Alfred Kinsey

Alfred Charles Kinsey (23 June 1894 – 25 August 1956) was an American biologist, entomologist, and sexologist whose two landmark studies — Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), collectively known as the Kinsey Reports — were among the most controversial and culturally transformative scientific publications of the twentieth century. By conducting thousands of face-to-face interviews about sexual practices and presenting the results with taxonomic dispassion, Kinsey revealed an enormous gap between Americans’ actual sexual behavior and their professed moral standards, and in doing so helped precipitate the sexual revolution.

Life

Kinsey was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, and raised in a strict Methodist household. His father, a Sunday school teacher, was authoritarian and repressive. Kinsey studied biology at Bowdoin College and earned his doctorate in entomology at Harvard, where he studied under the evolutionary biologist William Morton Wheeler. His doctoral research was on gall wasps — he collected over five million specimens during his career and published The Gall Wasp Genus Cynips (1930), a model of taxonomic thoroughness.

In 1920, he joined the biology faculty at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he spent the rest of his career. He married Clara McMillen (“Mac”) in 1921. In 1938, Indiana University asked him to teach a course on marriage and family life, and his preparation for the course — which revealed how little scientific data existed on human sexual behavior — led him to begin collecting sexual histories through detailed personal interviews.

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948)

The “Male Report” was based on 5,300 face-to-face interviews conducted by Kinsey and his research team. Its findings shocked the nation: 37 percent of men had had at least one homosexual experience to orgasm; 10 percent were predominantly homosexual for at least three years; 50 percent of married men had had extramarital affairs; and masturbation was nearly universal. Kinsey introduced a seven-point scale (0 to 6, from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual) — the “Kinsey Scale” — which replaced the binary classification of sexual orientation with a spectrum.

The book was an unexpected bestseller — it sold over 200,000 copies in its first two months — and made the front pages of newspapers worldwide. It was praised by scientists for its methodological rigor and attacked by religious leaders, politicians, and social conservatives for its perceived normalisation of deviant behavior.

Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953)

The “Female Report” was even more controversial. Based on nearly 6,000 interviews with women, it reported high rates of premarital sex, extramarital affairs, homosexual experience, and masturbation among American women — findings that contradicted the prevailing image of female sexual passivity and purity. The book provoked an even more intense backlash than the Male Report: the Rockefeller Foundation withdrew funding from Kinsey’s Institute for Sex Research, and Congressional investigations were launched.

Methodology and Criticism

Kinsey’s methodology has been extensively debated. His interview technique — direct, nonjudgmental, and exhaustive — elicited remarkably candid responses, and his interviewers were trained to use a branching protocol that made evasion difficult. Critics have argued that his samples were skewed (overrepresenting college-educated whites, prisoners, and volunteers), that his inclusive definition of homosexual experience inflated percentages, and that his taxonomic approach — treating sexual behavior as a naturalist classifies specimens — stripped sexuality of its emotional and moral dimensions.

These criticisms have merit, and subsequent studies have revised some of Kinsey’s specific numbers. But his fundamental insights — that human sexual behavior is far more varied than social norms acknowledge, that homosexuality and heterosexuality exist on a spectrum, and that there is no single “normal” pattern of sexual behavior — have been consistently confirmed.

Legacy

Kinsey’s work contributed directly to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, to the gay rights movement, and to the development of sex education and sex therapy as professional disciplines. The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University continues to conduct research on human sexuality. The 2004 biographical film Kinsey, starring Liam Neeson, brought renewed attention to his life and work.

Collecting Kinsey

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948, W. B. Saunders) in first edition brings $50–$200. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) brings $30–$100. Both are widely available, having been published in large print runs.