interviewers memorized all of the items and asked their questions as directly and non-apologetically as possible (a major innovation in itself). Beginning with simple demographic questions, the interview shifted to more personal questions about sexual history with numerous redundant items to check for consistency.
Since some of the items dealt with homosexual behaviour (which was still illegal at the time), special delicacy was needed with extra questioning for participants admitting to repeated same-sex experiences. That also meant longer interviews with extra questions to cover less conventional aspects of sexuality. Though children were interviewed as well, the questions were different and one parent was always present.
The longest interview involved an admitted pedophile and required both Kinsey and Pomeroy asking questions (it was over seventeen hours long). That was an unusual case since Kinsey had deliberately included him in the study due to his sexual proclivities. At one point, having expressed skepticism over the participant's claim of being able to masturbate to ejaculation in ten seconds from start to finish, the interviewee in question provided them with a spontaneous demonstration. Pomeroy would later add that it was the only actual demonstration of sexual behaviour ever occurring during the thousands of interviews conducted. That particular interview would also generate severe criticism afterwards since Kinsey and his colleagues failed to provide the information to police (having promised the participant confidentiality).
There was also the question of how representative the participants were of the general population. Since all the participants were volunteers, there was no way to be certain whether they were as "typical" as Kinsey would later claim. Considering the sensitive nature of the questions being asked, there was likely no practical way of getting a more representative sample based on the interviewing method that Kinsey used (and it is still a major problem for sex researchers today).
To avoid concerns about his unrepresentative studies, Kinsey pioneer what he terms "100 percent sampling" where all members of organized groups he approached for his sex studies would be interviewed, including college fraternities, residents of a particular building, etc. That helped counteract critics who argued that Kinsey's researchers were only interviewing "less inhibited" members of society and skewing the research results. Kinsey also carefully described the sampling methods in his books and he also eliminated some of the controversial data that he obtained from prisoners.
Whatever the scientific issues surrounding his sampling methods, it was his insistence that homosexual and bisexual behaviour were part of the normal range of human sexuality that likely provoked the greatest controversy. With the publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948 and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female in 1953 (both books later became known as the Kinsey Reports), Alfred Kinsey became a public figure and the best-known sexologist of the 20th century.
Not only were both books best-sellers but Alfred Kinsey and his Institute immediately faced a storm of controversy over the results of their research. Not only was homosexuality far more prevalent than anyone previously admitted but many heterosexual men and women were shown to experiment with homosexuality as well. The Kinsey Reports also provided considerable ammunition for early gay rights activists, many of whom used the research as part of their own campaign for full civil rights. Depending on how the Kinsey statistics were used, the proportion of homosexuals in society could range from one in twenty to one in ten (though these statistics were far lower for women than men). Still, the "one in ten" statistic became a staple of gay liberation campaigns for decades afterward.
Along with his radical reinterpretation of homosexuality, Alfred Kinsey and his researchers also challenged many of the common myths surrounding sexuality up to that time, particularly female sexuality. With nearly 25 percent of female respondents reporting having at least one orgasm before the age of fifteen and more than 64 percent before the age of marriage, the prevailing view of sexuality as being something restricted to married couples suddenly seemed antiquated. Especially since nearly half of the orgasms reported by men and women occurred outside of marriage.
Still, the sexual behaviour that Kinsey included in his research was hardly as varied as it could have been. He specifically excluded sado-masochism, voyeurism, "swinging singles" and transsexuals, among others, possibly because he considered them to be statistically insignificant. He also downplayed many of the consequences of greater sexuality such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Whatever the limitations, the revelations provided by the Kinsey Reports were earth-shattering enough. That rampant homosexuality and extramarital intercourse were happening despite the diligent efforts of a society that supposedly frowned on such things seemed like heresy. For Alfred Kinsey to insist that the premarital abstinence urged by religious and moral authorities was actually unhealthy was essentially a declaration of war against the conservatives who opposed him.
The Backlash Begins
Though Alfred Kinsey's findings were well accepted by the general public with both of his books being best-sellers, the conservative reaction to his research was even more vicious than he had anticipated. Along with legitimate criticisms about his sampling and statistical methods, he was also vilified by religious and moral authorities condemning him as a serious threat to public decency.
Considering the far-reaching implications of his research and his own tendency to provide editorials about the harm that conventional morality could have, it seems surprising that Alfred Kinsey was so upset by the criticism he received. While his funding was never jeopardized by the criticism (the Committee continued to support Kinsey's research despite political pressure), Kinsey was never comfortable over the new notoriety his research brought him.
He was also uncomfortable with the media interest that his first book generated. By the time his book on female sexuality was ready to come out in 1953, more than 150 magazines and newspapers asked for advance copies. Of these, Kinsey and his colleagues picked thirty to receive advance galleys on the understanding that nothing would be published before the release date of August 20.
If anything, the second book was met with even more outrage than the first book (women were seen as being held to a higher moral standard than men did). Even some of Kinsey's earlier supporters, including Karl Menninger, abruptly switched sides and denounced the second book.
