Alfred Charles Kinsey

Alfred Charles Kinsey (June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology, who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as producing the Kinsey Reports and the Kinsey scale. Kinsey's research on human sexuality, foundational to the modern field of sexology, provoked controversy in the 1940s and 1950s. His work has profoundly influenced social and cultural values in the United States and many other countries. Biography Alfred Kinsey was born on June 23, 1894, in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Alfred Seguine Kinsey and Sarah Ann Charles. Kinsey was the eldest of three children. His mother had received little formal education; his father was a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. Early life and education Kinsey's parents were poor for most of his childhood, and the family often could not afford proper medical care. This may have led to a young Kinsey receiving inadequate treatment for a variety of diseases including rickets, rheumatic fever, and typhoid fever. This health record indicates that Kinsey received suboptimal exposure to sunlight (the cause of rickets in those days before milk and other foods were fortified with vitamin D) and lived in unsanitary conditions for at least part of his childhood. Rickets led to a curvature of the spine, which resulted in a slight stoop that prevented Kinsey from being drafted in 1917 for World War I. Kinsey's parents were extremely devout Christians; this left a powerful imprint on the man for the rest of his life. His father was known as one of the most devout members of the local Methodist church and as a result most of Kinsey's social interactions were with other members of the church, often merely as a silent observer while his parents discussed religion with similarly devout adults. Kinsey's father imposed strict rules on the household including mandating Sunday as a day of prayer (and little else). At a young age, Kinsey showed great interest in nature and camping. He worked and camped with the local YMCA often throughout his early years. He enjoyed these activities to such an extent that he intended to work professionally for the YMCA after his education was completed. Even Kinsey's senior undergraduate thesis for psychology, a dissertation on the group dynamics of young boys, echoed this interest. He joined the Boy Scouts when a troop was formed in his community. His parents strongly supported this (and joined as well) because the Boy Scouts was an organization heavily grounded on the principles of Christianity. Kinsey worked his way up through the Scouting ranks to earn Eagle Scout in 1913, making him one of the earliest Eagle Scouts. Despite earlier disease having weakened his heart, Kinsey followed an intense sequence of difficult hikes and camping expeditions throughout his early life. In high school, Kinsey was a quiet but hard-working student. While attending Columbia High School, he was not interested in sports, but devoted his energy to academic work and the piano. At one time, Kinsey had hoped to become a concert pianist, but decided to concentrate on his scientific pursuits instead. Kinsey's ability early on to spend immense amounts of time deeply focused on study was a trait that would serve him well in college and during his professional career. He seemed not to have formed strong social relationships during high school, but earned respect for his academic ability. While there, Kinsey became interested in biology, botany and zoology. Kinsey was later to claim that his high school biology teacher, Natalie Roeth, was the most important influence on his decision to become a scientist. Kinsey approached his father with plans to study botany at college. His father demanded that he study engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. Kinsey was unhappy at Stevens, and later remarked that his time there was one of the most wasteful periods of his life. Regardless, he continued his obsessive commitment to studying. At Stevens, he primarily took courses related to English and engineering, but was unable to satisfy his interest in biology. At the end of two years at Stevens, Kinsey gathered the courage to confront his father about his interest in biology and his intent to continue studying at Bowdoin College in Maine. In the fall of 1914, Kinsey entered Bowdoin College, where he became familiar with insect research under Manton Copeland, and was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity, in whose house he lived for much of his time at college. Two years later in 1916, Kinsey was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude with degrees in biology and psychology. He continued his graduate studies at Harvard University's Bussey Institute, which had one of the most highly regarded biology programs in the United States. It was there that Kinsey studied applied biology under William Morton Wheeler, a scientist who made outstanding contributions to entomology. Under Wheeler, Kinsey worked almost completely autonomously, which suited both men quite well. Kinsey chose to do his doctoral thesis on gall wasps, and began collecting samples of the species with zeal. He traveled widely and took 26 detailed measurements on hundreds of thousands of gall wasps, and his methodology was itself an important contribution to entomology as a science. Kinsey was granted a Sc.D. degree in 1919 by Harvard University, and published several papers in 1920 under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, introducing the gall wasp to the scientific community and laying out its phylogeny. Of the more than 18 million insects in the museum's collection, some 5 million are gall wasps collected by Kinsey. Kinsey wrote a widely used high-school textbook, An Introduction to Biology, which was published in October 1926. The book endorsed evolution and unified, at the introductory level, the previously