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Alfred C. Kinsey: A Life
The hidden life of Alfred C. Kinsey, the principal architect of the sexual revolution. In this brilliant, groundbreaking biography, twenty years in the making, James H. Jones presents a moving and even shocking portrait of the man who pierced the veil of reticence surrounding human sexuality. Jones shows that the public image Alfred Kinsey cultivated of disinterested biologist was in fact a carefully crafted public persona. By any measure he was an extraordinary man―and a man with secrets.
Drawing upon never before disclosed facts about Kinsey's childhood, Jones traces the roots of Kinsey's scholarly interest in human sexuality to his tortured upbringing. Between the sexual tensions of the culture and Kinsey's devoutly religious family, Jones depicts Kinsey emerging from childhood with psychological trauma but determined to rescue humanity from the emotional and sexual repression he had suffered. New facts about his marriage, family life, and relationships with students and colleagues enrich this portrait of the complicated, troubled man who transformed the state of public discourse on human sexuality. 30 black-and-white photographs
Drawing upon never before disclosed facts about Kinsey's childhood, Jones traces the roots of Kinsey's scholarly interest in human sexuality to his tortured upbringing. Between the sexual tensions of the culture and Kinsey's devoutly religious family, Jones depicts Kinsey emerging from childhood with psychological trauma but determined to rescue humanity from the emotional and sexual repression he had suffered. New facts about his marriage, family life, and relationships with students and colleagues enrich this portrait of the complicated, troubled man who transformed the state of public discourse on human sexuality. 30 black-and-white photographs
938 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 12, 2016
A very, very strange man.
April 2, 2011
"Kinsey: A Life" is based on exhaustive research - thousands of letters, personal interviews (how Kinsey would have appreciated that!) - which forms the basis for Jones' masterful biography of the father of modern sex research. An unquestioned genius, Kinsey was also a deeply conflicted man who was able to channel his personal struggles with homosexuality into a scientific quest to better understand human sexuality. Jones' devotion to his subject matter as well as his ability to examine all aspects of Kinsey's life result in a biography that is a true character study, but one that reads like a highly engaging, yet scholarly, novel.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
January 15, 2009
This book may be biased, but it is worth reading. Mainly it shows how the "studies" were skewed to get results etc. A ton of what I think is hedonistic sexual practice and the "studies" with the kids and babies, come ON.
I need to read another book on this I saw in regards to the social context.
What really pisses me off is that I really thought the whole thing about women wanting more sex as they get older and men wanting more as they get younger etc was true. But reading the charts and evidence of that study, you know, it is so obviously NOT.
Which is great, because I didn't fit into that at ALL AND was wondering if there was something wrong with me! sheesh!
What's scary is I am wondering at the time the institutes first studies were released, did any reputable source have a chance to look at the records/evidence so called?
The thing that makes me angry is that I just think this guy wanted to try out a lot of sexual antics b/c he was so repressed, and as a backlash against society. Of course we tend to go to one extreme to another when we shift societal mores.
For example, all child abuse permitted (dont' ask , don't tell) to the other extreme where I'm not supposed to spank my child.
However, DO NOT do this whole personal vendetta interest social interraction pleasure seeking experimentation and CALL IT SCIENCE.
I don't know what is worse!
The deception
OR the fact that our culture bought it to be truth.
okay from the whole "if it feels good do it" , this pretty much fits.
I'm not implying that there is anything wrong with sexual experimentation, I mean, I may not agree morally but I do respect others right to experiment with other old enough age consenting adults.
But to just sort of have something to prove and hide behind crappy manipulated evidence , is just WRONG.The whole thing just makes me want to cuss someone out.
I need to read another book on this I saw in regards to the social context.
What really pisses me off is that I really thought the whole thing about women wanting more sex as they get older and men wanting more as they get younger etc was true. But reading the charts and evidence of that study, you know, it is so obviously NOT.
Which is great, because I didn't fit into that at ALL AND was wondering if there was something wrong with me! sheesh!
What's scary is I am wondering at the time the institutes first studies were released, did any reputable source have a chance to look at the records/evidence so called?
The thing that makes me angry is that I just think this guy wanted to try out a lot of sexual antics b/c he was so repressed, and as a backlash against society. Of course we tend to go to one extreme to another when we shift societal mores.
For example, all child abuse permitted (dont' ask , don't tell) to the other extreme where I'm not supposed to spank my child.
However, DO NOT do this whole personal vendetta interest social interraction pleasure seeking experimentation and CALL IT SCIENCE.
I don't know what is worse!
