So Who the Heck is Alfred Kinsey

So Who the Heck is Alfred Kinsey?

by Jesse Nussman

            Much of what we know about sex today comes from a man named Alfred Kinsey. He was a biologist who to survey people about their sexual hobbits in order to better understand how human beings have sex. (1) His methods were sometimes controversial but Kinsey helped break down some of the misconceptions about sex that were around at the time. (2) Around the 1930’s there was a conservative backlash on sexuality. This backlash included censorship of entertainment such as books and movies. There are three likely reasons for this backlash. (2) The first was that Americans in the late 40’s had just come out of the Great Depression & WWII, and were looking for some form of stability. Americans also wanted answers as to why the world around them seemed full of danger. Finally there was a growing intolerance for homosexuals because they showed just how fragile the heterosexual family was. Because of this conservative backlash many people were told to think of sex as simply a means of procreation.

            (1) The 2004 movie Kinsey shows some of the misconceptions people had about sex at the time. In the film Kinsey, played by Liam Nielson, feels the need to create a sex survey after hearing comments from couples saying that there is only one sex position, or that oral sex will prevent you from having a child. Kinsey feels he needs to change the way people look at sex and must do so by surveying as many people as possible. (2) Over the course of his life Kinsey questioned over 18,000 people and his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male would be extremely successful. The book found that almost all men had masturbated and many had more than one sexual partner’s in their life. Kinsey’s findings also showed that 90% engaged in premarital intercourse, 50% in premarital sex, and 33.3% of men had also participated in homosexual acts. (1) Kinsey would even develop a scale that everyone fell on showing his or her homosexual desires. This would later come back to bite Kinsey when the government would ask Kinsey to reveal the names of homosexuals in government.

            (1) However, Kinsey’s second book would not be as well received. It was one thing to blow the lid off of the secret sexual acts of men but people did not take kindly to hearing that about women. (2) In Sexual Behavior in the Human Female Kinsey revealed that 3/5 of women engaged in masturbation, 90% participated in petting, 50% in premarital intercourse, and 25% in extramarital affairs. Without Dr. Kinsey’s findings much of what we know today about sex would be non-existent.

Footnotes

1. Kinsey. DVD. Directed by Bill Condon. Beverly Hills, CA: Twentieth Century Fox :,       2005.

2. Moore, Crystal . "Redrawing Boundries." Lecture, History of Sexuality in the U.S.,          Charlotte, April 22, 2014.