At the same time that the book was released, other changes were happening as well. Although the Rockefeller Foundation and the Committee had been supporting Kinsey and his researchers prior to the release of his second book, both organizations became new targets for Kinsey's opponents. The Rockefeller Foundation had previously discouraged Kinsey from naming them as a financial supporter of his work but he insisted on mentioning them in his acknowledgements for the new book.
Since the Rockefeller Foundation was a tax-exempt organization, this was enough for a cabal of Republican politicians to call for a formal Congressional investigation of the Foundation and its decision to fund Alfred Kinsey's research. The House Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations was chaired by Congressman B. Carroll Reece and carefully avoided any attempt at attacking the moral implications of Kinsey's research (which exceeded their formal mandate). Instead, the Committee focused on the appropriateness of funding such research using a tax-exempt foundation.
The outcome of the Committee was largely predetermined and the report that was eventually released did little more than repeat the original charges against Kinsey and the Rockefeller Foundation with little actual supporting evidence. Two members of the committee opposing the report even went so far as to release a minority report saying that the hearings were carefully staged and the witnesses who appeared had all been preselected by Congressman Reece to support his claims.
In the end, the Committee hearings cost Alfred Kinsey his Rockefeller Foundation support. Though he continued to receive funding through Indiana University and royalties from the two books, his ambitious research project had to be whittled down to fit the reduced budget. But the research continued despite the opposition.
And Alfred Kinsey faced new challenges as well. To expand his library and the range of his research materials, Kinsey collected materials from all over the world. Or, at least he attempted to collect them. Since anything that arrived overseas by mail needed to be inspected by the U.S. Postal Service, Kinsey learned firsthand how rigid postal inspectors could be. In 1950, Indianapolis customs collector Alden H. Baker, seized some of the incoming materials which he declared to be "Damned dirty stuff" and refused to release them.
While Kinsey protested the decision under a law that granted exemptions to scientists and medical researchers requesting potentially obscene materials for research purposes, the U.S. Postal Service supported Baker's decision. As far as they were concerned, the material was obscene and thus had no possible scientific value. Ordinarily, the material would have been destroyed but Kinsey and his researchers took the U.S. government to court over the issue. The case would drag on for years before finally being settled in Kinsey's favour.
Sadly, Alfred Kinsey never lived to see the outcome of this court decision. Exhausted by years of fighting his opponents, his health declined but he managed to stay active with interviewing reserch subjects and media interviews. He died on August 25, 1956 at the age of 62 of heart problems and medical complications related to pneumonia.
The Kinsey Institute Today
Despite Kinsey's death, his Institute remained active and Dr. Paul Gebhart, one of his main researchers, took over as executive director. Though the Institute continued to carry out sex research as it did during Alfred Kinsey's lifetime, his dream of the Institute becoming a world centre for research into human sexuality largely ended with his death. Sex research gradually became more decentralized with sex researchers at other universities carrying out their own studies although the Institute of Sex Research continued to be based at Indiana University.
In 1981, the Institute of Sex Research was renamed the Kinsey Institute at a conference marking the 25th anniversary of Alfred Kinsey's death. The name was later expanded to the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. Along with regular publication of research titles, the Institute also maintains an online public access catalogue and, in 1991, established medical clinics for sexual health problems.
While the controversy over Alfred Kinsey's research methods failed to end with his death, later research has tended to confirm many of his original findings and also extended the range of research questions studied by the Institute. That includes many of the same issues that Alfred Kinsey shied away from during his lifetime, including STD, birth control, and abortion.
Alfred Kinsey's death also failed to end his being targeted by conservative groups maintaining that he corrupted the morals of an entire generation. One prominent conservative critic, Judith Reisman, who is considered the "founder of the modern anti-Kinsey movement" has openly accused Alfred Kinsey of being a fraud and a child abuser who used pedophiles to collect sexual information from children in his research. Along with a broader campaign against homosexuality and pornography, Reisman also attempted to sue the Kinsey Institute in 1991 over claims that they censored her work and "inflicted emotional distress". Though the case was dismissed, that hardly ended her anti-Kinsey campaign.
While there have been later sex researchers including Albert Ellis and the redoubtable team of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, no single researcher has ever matched Alfred Kinsey for the impact that he had on the free and open discussion of sexuality. Although critics are likely overstating Alfred Kinsey's role in launching the sexual revolution, Kinsey's books, as well as the later reports released by his Institute have captured the public attention more than any other sexologist.
Alfred Kinsey also gave sexology new respectability and fostered the growth in sex research around the world. Unfortunately, this also led to the rise of "pop" sexologists whose books on sex show little of the scientific rigour that Alfred Kinsey advocated. Their popularity means that these "experts" will not be fading away any time soon and the more reputable sexologists tend to be overlooked as result. Still, despite being the target of anti-Kinsey campaigners such as Reisman, the past two decades have seen a resurgence of interest in Alfred Kinsey's controversial life. Along with the publication of several new books, the film Kinsey was released in 2004 and starred Liam Neeson in the title role.
Despite active opposition by conservatives and moral pundits, sexology continues to ask the same questions that Alfred Kinsey posed so long ago. That might be the legacy that he wanted most.
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