The deception
OR the fact that our culture bought it to be truth.
okay from the whole "if it feels good do it" , this pretty much fits.
I'm not implying that there is anything wrong with sexual experimentation, I mean, I may not agree morally but I do respect others right to experiment with other old enough age consenting adults.
But to just sort of have something to prove and hide behind crappy manipulated evidence , is just WRONG.The whole thing just makes me want to cuss someone out.
July 27, 2023
Warning: contains sexually explicit passages
As an introduction, Alfred C. Kinsey published, to much fanfare and controversy, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” in 1948 and “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” in 1953. Both were over 800 pages. It could be said that these books took sex out of the closet in North America. It thrust many “unmentionable” and taboo topics right into the open.
Page 466 (my book)
The essence of Kinsey’s gospel was simple: sexual morality needed to be reformed, and science would show the way.
Page 686
Kinsey had come to proclaim a sexual revolution that would wrest control of intimate affairs from religion and make people the priests of their own private parts.
Kinsey was born in 1894 in Hoboken, New Jersey to a very religious family – a God-fearing family. His father was a tyrant and enforced a strict upbringing. His entire family had to adhere to a stern moral code. It took a long time for Kinsey to rebel against this – in many ways he was rebelling his entire life. At the age of 20, against his father’s wishes, he entered Bowdoin College in Maine to study biology (entomology and taxonomy). After this he had very little contact with his family.
Page 251
He never understood the link between his drive for perfection and his childhood conflicts. Kinsey failed to realize that behind his lifelong quest for perfection stood an injured child who had been made to feel unworthy by an accusing, judgmental father.
Kinsey was obsessed with collecting and with taxonomy. From Bowdoin College he went to Harvard and earned a doctor of science in 1919. He then received an academic post in biology at Indiana University in Bloomington. This was quite an adjustment from the intellectual vibrancy of Harvard on the East Coast of the United States to the rather parochial Indiana.
For his taxonomic studies he continued (as he had begun in Harvard) with gall wasps. He collected hundreds of thousands of gall wasps over two decades! With a research team, he methodically classified species and variations. He travelled extensively, often in remote areas of the U.S. in search of different gall wasps. He also went to Mexico and Guatemala a few times. He was an avid hiker and an obsessive collector. KInsey later transferred this mania to his sexual behavior studies.
Page 229
This explosion of writing [on gall wasps] represented the culmination of two decades of work. Throughout these years Kinsey had driven himself like a man possessed. He had logged tens of thousands of miles in the field, spent countless hours at the microscope. And thought long and hard about some of the biggest questions in biology. Always he had been driven by the need to know; his relentless desire to excel, and his messianic impulse to save taxonomy from oblivion and restore its scientific luster.
He was trying to emulate Charles Darwin.
It should also be mentioned that during his college and university years, Kinsey became an accomplished debater. All this would help in the years ahead – in publishing and getting research grants.
Kinsey also needed to be the dominant personality in the room – sometimes irritating others. He had a need for control that went hand-in-hand with his collecting mania. He was driven to be the best at what he was doing.
Although Kinsey married a woman from Bloomington and had four children (one died at young age) he was bisexual – and eventually they had an open relationship. He was also a masochist.
During the 1930s through the 1950s (page 259) “what passed for sex education might better be called anti-sex education.”
Kinsey did his sexual behavior research by interviews. Kinsey taught marriage courses at Indiana University – and this is where he started his interview process.
Page 344
He taught young people to regard sexual desires as healthy and natural, rather than sinful and depraved.
Page 352
Kinsey’s fondness for numbers was spilling over into his new area of research [sexual behavior].
Page 360
Because he believed that people routinely hid the truth about their private needs and behavior, Kinsey was determined to strip away denial, to get at the hidden side of life, to discover what people actually thought and did behind closed doors, safe from the scrutiny of judgmental others. To retrieve this information, he relied upon his interview, a research tool he believed could uncover every facet of a person’s sexual history.
He and a trained staff of eventually three individuals interviewed over fifteen thousand people on their sexual history and behavior. This number was unprecedented – and is still, today, more than any other study done in sexual behavior. Some professionals and statisticians were skeptical of his interview approach, but undergoing the interview process, which usually took over two hours, they were convinced of the methodology.
This was also an era when homosexuals were referred to as abnormal, deviants, and regarded as perverts. Kinsey was having none of this. In his books he revealed that homosexuality was far more common than most people thought. He felt religion was doing a great deal of damage psychologically to human beings. Only in 1973 did the American Psychiatric Association remove homosexuality from being classified as a mental illness.
