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Book
ReviewReview
Essay `TOO DARN HOT': A BIOGRAPHY OF KINSEYAlfred C. Kinsey: a life, second edition.
James H. Jones, 2004. New York: Norton; ISBN 0415250404, 303 + xx pp., £11.99,
paper
SAGE Publications, Inc.200610.1191/0967550706ab047XX
RogerIngham
University of Southampton
This
is a remarkable book about a remarkable man. It is also a massive book, with
over 770 pages of small font and over 110 pages of detailed notes and sources.
Jones took well over 20 years in putting it all together, weaving his account
from a plethora of academic records and newspaper cuttings and numerous interviews
with relatives, ex-colleagues and friends. Between the initial publication
in 1997 and this revised edition, some of his sources had died, and so he
is able to identify them; Kinsey's widow and one of their daughters co-operated,
but his other two children refused to be interviewed. The book took over 20
years in the writing; this may explain why, in some sections, Jones appears
to be very warm towards his subject whilst in others he appears to be rather
less so. The story Jones provides is of a man brought up in a strictly evangelical
family, with God's wrath being around the corner waiting for any misde- meanour
of thought or deed. His childhood was apparently unpleasant, living in a crowded
suburb of New York City, having a domineering and ambitious father who `admonished
far better than he nurtured'. Sundays were fiercely protected, with Sunday
School and church attendance being compulsory, no music or levity, nor transport,
permitted. His father's world was divided into saints and sinners, with many
more of the latter than of the former. All of this, coupled with some severe
illnesses, led to a great deal of internal reflection and analysis, and sewed
the seeds for his later endeavours. Kinsey, like many (or most) other curious
children, engaged in some sexual explorations with some neighbouring children.
Whereas, as Jones points out, such voyeuristic play is generally regarded
as being harmless and benign, in Kinsey's case the immense confusion caused
by these activities in the context of his powerfully religious upbringing
led to ago- nies of guilt and shame that help to account for his later obsessional
quest for `truth', as well as his challenges to societal sexual repression.
Kinsey's secondary school years were marked by devotion to study and extracurricular
activities, including music (playing and collecting records), gardening, bird
watching, bug collection, a general love of nature and being a model Boy Scout.
Close friends were apparently rare. During the crisis of masculinity that
marked the US culture at the time (and still does, by
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the way),
Kinsey found a way to be masculine through exploring nature, hiking and other
`manly' outdoor pursuits. But there was a serious problem. Both within his
family and within society (and within the Boy Scout movement itself), there
were strong prohibitions on any form of sexual expression. Masturbation was
considered harmful and sinful. The all-male camps allowed a degree of covert
exploration of each other's bodies that were not enabled anywhere else and,
as Jones reports, `[the boys]… learned to their surprise that they
could venture into new territory without being burned to a crisp'. Yet Kinsey,
more so than the other boys, felt a degree of self-condemnation from which
he could not escape; further, these experiences were accompanied by `homoerotic
fantasies'. Kinsey's father pushed him towards a college education in engineering,
a suitably conventional and masculine career. During this time at college,
however, Kinsey's academic performance was not outstanding (in contrast to
his earlier successes) and he clearly hankered after the chance to study his
favourite subject – biology. Using strength gained from years of being
repressed, he eventually told his father of his decision to move to a small
liberal arts college with a good biology department. His father responded
by withdrawing all financial support from his son, and, from Jones's account,
all emotional support as well. Kinsey went on to excel in his new studies,
got heavily involved in the local YMCA as a voluntary pastime, and eventually
moved to Harvard. Some of his professors served to replace his `lost' father,
and close attach- ments were formed. His early years as a researcher were
spent in collect- ing and classifying gall wasps, making frequent and extensive
trips to find new varieties (often taking younger researchers with him), and
having a driving ambition to collect more than anyone else had done before
him. During this time, Kinsey met and courted Clara, a woman with similar
outdoor interests who did `little to accentuate her femininity'. Their engagement
was apparently platonic; at the time this would not have raised any eyebrows,
but Jones suggests that this was `as much to do with sexual conflict as with
moral rectitude'. Later, he describes some prob- lems over the consummation
of the marriage (it took `several months') and, even later, describes in some
detail the rather unusual sexual arrange- ments that they came to in order
to manage. To the outside world, how- ever, this was a marriage made in heaven.
Kinsey moved to Indiana to teach biology, wrote a successful textbook for
students, and completed his rejection of religion; he was committed to an
evolutionary stance which, at the time, was not marked by widespread acceptance
amongst his colleagues. Jones suggests that these academic leanings and activities
were motivated by a strong desire to reject the reli- gious fervour that had
surrounded his childhood. He was, by all accounts, an intolerant teacher,
expecting the best from students and colleagues,
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but a
good family man. He wanted to provide for his children an honest and open
atmosphere regarding their own sexual development, thereby encouraging their
avoidance of the sexual repression that he had suffered from himself. He and
Clara became known in the area as the couple who would provide honest answers
to `embarrassing' questions, and were much in demand. It was traditional in
some US universities at the time to run courses in marriage and the family.