separate fields of zoology and botany. Kinsey also co-wrote a classic book on edible plants with Merritt Lyndon Fernald published in 1943 called Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America. This book is still regarded as an authoritative source in the area, but is not generally associated with Kinsey. The original draft of the book was written in 1919–1920, while Kinsey was still a doctoral student at the Bussey Institute and Fernald was working at the Arnold Arboretum. Alfred Charles Kinsey was born into a poor family in 1890’s New Jersey. His father, Alfred Seguine Kinsey, was a professional academic at Stevens Institute of Technology who ruled the house with an iron fist. He was a devout Christian and the Kinsey children were expected to attend church up to four times a week and spend their Sundays learning about the Bible. The children were always expected to be meticulously tidy and remain ‘decent’ and ‘moral’ at all times. Friendships with members of the opposite sex were banned and sexual matters were certainly a banned subject. Kinsey’s early years were further hampered by illness. Medical records show the young boy suffered rickets, rheumatic fever and typhoid fever in his early years and that these conditions were exacerbated by poverty and poor living conditions. Kinsey also failed to receive proper medical treatment, which led to several complications later in life. Despite his illnesses, Kinsey developed an interest in nature and the great outdoors. But his curiosity went beyond that of other boys his age. Whilst he was still of primary school age, he had made a detailed study of the way birds behaved in the rain. His work was even published in a nature journal. When he was slightly older, he embraced his love of the great outdoors by joining the Boy Scouts, where his enthusiasm ensured that he became an Eagle Scout within only two years instead of the usual five. He also began to work with the YMCA, taking groups of boys into the countryside and teaching them about the plants and animals. As a student, Kinsey was naturally conscientious and methodical. For a while, he toyed with the idea of becoming a concert pianist, but later focused his attention on scientific subjects. Biology, botany and zoology became his favourite studies. Although he expressed an interest in moving on to study botany at college, his father was determined the young Kinsey would follow in his footsteps and study engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology. Kinsey took the place at Stevens and grudgingly worked hard, but he was deeply unhappy. After two years, he’d had enough. He plucked up the courage and told his father, in no uncertain terms, that he was leaving Stevens and taking a place at Bowdoin College in Maine to study biology instead. His father was outraged, but realised there was little he could do. The whole incident cast a shadow over their relationship and things between father and son were never the same again. But it wasn’t just his father’s disapproval of biology study which was troubling Kinsey. Since a young age, he had fought against his own homoerotic thoughts. Kinsey’s upbringing dictated that even thinking about sex was a sin, let alone fantasising about homosexual acts. He threw himself completely into his work as a convenient way to take his mind away from these disturbing thoughts. Soon after beginning his studies, he was invited to join the exclusive Phi Beta Kappa organisation, a true mark of academic achievement. Several years later, he left Bowdoin with degrees in biology and psychology, both passed with high honours. Kinsey was keen to carry on studying and attended Harvard University. There he began a doctorial thesis which involved a massive research project to capture and intricately detail thousands of gull wasps, a previously unstudied insect. His detailed methodology was groundbreaking and made a significant contribution to the field of entomology. The work culminated in his being awarded a Sc.D in 1919 and offered a place as a lecturer at Harvard. It was at one of his first Harvard social events - a staff picnic - that he met fellow lecturer Clara McMillen. He fell for her charming ways and as he was keen to carve out a ‘normal’ life for himself, the couple were married in 1921. During the 1920s he transferred to Indiana University and continued his work with gall wasps whilst also producing a high school text book entitled An Introduction to Biology. The text book was unique for its time in that it combined the previously separate subjects of biology and zoology. Kinsey also indulged his love of nature and co-wrote a book on the edible plants of North America. He also had several of his gall wasp papers published too. But the 1920’s weren’t all plain sailing for the Kinsey family. The couple’s first child died at a young age from juvenile diabetes complications. Although they went on to have three healthy children, the death of their young son haunted both Kinsey and his wife for many years. But there was also another issue. In 1924, Kinsey fell in love with a student called Ralph Voris. His long suppressed desires returned, but this time he acted on them. He and Voris had an affair for several years, even after the younger man became married as well. Biographers have suggested both wives knew about their relationship but chose to stay with their respective partners. His affair with Voris was the start of a much wider sexual revolution about to take place in the Kinsey household. In 1933, Kinsey was asked to conduct a lecture on sex for students considering marriage. Kinsey was amazed at how ignorant the young people were about sexual matters and began to wonder if the rest of America was so badly informed. Did we really know more about the sex lives of animals and insects than we did about our own? Kinsey had suddenly found a new project which he started right away by setting up