Page 333
Concepts such as normal and abnormal no longer held validity for him [Kinsey].
Page 276
Kinsey seemed totally oblivious to sexual taboos.
This was a severe detriment as he could not perceive the evil of pedophilia.
The author brings up the research Kinsey did on young boys. How did he obtain this information? Kinsey could have been prosecuted. Did he see no boundaries when interviewing young boys who had been molested and were male prostitutes?
With the publication of the two books there were many criticisms of Kinsey’s methods – some valid, some not. There were some who felt his research impinged on their fields (sociologists, psychologists…) and this became a turf war. Perhaps they were jealous of Kinsey’s results. Others examined his analysis and felt his interviews were at fault – but upon closer scrutiny of these criticisms, Kinsey would have needed a far larger team to accomplish what was desired. Kinsey only had a small staff with a limited budget.
It is true that Kinsey focused mostly on the Northeastern States. He interviewed, among many others, prison inmates, prostitutes, homosexual enclaves in cities like Chicago and New York.
In his books he wanted to be seen as objective and scientific, but at heart he was crusading to extend the sexual boundaries of a prudish society. This was not easy during the McCarthy years. Kinsey was even labelled as a communist by some.
Page 525 Kinsey
The Catholic Church “has always emphasized the abnormality or the perverseness of sexual behavior outside of marriage.”
Page 550 from Harper’s magazine
“such terms as abnormal, unnatural, oversexed, as used in our legal and moral codes have little validity in the light of Professor Kinsey’s revelations.”
A more valid critique was that Kinsey’s books presented sex as too anatomical. His books were devoid of a loving consensual adult relationship. Margaret Mead (page 579) said the books did not present sex as fun.
Kinsey was an obsessive – whether working on gall wasps or sexual behavior. He never took a vacation. He was so self-absorbed that during World War II hardly any of his documents or letters refer to the vast cataclysm that the world was undergoing. He never took a vacation. Kate Mueller, the Dean of Women at Indiana University remarked (page 591) “How can he continue to work day after day, week after week, on this subject?”
Kinsey lived in an era when anything outside of marital sex was viewed as sinful and a transgression of the norms of society. And even within marriage, sex had to follow proscribed norms.
Page 634 Kinsey
“The so-called sexual perversions are according to Jewish and Catholic codes, any departure from sexual activity which is not vaginal activity.”
Among the taboos that Kinsey shattered was the vaginal orgasm. Instead he emphasized the clitoris and labia as centres of female orgasmic pleasure.
Page 695
On the basis of exhaustive research and an analysis of available data Kinsey concluded that the vaginal orgasm was an anatomical impossibility.
Page 706 on Sexual Behavior of the Human Female in Time Magazine
“No single event did more for open discussion of sex than the Kinsey reports, which got such matters as homosexuality, masturbation, coitus, and orgasm into most papers and family magazines.”
This is a long biography with many probing details. Kinsey was a complicated man, and as the author says, he had a dark hidden side.
Page 707
Throughout the female volume, he depicted women as sexual beings, he resolutely separated sex from procreation, he documented the full range of female sexual outlets, he celebrated masturbation as the behavior most likely to result in orgasm, thereby deflating the importance of the penis to female sexual pleasure… he depicted marriage as a partnership of equals that required sexual satisfaction for both partners. Fifteen years later, feminists would take up these as part of their critique of gender politics.
As an introduction, Alfred C. Kinsey published, to much fanfare and controversy, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” in 1948 and “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” in 1953. Both were over 800 pages. It could be said that these books took sex out of the closet in North America. It thrust many “unmentionable” and taboo topics right into the open.
Page 466 (my book)
The essence of Kinsey’s gospel was simple: sexual morality needed to be reformed, and science would show the way.
Page 686
Kinsey had come to proclaim a sexual revolution that would wrest control of intimate affairs from religion and make people the priests of their own private parts.
Kinsey was born in 1894 in Hoboken, New Jersey to a very religious family – a God-fearing family. His father was a tyrant and enforced a strict upbringing. His entire family had to adhere to a stern moral code. It took a long time for Kinsey to rebel against this – in many ways he was rebelling his entire life. At the age of 20, against his father’s wishes, he entered Bowdoin College in Maine to study biology (entomology and taxonomy). After this he had very little contact with his family.
Page 251
He never understood the link between his drive for perfection and his childhood conflicts. Kinsey failed to realize that behind his lifelong quest for perfection stood an injured child who had been made to feel unworthy by an accusing, judgmental father.
