Written and Directed by Bill Condon
Bill Condon presents a biography about Alfred Kinsey, a professor of entomology at Indiana University who created controversy when he became the first person to create a serious study of human sexuality.
Kinsey began teaching at Indiana University in 1920. He studied gall wasps and wrote two books about them. He also wrote a college textbook, An Introduction to Biology. In the ‘30s, he discovered how inadequate the instruction regarding sex was. As a man of science, he was outraged, especially by the myths about sex that were being passed on as fact, so he began teaching a class at the university about human sexuality. Learning how truly lacking the information was, he began to create a study about human sexual behavior. Kinsey and his team of researchers interviewed thousands of people across the country.
Kinsey went to Chicago to interview gay men with a male research student, Chad Martin, who was helping Kinsey do research in more ways then one. They began an affair, which was Kinsey’s first homosexual activity. After some time passes, Chad wanted to sleep with Kinsey’s wife, Clara. She was intrigued and open to the idea; Kinsey was able to separate sex and love, so he okayed it and encouraged this type of openess among the research team..
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male came out in 1948 and it became a smash, best seller. The book turned Kinsey into a bit of a celebrity, which gave him a platform to speak in the press about the unfairness of some sex crime laws across the nation. The school and the foundations that funded Kinsey grew nervous about some of the attention, but they were making plenty of money to ease their concerns. To further his studies, Kinsey and his team got involved with photographing and filming sexual activity to help their studies. The F.B.I began to investigate Kinsey when he wouldn’t help them find homosexuals in the State Dept. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female came out in 1953 and the public turned on Kinsey, probably not too accepting of the idea that their mothers and daughters desire sex just as much as the men do.
Article comments
1 - Randy Kirk
I suppose it wasn't important to mention that some of the subjects of experimentation were babies? Or that the data was completely skewed throught the use of prison populations and students with no effort to use a broader demographic or make clear in the reporting that the data was likely to be skewed.
Nor would today's scientists be concerned about the fact that Kinsey had an axe to grind, which likely effected his objectivity.
The reality that this skewed science has resulted in substantial amount of other skewed science and public policy doesn't matter to the writers or producers, either. I have to wonder if the scientist who was being written about had had the same intentions and methods, but had come up with a wildly popular theory that suggested that cigarettes are good for you, whether their would have been the same "pass."
2 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Randy, the film may not make mention of any baby-experimentation, but it certainly doesn't present Kinsey as a saint, which you seem to imply it does. There are times when he is presented as, for want of a better couple words, a right bastard.
Great review, Bicho, i'm lookin forward to the DVD release. i thought the film was tremendous, and important at a time when all too many media outlets are treating sex as somethin either to be to be ashamed of or to be presented in a way that makes a fella feel ashamed for watchin it.
3 - El Bicho
Randy,
Where did you get this information about "some of the subjects of experimentation were babies"? Kinsey did speak with a pedophile who recorded his sick acts, but he wasn't working on behalf of the study.
If Kinsey's data is so skewed, where is the scientific study that disproves it? You make it sound like it would be so easy to do that I don't understand why there hasn't been one in the past 50-plus years.
Considering your blog states that its "A place to discuss sexual purity, skepticism about science," and you are working on a book called "Sex Kills," I must wonder if you have an axe to grind that affects your objectivity.
4 - Randy Kirk
No. It comes the other way. I was suckered into the Kinsey/Playboy nonsense as a youth. The more I read the evidence on both sides, the more I came to see that folks were making it up.
The information about Kinsey is widely available. One Book "Kinsey, Sex, and Fraud" is a major source, but there are many others. In fact, I'm not sure there is a lot of argument about these facts at this point.
I'm afraid the pedaphile was doing experiments at Kinsey's behest.