NYTimes | MORE
than half a century after the publication of his landmark study,
"Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," Alfred C. Kinsey remains one of the
most influential figures in American intellectual history. He's
certainly the only entomologist ever to be immortalized in a Cole Porter
song. Thanks to him, it's now common knowledge that almost all men
masturbate, that women peak sexually in their mid-30's and that
homosexuality is not some one-in-a-million anomaly. His studies helped
bring sex -- all kinds of sex, not just the stork-summoning kind -- out
of the closet and into the bright light of day.
But
not everyone applauds that accomplishment. Though some hail him for
liberating the nation from sexual puritanism, others revile him as a
fraud whose "junk science" legitimized degeneracy. Even among scholars
sympathetic to Kinsey there's disagreement. Both his biographers regard
him as a brave pioneer and reformer, but differ sharply about almost
everything else. One independent scholar has even accused him of sexual
crimes.
SanityandSocialJustice | If you ever wondered how criminal penalties in the US for pedophilia
transitioned for a time from extreme sentences to relatively short
sentences, and how pedophiles from the late 1950s up until recent years
were given revolving-door sentences only to target children again, you
might wonder whose work guided those who drafted the Model Penal Code in
1955 that advanced the reduction of prison sentences for pedophiles and
other sexual criminals.
If you guessed that it was the bishops of the Catholic Church, you
guessed wrong. The recommendation to reduce sentences for pedophiles
and other sexual criminals was made along with civil libertarians by an
atheist and an Indiana University scientist, Alfred C. Kinsey
(1894-1956), the same Kinsey lionized in the eponymous 2004 film
produced by Francis Ford Coppola, directed by Bill Condon, and starring
Liam Neeson, the same Kinsey funded for years by the Rockefeller
Foundation and by Hugh Hefner, the same Kinsey with a 1953 Time Magazine
cover picture, the same Kinsey whose faulty science has been cited for
decades by uncritical jurists in numerous major court, including US
Supreme Court, decisions.
The Kinsey film in 2004 marked the zenith of Kinsey’s reputation. It has since fallen:
- Recent scholarship revealing Kinsey’s role in shielding pedophiles who carefully reported to Kinsey hundreds of victims,
- a growing scientific consensus reaffirming the noted humanistic psychologist Abraham H. Maslow’s original 1952 criticism of “volunteer bias” in Kinsey’s studies,
- the development of federal and professional ethical regulation, policies, and practices for research with “vulnerable populations” such as children and prisoners, along with “mandated reporting” of pedophilia in many states–especially in Indiana–which have provided a modern contrast to Kinsey’s unethical scientific practice,
- and in addition the compilation of biographic information on Kinsey that indicated his personal depravity involving his sexual harassment/coercion of members of his circle to participate in sexual film-making in his attic, and his particular topical interest in adult sex with children,
–have all served to permanently undermine the standing of Kinsey’s
personal character and scientific work among those whose knowledge
extends beyond watching films and comedy skits or flipping past the
“redeeming social content” citations of Kinsey in pornographic
magazines, to scholarly reading and to scientific inquiry.
To some among the community of civil libertarians, with whom Kinsey
worked closely on the revision of the 1955 Model Penal Code, Kinsey has
been propped up for years, as “too big to fail.” But, as the tide has
turned world-wide against pedophilia, so too has Kinsey’s reputation
been irreparably tarnished.
The change in perspective on Kinsey has been slow in coming, but has
been aided first by the globalization of media, and then by the
visualizing power of the Internet.