Kinsey was obsessed with collecting and with taxonomy. From Bowdoin College he went to Harvard and earned a doctor of science in 1919. He then received an academic post in biology at Indiana University in Bloomington. This was quite an adjustment from the intellectual vibrancy of Harvard on the East Coast of the United States to the rather parochial Indiana.
For his taxonomic studies he continued (as he had begun in Harvard) with gall wasps. He collected hundreds of thousands of gall wasps over two decades! With a research team, he methodically classified species and variations. He travelled extensively, often in remote areas of the U.S. in search of different gall wasps. He also went to Mexico and Guatemala a few times. He was an avid hiker and an obsessive collector. KInsey later transferred this mania to his sexual behavior studies.
Page 229
This explosion of writing [on gall wasps] represented the culmination of two decades of work. Throughout these years Kinsey had driven himself like a man possessed. He had logged tens of thousands of miles in the field, spent countless hours at the microscope. And thought long and hard about some of the biggest questions in biology. Always he had been driven by the need to know; his relentless desire to excel, and his messianic impulse to save taxonomy from oblivion and restore its scientific luster.
He was trying to emulate Charles Darwin.
It should also be mentioned that during his college and university years, Kinsey became an accomplished debater. All this would help in the years ahead – in publishing and getting research grants.
Kinsey also needed to be the dominant personality in the room – sometimes irritating others. He had a need for control that went hand-in-hand with his collecting mania. He was driven to be the best at what he was doing.
Although Kinsey married a woman from Bloomington and had four children (one died at young age) he was bisexual – and eventually they had an open relationship. He was also a masochist.
During the 1930s through the 1950s (page 259) “what passed for sex education might better be called anti-sex education.”
Kinsey did his sexual behavior research by interviews. Kinsey taught marriage courses at Indiana University – and this is where he started his interview process.
Page 344
He taught young people to regard sexual desires as healthy and natural, rather than sinful and depraved.
Page 352
Kinsey’s fondness for numbers was spilling over into his new area of research [sexual behavior].
Page 360
Because he believed that people routinely hid the truth about their private needs and behavior, Kinsey was determined to strip away denial, to get at the hidden side of life, to discover what people actually thought and did behind closed doors, safe from the scrutiny of judgmental others. To retrieve this information, he relied upon his interview, a research tool he believed could uncover every facet of a person’s sexual history.
He and a trained staff of eventually three individuals interviewed over fifteen thousand people on their sexual history and behavior. This number was unprecedented – and is still, today, more than any other study done in sexual behavior. Some professionals and statisticians were skeptical of his interview approach, but undergoing the interview process, which usually took over two hours, they were convinced of the methodology.
This was also an era when homosexuals were referred to as abnormal, deviants, and regarded as perverts. Kinsey was having none of this. In his books he revealed that homosexuality was far more common than most people thought. He felt religion was doing a great deal of damage psychologically to human beings. Only in 1973 did the American Psychiatric Association remove homosexuality from being classified as a mental illness.
Page 333
Concepts such as normal and abnormal no longer held validity for him [Kinsey].
Page 276
Kinsey seemed totally oblivious to sexual taboos.
This was a severe detriment as he could not perceive the evil of pedophilia.
The author brings up the research Kinsey did on young boys. How did he obtain this information? Kinsey could have been prosecuted. Did he see no boundaries when interviewing young boys who had been molested and were male prostitutes?
With the publication of the two books there were many criticisms of Kinsey’s methods – some valid, some not. There were some who felt his research impinged on their fields (sociologists, psychologists…) and this became a turf war. Perhaps they were jealous of Kinsey’s results. Others examined his analysis and felt his interviews were at fault – but upon closer scrutiny of these criticisms, Kinsey would have needed a far larger team to accomplish what was desired. Kinsey only had a small staff with a limited budget.
It is true that Kinsey focused mostly on the Northeastern States. He interviewed, among many others, prison inmates, prostitutes, homosexual enclaves in cities like Chicago and New York.
In his books he wanted to be seen as objective and scientific, but at heart he was crusading to extend the sexual boundaries of a prudish society. This was not easy during the McCarthy years. Kinsey was even labelled as a communist by some.
Page 525 Kinsey
The Catholic Church “has always emphasized the abnormality or the perverseness of sexual behavior outside of marriage.”
Page 550 from Harper’s magazine
“such terms as abnormal, unnatural, oversexed, as used in our legal and moral codes have little validity in the light of Professor Kinsey’s revelations.”
A more valid critique was that Kinsey’s books presented sex as too anatomical. His books were devoid of a loving consensual adult relationship. Margaret Mead (page 579) said the books did not present sex as fun.
