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Alfred C. Kinsey is regarded by many to be the
foremost pioneer in the quantitative study of human sexuality. Ironically, he began his
career as a zoology professor at Indiana University following the completion of his Ph.D.
at Harvard University in 1919. His interest in human sexuality fortuitously began when in
1938 the Indiana Association of Women Students petitioned the university to offer a
noncredit course on marriage. Kinsey coordinated the course and presented lectures on the
biological dimensions of sex and marriage. In preparing for his lectures in what quickly
became a very popular course, he discovered that little survey research was available on
human sexuality. Initially, Kinsey gathered data from students in his classes, then from
other students and faculty, and later from people whom he could persuade to be
interviewed. At his own expense, he interviewed people in other Midwestern cities, thereby
adding people from other social classes to his sample. In 1941, Kinsey obtained a grant
from the National Council's Committee for Research in the Problems of Sex, which was at
the time funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. He assembled a multidisciplinary research
team that included Clyde Martin, a student assistant who became a research associate;
Wardwell Pomeroy, a clinical psychologist; and Paul Gebhard, an anthropologist. Kinsey and
his colleagues established the Institute for Sex Research in 1947 as a separate, nonprofit
organization. Kinsey published Sexual Behavior In The Human Male in 1948, which
came to be known as the "Kinsey Report." The report immediately created
controversy for its revelations of the sexuality of white American males. It sold more
than 250,000 copies and was translated into a dozen languages. In 1953 the Institute
published Sexual Behavior In The Human Female, which also sold more than 250,000
copies and was translated into several languages. These two reports sharply challenged
many myths about sexual behavior in American society and revealed findings on various
previously taboo topics, such as extramarital sexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, oral
sex, masturbation, and prostitution.
Kinsey's research focused on six different outlets to sexual orgasm, namely
masturbation, petting, nocturnal dreams, heterosexual coitus, homosexual behaviors, and
bestiality. He related these forms of sexuality to various socioeconomic variables, namely
age, education, marital status, occupation, and religious identification. Many Americans
in particular were shocked to learn that females are as capable of sexual response as men.
Previously, the prevailing cultural myth was that women merely engaged in sex for
procreative purposes or to please their male partners. Half of the females interviewed
stated that they had engaged in premarital coitus and one-quarter stated that they had
engaged in extramarital sex. Kinsey's findings on homosexuality also shocked the American
public. He reported that a third of American males and 13 percent of American females
claimed to have had at least one same-sex orgasmic experience by age 45. Furthermore,
approximately 10 percent of the males admitted to having been predominantly homosexual for
at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55, and four percent of white males
described themselves as exclusively homosexual. Kinsey's research refuted the widely held
notion that heterosexuality and homosexuality are exclusive forms of behavior.
Additionally, Kinsey found that a person's sexual orientation could change over the course
of his or her lifetime. The two Kinsey reports also revealed a widespread prevalence of
masturbation. His study found that more than 90 percent of white males and 62 percent of
females admitted having engaged in this behavior.
A major weakness of the two Kinsey reports was their failure to examine the sexual
behavior of people of color in the United States. Furthermore, the samples relied heavily
upon middle-class, college-educated Americans under age 35. Despite these limitations, the
Kinsey reports served as significant benchmarks in the quantitative study of sexuality in
U.S. society and their findings contributed to an era of more relaxed attitudes concerning
sexual behavior. In this sense, the Kinsey reports contributed to what has been termed the
Sexual Revolution, or reconfiguration of sexual mores after the Second World War.
Kinsey's research and other studies by the Institute for Sex Research created and
continue to create controversy in the larger society, particularly among conservative
social forces. A Congressional committee accused the Institute of contributing to an
alleged Communist takeover of the United States and accused the Rockefeller Foundation of
"un-American" behavior, resulting in the latter's decision to withdraw funding
for the Institute. Attacks upon Kinsey's research appear to have contributed to his
untimely death at age 62 in 1956. Nevertheless, the Institute has continued to produce a
long list of studies of American sexual behavior including: Pregnancy, Birth, and
Abortion (1958); Sexual Offenders: An Analysis of Types (1965); Homosexualities:
A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (1978); and Sexuality and Morality in the
U.S. (1989). Despite the wide-spread acceptance of the scientific study of sexuality
in U.S. society, conservative forces continue to attack the work pioneered by Kinsey as
well as on-going studies by the Institute for Sexual Research.
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