the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University. This was to be his base for the huge amount of research he needed to do. Kinsey knew he needed to get to the truth and so he carefully planned a series of mass interviews all across the USA. He carefully recruited a team of interviewers and taught them various ways to make the subjects feel relaxed and open. Kinsey himself even took up drinking and smoking so he could partake in a social cigarette or shot of whiskey with his subjects. Radically, Kinsey also developed a complex code in which the researchers were to record the data. The code was never written down and existed only in the minds and memory of Kinsey and his team. This meant the subjects could be sure of their confidentiality. But Kinsey controversially looked to other sources of information too. He collected and analysed diaries of paedophiles, talked to prostitutes and lingered in well known pick up joints. He also found his way onto the underground gay scene, and the friend who introduced him to the scene claims there was certainly an amount of personal pleasure in this particular area of his research. But a more sinister side to Kinsey’s research has often been hinted at. Suggestions have been made that not only did Kinsey research the stranger aspects of homosexuality, he also participated in some of them. Some biographers suggest he would take groups of young men into the countryside and encourage them to sit around the campfire, naked, and reveal their innermost sexual secrets. Others claim he used his home as a ‘studio’ in which he filmed a few of the more obscure sexual fetishes he came across. Certainly his relationships at that time seem to be ‘unconventional’ and more sexually liberated than those around him. After his relationship with Voris ended, he embarked upon a three way relationship with his wife and another man called Clyde Martin. Perhaps knowing the truth about what humans got up to sexually gave Kinsey new confidence to fulfil his desires. In 1948, the first results of his research were printed. The book in itself was nothing special. Keen to preserve the scientific basis of the work, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was a scientific book with dry language and lots of statistics. But while the words may not have been dramatic, the content was explosive. The initial modest print run sold out quickly and a further run was swiftly organised. Word got around and the book became a best seller. Kinsey himself became infamous as a ‘sex scientist’ and whilst some denounced his ‘depraved’ work, others heralded it as the catalyst for a sexual revolution. But what was it that made the book so shocking? Kinsey’s research showed that America may have had problem talking about sex, it was certainly not inhibited when it came to actually doing it! Half of men had experienced sex outside of their marriage. The average married couple had sex 2.8 times a week. Most men masturbated on a regular basis. Behind the neat curtains of suburban America, things weren’t what they seemed! Kinsey But the most significant findings were much closer to home for Kinsey. His book became one of the first pieces of scientific literature to suggest homosexuality was not an illness, nor a choice, but something people were predestined for. More radically, he suggested that few of us are born either exclusively heterosexual or homosexual. Instead, there was a range of sexualities for which he devised a scale from 1 being largely heterosexual to 6, largely homosexual. His results angered many and critics rushed to discredit his work. Some highlighted the geographical clustering of his research and his high reliance on prisoners as subjects. Others objected on moral grounds, that he had dared to ask paedophiles or homosexuals about their orientation as if it were acceptable behaviour. Many were simply angry at the body of work as a whole and felt Kinsey had spoken a secret out loud. Nevertheless, Kinsey continued with his work. His next body of research into female sexual habits revealed that far from being a catalyst himself, the sexual revolution had in fact begun some time after the Second World War. Attitudes towards relationships and love were very obviously on the turn. In his own life, things were strained. Kinsey worked 13 hours a day, every day, neglecting old hobbies as well as his wife and family. His health was suffering too. Kinsey developed heart trouble and despite being told to slow down, pressed on with his work as hard as ever. His health declined further when he struggled to turned down J Edgar Hoover’s appeal for help in rooting out homosexuals within the state department. Being loyal to his subjects was important to Kinsey and the documents remained coded and locked away to keep them secret forever. In 1953, his research into female sexuality was published under the title Sexual Behavior in Females. It too was a best seller. His books are still some of the best selling science titles of all time. Three years later, Kinsey developed pneumonia. His heart was too weak to take the strain and he died at home with his wife 25th August 1956. Kinsey’s work called for a fair judgment of sexual orientation, a judgement which came in 1973 when homosexuality was removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental disorders. From that moment onwards homosexuality has been regarded as a valid human condition rather than an illness. Kinsey’s work was born of frustration. He was a man who was stifled by his father both academically, morally and sexually. But he was intelligent enough to know he needed information to fill the gaps in his on understanding. Why did he have this irresistible urge to touch another man? Was it natural to feel like this? How many others felt the same? Like any good scientist, Kinsey saw a question and answered it the best way he knew how – by methodical scientific study.