Kinsey was an obsessive – whether working on gall wasps or sexual behavior. He never took a vacation. He was so self-absorbed that during World War II hardly any of his documents or letters refer to the vast cataclysm that the world was undergoing. He never took a vacation. Kate Mueller, the Dean of Women at Indiana University remarked (page 591) “How can he continue to work day after day, week after week, on this subject?”
Kinsey lived in an era when anything outside of marital sex was viewed as sinful and a transgression of the norms of society. And even within marriage, sex had to follow proscribed norms.
Page 634 Kinsey
“The so-called sexual perversions are according to Jewish and Catholic codes, any departure from sexual activity which is not vaginal activity.”
Among the taboos that Kinsey shattered was the vaginal orgasm. Instead he emphasized the clitoris and labia as centres of female orgasmic pleasure.
Page 695
On the basis of exhaustive research and an analysis of available data Kinsey concluded that the vaginal orgasm was an anatomical impossibility.
Page 706 on Sexual Behavior of the Human Female in Time Magazine
“No single event did more for open discussion of sex than the Kinsey reports, which got such matters as homosexuality, masturbation, coitus, and orgasm into most papers and family magazines.”
This is a long biography with many probing details. Kinsey was a complicated man, and as the author says, he had a dark hidden side.
Page 707
Throughout the female volume, he depicted women as sexual beings, he resolutely separated sex from procreation, he documented the full range of female sexual outlets, he celebrated masturbation as the behavior most likely to result in orgasm, thereby deflating the importance of the penis to female sexual pleasure… he depicted marriage as a partnership of equals that required sexual satisfaction for both partners. Fifteen years later, feminists would take up these as part of their critique of gender politics.
May 15, 2021
The research is beyond reproach. The prose is clear and easy to read at the sentence-level. However, each chapter averages a couple of colloquialisms which add nothing to the reader's understanding of the material and distract from the narrative. This is a minor flaw.
The main complaint that I have is the lack of support for asserting that adolescent Kinsey inserted the handle of a brush into his urethra, as opposed to (for example) anally. There's ample evidence that the impliment existed documented in the text, and it is sufficiently sourced in the end notes. I was shocked that there was no end note nor textual discussion supporting that the brush handle was definately inserted there, no estimation of the dimensions of the handle, nothing on the average size of male urethral diameter; in short, no way to gauge how much damage Kinsey may have suffered by this masochistic act. Did young Kinsey bleed for weeks? How did he avoid infection of the fissure (is it probable that he ripped himself open, or was it mearly (for lack of a better word) overwhelming sensations from stretching? I do not recall that the material of the brush was made (ie, wood vs., say, bakelite (or whatever man-made plastic(s) were used in that era)) was even mentioned. Did Kinsey afflict his teenage cock with dick splinters? We'll never know.
Many chapters later it is revealed that Kinsey did partake in urethral sounding, which at least opens the possibility that he partook in such acts earlier in his life. Kinsey's ability to inflict extreme pain on his genitals is well attested to (his adulthood self-circumcision; his self-suspension by his scrotom in the basement of Wylie hall), so certainly he was capable of such an act. But there are degrees of damage that can be caused, and there was no attempt to estimate where the brush-insertion fell. Hense my initial confusion vis-a-vis which oriface was even used.
The lack of discussion of where, how, and how much stopped me in my tracks, and I put down the book for several months because of it. I am glad that I came back and finished it, but really, one cannot just drop a "yah, he stuck this brush in himself while masturbating. up his dick hole." and not talk about the probable anatomical ramifications/extent of damage/why you know it was the urethra instead of elsewhere. Baffling.
I don't even recall if Jones proposed whether Kinsey insterted the brush handle-end first, or if he crammed in the bristles!
This was not a pivotal moment in Kinsey's life. I am not arguing that this act, say, required a table of average urethra widths and a companion table of possible brush models. I did feel concerned about the author's disinterest in asking these natural follow-up questions. I found my confidence in his thoroughness challenged by asserting (without discussion or detail!) that Kinsey shoved some kind of brush (what size?) inside himself (which end of the brush?), that he definitely shoved it in his urethra (how can you be so convinced that he shoved it up his hog?), and not discuss whether or not that risked sending him to the hospital vs. simply being enormously painful. Just rocked my confidence in the rest of the research and prose.
