ALFRED KINSEY
Alfred Charles Kinsey
born: 23-06-1894
birth place: Hoboken, New Jersey, USA
died: 25-08-1956
Dr. Kinsey conducted the first mass scientific survey of human sexual behaviour.
Kinsey's reputation as a scrupulous and disinterested scientist made sex, still
a taboo topic in 1948, acceptable to read about, and successive printings of the
book sold out. Some religious critics thought the book was immoral, but Kinsey
and his readers didn't seem to care.
Working for a science doctorate at Harvard, Kinsey lectured in biology and
zoology from 1916 to 1920. He moved to Indiana University, as a specialist in
plant and insects, becoming a full professor of zoology in 1929, and the world
authority on the gall wasp.
Sex studies started to interest Kinsey, when he taught a sex education course to
Indiana undergraduates. He was shocked by the paucity of scientific literature
and the enormity of misinformation spread by doctors and ministers.
Kinsey’s open support for contraception caused him to be dismissed as a sex
education lecturer, but his curiosity was inflamed. In 1942, with Rockerfeller
Foundation and National Research Council funds, the zoologist set up the
Institute for Sex Research.
'Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male' (1948) concluded that homosexual acts were
much more common than had been supposed, that the average man attained the peak
of virility at about 16 or 17, and steadily declined thereafter, and that men
who began sex activity early held their power longer.
By the time the sequel, 'Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female', was published in
1953, politics had changed. America was scared of Communists subverting the
moral norms of the US and Kinsey was suspected (wrongly) of being linked to the
Reds by the Reece Committee. His funding to study perversions was withdrawn and
he died two years later of a heart attack.
Alfred Charles Kinsey
born: 23-06-1894
birth place: Hoboken, New Jersey, USA
died: 25-08-1956
Dr. Kinsey conducted the first mass scientific survey of human sexual behaviour.
Kinsey's reputation as a scrupulous and disinterested scientist made sex, still
a taboo topic in 1948, acceptable to read about, and successive printings of the
book sold out. Some religious critics thought the book was immoral, but Kinsey
and his readers didn't seem to care.
Working for a science doctorate at Harvard, Kinsey lectured in biology and
zoology from 1916 to 1920. He moved to Indiana University, as a specialist in
plant and insects, becoming a full professor of zoology in 1929, and the world
authority on the gall wasp.
Sex studies started to interest Kinsey, when he taught a sex education course to
Indiana undergraduates. He was shocked by the paucity of scientific literature
and the enormity of misinformation spread by doctors and ministers.
Kinsey’s open support for contraception caused him to be dismissed as a sex
education lecturer, but his curiosity was inflamed. In 1942, with Rockerfeller
Foundation and National Research Council funds, the zoologist set up the
Institute for Sex Research.
'Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male' (1948) concluded that homosexual acts were
much more common than had been supposed, that the average man attained the peak
of virility at about 16 or 17, and steadily declined thereafter, and that men
who began sex activity early held their power longer.
By the time the sequel, 'Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female', was published in
1953, politics had changed. America was scared of Communists subverting the
moral norms of the US and Kinsey was suspected (wrongly) of being linked to the
Reds by the Reece Committee. His funding to study perversions was withdrawn and
he died two years later of a heart attack.