The main complaint that I have is the lack of support for asserting that adolescent Kinsey inserted the handle of a brush into his urethra, as opposed to (for example) anally. There's ample evidence that the impliment existed documented in the text, and it is sufficiently sourced in the end notes. I was shocked that there was no end note nor textual discussion supporting that the brush handle was definately inserted there, no estimation of the dimensions of the handle, nothing on the average size of male urethral diameter; in short, no way to gauge how much damage Kinsey may have suffered by this masochistic act. Did young Kinsey bleed for weeks? How did he avoid infection of the fissure (is it probable that he ripped himself open, or was it mearly (for lack of a better word) overwhelming sensations from stretching? I do not recall that the material of the brush was made (ie, wood vs., say, bakelite (or whatever man-made plastic(s) were used in that era)) was even mentioned. Did Kinsey afflict his teenage cock with dick splinters? We'll never know.
Many chapters later it is revealed that Kinsey did partake in urethral sounding, which at least opens the possibility that he partook in such acts earlier in his life. Kinsey's ability to inflict extreme pain on his genitals is well attested to (his adulthood self-circumcision; his self-suspension by his scrotom in the basement of Wylie hall), so certainly he was capable of such an act. But there are degrees of damage that can be caused, and there was no attempt to estimate where the brush-insertion fell. Hense my initial confusion vis-a-vis which oriface was even used.
The lack of discussion of where, how, and how much stopped me in my tracks, and I put down the book for several months because of it. I am glad that I came back and finished it, but really, one cannot just drop a "yah, he stuck this brush in himself while masturbating. up his dick hole." and not talk about the probable anatomical ramifications/extent of damage/why you know it was the urethra instead of elsewhere. Baffling.
I don't even recall if Jones proposed whether Kinsey insterted the brush handle-end first, or if he crammed in the bristles!
This was not a pivotal moment in Kinsey's life. I am not arguing that this act, say, required a table of average urethra widths and a companion table of possible brush models. I did feel concerned about the author's disinterest in asking these natural follow-up questions. I found my confidence in his thoroughness challenged by asserting (without discussion or detail!) that Kinsey shoved some kind of brush (what size?) inside himself (which end of the brush?), that he definitely shoved it in his urethra (how can you be so convinced that he shoved it up his hog?), and not discuss whether or not that risked sending him to the hospital vs. simply being enormously painful. Just rocked my confidence in the rest of the research and prose.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Want to read
June 9, 2016Must read book (If my stomach can handle some of the disgusting accusations against Kinsey) 3 fold interest- Sexual pioneering time line (history), psychology & controversy.
Seperately, Kinsey & Masters/Johnson are both acknowledged with being 'pioneers in the study of sexual response' (1930s plus for Kinsey, 1950's plus for M/J) ...going into the sexual revolution)
Very quick research of Kinsey indicates he only interviewed subjects where as M/J viewed subjects engaging in various sexual acts and reported data, leading into the development of therapies for sexual disfunction.
HOWEVER EXTREME CONTROVERSY - Stating Kinsey was unethical, used falsehoods when collecting his data & had possible attachments with pedophiles, (yikes!) He apparently was also a very strange, tortured, conflicted man, who may have participated in certain acts himself (?) Knowing he was 'bisexual' he also self-circumsizing and inserted multiple implements into his penis- with no anesthetic. (Note: psychology of him leading TO his studies??)
PASSAGE FROM http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=2579
To begin with, Kinsey was a bisexual who preferred homosexual sex. Summarizing “Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life,” the 1997 biography of the scientist by pro-Kinsey author James H. Jones, Salon’s McLemee writes:
He did date a woman, once, and very shortly thereafter asked her to marry him, which she did. Consummation was delayed for quite a while, because of their mutual ignorance of the mechanics involved. At some point in adolescence, Kinsey developed a taste for masochistic practices of a really cringe-inducing variety. (Two words here, and then I’m changing the subject: “urethral insertion.”) He also had some pronounced voyeuristic and exhibitionistic tendencies. On bug-hunting field trips in the 1930s, he liked to march around the camp in his birthday suit, and he interrogated his assistants about masturbation. That his career was not destroyed by such behavior is, in itself, pretty remarkable.
As Jones, Kinsey’s key biographer, tells it: “On one occasion when his inner demons plunged him to new depths of despair, Kinsey climbed into a bathtub, unfolded the blade of his pocketknife, and circumcised himself without the benefit of anesthesia.” But Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, who published another Kinsey biography, ”Sex, the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey” in 1998, said the scientist’s gruesome self-circumcision was part of his ongoing exploration of the relationship between pain and sexual pleasure. Ah, always the diligent scientisT.
Other Links:
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/why...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_...
Film 2014 Kinsey
Doco (pbs america) Kinsey
On you tube: 'Kinsey's Pedophiles', 'The Kinsey Syndrome' and 'Kinsey sex study fraud' (a woman says she is a victim)
Seperately, Kinsey & Masters/Johnson are both acknowledged with being 'pioneers in the study of sexual response' (1930s plus for Kinsey, 1950's plus for M/J) ...going into the sexual revolution)
Very quick research of Kinsey indicates he only interviewed subjects where as M/J viewed subjects engaging in various sexual acts and reported data, leading into the development of therapies for sexual disfunction.
HOWEVER EXTREME CONTROVERSY - Stating Kinsey was unethical, used falsehoods when collecting his data & had possible attachments with pedophiles, (yikes!) He apparently was also a very strange, tortured, conflicted man, who may have participated in certain acts himself (?) Knowing he was 'bisexual' he also self-circumsizing and inserted multiple implements into his penis- with no anesthetic. (Note: psychology of him leading TO his studies??)
PASSAGE FROM http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=2579
To begin with, Kinsey was a bisexual who preferred homosexual sex. Summarizing “Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life,” the 1997 biography of the scientist by pro-Kinsey author James H. Jones, Salon’s McLemee writes:
He did date a woman, once, and very shortly thereafter asked her to marry him, which she did. Consummation was delayed for quite a while, because of their mutual ignorance of the mechanics involved. At some point in adolescence, Kinsey developed a taste for masochistic practices of a really cringe-inducing variety. (Two words here, and then I’m changing the subject: “urethral insertion.”) He also had some pronounced voyeuristic and exhibitionistic tendencies. On bug-hunting field trips in the 1930s, he liked to march around the camp in his birthday suit, and he interrogated his assistants about masturbation. That his career was not destroyed by such behavior is, in itself, pretty remarkable.
As Jones, Kinsey’s key biographer, tells it: “On one occasion when his inner demons plunged him to new depths of despair, Kinsey climbed into a bathtub, unfolded the blade of his pocketknife, and circumcised himself without the benefit of anesthesia.” But Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, who published another Kinsey biography, ”Sex, the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey” in 1998, said the scientist’s gruesome self-circumcision was part of his ongoing exploration of the relationship between pain and sexual pleasure. Ah, always the diligent scientisT.
Other Links:
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/why...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_...
Film 2014 Kinsey
Doco (pbs america) Kinsey
On you tube: 'Kinsey's Pedophiles', 'The Kinsey Syndrome' and 'Kinsey sex study fraud' (a woman says she is a victim)
August 24, 2016
I've taken a graduate class in sexual science research at the Kinsey Institute, written posts for their blog, and even got to meet Paul Gebhard—one of Kinsey's assistants—before his death at 98 last year. I'm now working on an encyclopedia entry on Kinsey. Needless to say, I have some direct interest in his life and legacy. This book—while not perfect by any means—is I think a go-to biography for those willing to put in the time. It's balanced, doesn't pull any punches, and offers all sorts of critiques and praise where each is due. It's also long, and if readers are just looking for intrigue about sex and sex research in the Kinsey world they'll be disappointed as that's well less than half the book. I really enjoyed learning about his upbringing (and that his mother and maternal grandparents were pioneers who lived in Salt Lake City for a short time! That was a surprise), education, and all sorts of other things.
The author does go on way too long in parts—the book could be shortened by 1-200 pages and still be very, very good. My other big complaint was the psychological guess work the author does about Kinsey's motivations and inner world. Some of it was based on interviews with people (like Gebhard) who knew Kinsey well, but some of it was just the author guessing. While I'm glad the author typically notes when he's guessing, it was still annoying and detracted from the strength of the book.
Anyway, so much here. I came away seeing Kinsey as at once very complex and very simple. Complex in the sense that I could see why conservatives criticized him (and still do, a la anti-Kinsey activists who have some correct criticisms and facts straight, and some that are wildly made up), and why liberals lauded him. Perhaps like many other public figures associated with one of the big 3 controversial water cooler topics (sex, religion, politics), there are so many perspectives that no one will every agree on the Truth. No matter. That's how I like biographies anyway. :)
Simple in the sense that he was driven simple motivations: a) his desire to prevent and free people from distress and pain and shame related to unnecessary sexual conflicts, b) his own related demons, and c) his unrelenting drive to "get a million"—whether gall wasps or sexual histories, Kinsey got as many as he personally could; he ended up finishing over 7,000 interviews, which were often 90 minutes or more in length.
The author does go on way too long in parts—the book could be shortened by 1-200 pages and still be very, very good. My other big complaint was the psychological guess work the author does about Kinsey's motivations and inner world. Some of it was based on interviews with people (like Gebhard) who knew Kinsey well, but some of it was just the author guessing. While I'm glad the author typically notes when he's guessing, it was still annoying and detracted from the strength of the book.
Anyway, so much here. I came away seeing Kinsey as at once very complex and very simple. Complex in the sense that I could see why conservatives criticized him (and still do, a la anti-Kinsey activists who have some correct criticisms and facts straight, and some that are wildly made up), and why liberals lauded him. Perhaps like many other public figures associated with one of the big 3 controversial water cooler topics (sex, religion, politics), there are so many perspectives that no one will every agree on the Truth. No matter. That's how I like biographies anyway. :)
Simple in the sense that he was driven simple motivations: a) his desire to prevent and free people from distress and pain and shame related to unnecessary sexual conflicts, b) his own related demons, and c) his unrelenting drive to "get a million"—whether gall wasps or sexual histories, Kinsey got as many as he personally could; he ended up finishing over 7,000 interviews, which were often 90 minutes or more in length.
August 27, 2008
Fascinating man. Scientists are men and women to be respected. They put themselves on the line to research their interests to minute details. I applaud Alfred Kinsey, the scientist for having the strength to push the taboo into the lap of the world. Alfred Kinsey the man, was an uptight, some what insecure man that pushed his family to their limits.
September 4, 2011
A good biography, not a great read by any means. At times the story gets weighed down by the internecine fighting that occurred between the Kinsey, his research and the foundation(s) that supported him. A "fantastic American" he was not, but, and complex, Janus-faced one, that he was indeed!
Read
July 28, 2011I wanted to hear more DETAILS about the interview subjects. What WERE some of the shocking, unusual findings?
November 19, 2015
I picked up this book after reading a fascinating book about pioneering researchers in sex and social attitudes to sex. I chose this out of the many Kinsey biographies as it had been shortlisted for the Pulitzer prize. At the same time I read this I also borrowed a book about pre-clinical imaging which I needed to read for work. The scientific book about pre-clinical imaging was less boring than this. I borrowed this from the library and even though I forced myself to read it every day on the train, I still couldn't finish it in the two months I was permitted to have it on loan. I only got to page 444 and that wasn't even half way. I was only just up to the bit about sex research, before that there was an interminable amount of pages dedicated to gall-wasp research. It wasn't the sheer tedium of it that got to me, but also the amount of arm chair psychology. Mr. Jones fancies himself as some sort of amateur profiler being able to see the hidden meanings behind Kinsey's actions but, often there was no proof, only his own conjecture. Unless Kinsey stated somewhere he liked to shove a bristled toothbrush up his urethra because he was driven to absolve the guilt of masturbation, I don't think it was fair to portray it as fact. It was sheer mind numbing relentless tedious biographical information about what was a very complex man. How can a story about a pioneering sex researcher who was a closet homosexual and liked lending his wife out to his students be so boring?
January 11, 2015
Absolutely astounding biography for a number of reasons:
1) Kinsey’s private life of masochism and how it sprang from a tortured childhood. The “Kinsey”: he attached a rope . . . wrapped it around his scrotum, tossed the other end of rope over a pipe above him, stood on a chair, holding this end of the rope . . . and jumped off. It was a “punishment” for failing to receive a Rockefeller Foundation grant.
2) Professionally, Kinsey doggedly pursued huge research numbers in all his scientific research whether it was the gall wasp or human sexual behavior.
3) Kinsey filmed individuals in various sexual acts, using the attic of his home.
1) Kinsey’s private life of masochism and how it sprang from a tortured childhood. The “Kinsey”: he attached a rope . . . wrapped it around his scrotum, tossed the other end of rope over a pipe above him, stood on a chair, holding this end of the rope . . . and jumped off. It was a “punishment” for failing to receive a Rockefeller Foundation grant.
2) Professionally, Kinsey doggedly pursued huge research numbers in all his scientific research whether it was the gall wasp or human sexual behavior.
3) Kinsey filmed individuals in various sexual acts, using the attic of his home.
November 4, 2012
Such a very unique and complex man. I loved this book, it inspired me.
May 20, 2012
Fascinating look at the man behind the study of human sexuality.
Want to read
April 1, 2017NAL. Ordered from amazon 4/1/17.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 11, 2019
This book was extremely helpful in helping me to understand how we got to the place of sexual confusion that we have today. Alfred Kinsey was a deeply troubled man in deep sexual confusion and bondage. It’s tragic that this was not known until 25 years after his death and immense influence. He needs to be held accountable for his crimes against children and society. His Institute and the University of Indiana need to give an account.
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