Kinsey's evolving interests, as well as his deter- mination to liberalize
the area of sexuality, led to his volunteering to coordinate the Indiana course.
He renamed it sex education, and gathered a group of teachers whom he felt
would do justice to his ideals. The course was not uncontroversial, but proved
to be popular with students, many of whom were apparently willing to share
their own personal concerns and histories with Kinsey. Partly as a result
of these revelations, as well as his scientific interest in biology and classification,
he developed an over- powering interest in the scientific study of human sexual
behaviour. Much of what he read (and heard from his students) shocked him,
including the assumed negative results of masturbation and the pathology of
homo- sexuality. As Jones puts it, `[Kinsey] showed how badly he wanted to
use science, the greatest weapon he commanded, to attack the conventional
morality that had caused him so much pain'. And so began one of the most ambitious
and controversial research endeavours of the century. Extending way beyond
the campus, Kinsey became devoted to collecting as many sexual histories as
he could, trained his staff to do likewise, and recorded in close detail all
that they were told. Wishing to explore areas that others before him had not
explored, he ven- tured into the `seedier' parts of cities and towns, getting
deeply involved in the gay communities and with others whose preferred forms
of sexual expression were regarded, at the time, as being beyond the pale.
He also targeted sex offenders in an effort to understand what motivated them.
Further, surprising as it may seem, the majority of colleagues (including
visiting staff from funding agencies) were subject to his detailed inter-
views and, perhaps more surprisingly, seemed to willingly agree to take part
in them. He was, by all accounts, a most persuasive person! The early research
was funded from his own pocket (he had done quite well from the sales of his
biology text book), but he knew that he needed much larger sums to fulfil
his ambitions of obtaining many thousands of case histories. Support came
in the form of Robert Yerkes, one-time president of the American Psychological
Association, government advisor on intelligence testing during the first world
war, and, according to Jones, also sexually repressed. The initial grant came
from the National Research Council, which received some of its funding from
the Rockefeller Foundation; the Foundation, however, was reluctant to be too
closely
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associated
with any of the work it sponsored, a situation that developed later into a
source of great anguish as Kinsey tried to exploit the associa- tion to gain
wider acceptance of his work. Out of these initial beginnings, the Institute
of Sex Research developed, based at Indiana University, a research centre
that remains active to this present day. Loyal and dedicated staff were appointed,
more and more case histories were collected, and detailed analyses were carried
out. Eventually, two volumes were published – one on males in 1948
followed by one on females in 1953. These laid out in great detail patterns
of sexual activity and many related issues in a form that had never been managed
(or even dared) before. They became instant bestsellers, dominated the news
for weeks after publication, led to immense controversy, and turned Kinsey
into a household name (and the subject of a film released in 2005). So much
for the academic and public face of Kinsey's massive achieve- ments. What
Jones provides is much more than just this, and much of this additional insight
into the man and his activities is the sort of information that one might
rather not have, but which is impossible to ignore. In addition to his apparent
fervour to rid the world of sexual repression and to `normalize' what had
hitherto been hidden and highly stigmatized activities (possibly to help him
to come to terms with his own predilec- tions), Kinsey led a highly secretive
life of sexual exploration. In addition to his own sexual explorations with
colleagues on his many field trips, he also involved his wife Clara. On the
surface, they were a happily married and conventional couple with three children; what was not known at the time, however, was that he actively encouraged her
to have sex with some of his staff. Further, affairs between other members
of his staff were also encouraged, but Kinsey insisted that he be asked permission
in advance, and that his word was to be obeyed. That this was going on while
he was – to the world – a respectable and objective sex researcher
attests not only to the immense loyalty shown by his staff (and by the others
who became embroiled in such events), but also to the absence of an invasive
and intrusive press. It is just inconceivable that such a double life could
be led in the present day. To a large extent, and ironically, this was Kinsey's
major achievement – the exposure of the double lives that the majority
of Americans were leading at the time of his work. By exploring the realities
of sexual lives, he was able to expose the hypocrisy of the moral climate
that insisted on chasteness both before and within marriage, to reveal that
hitherto invisible activities – such as masturbation – really
did take place, and to reveal that same sex attraction was rather more widespread
than had been believed and should not be regarded as being merely pathological.
He also opened the door to many subsequent sex surveys, although more recent
ones have used rather better sampling techniques than he managed, and
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have
had a rather more clear-cut justification in the light of the threat of HIV
and other STIs. Whether or not Kinsey did achieve his hope of liberating sexual
attitudes and mores is not so clear. Despite the gains made during the 1960s – some say as a result of the liberating effect of hormonal contraception – some pretty severe backward steps have been taken in recent years. Over US$200
million of federal funding per year is being spent on abstinence-only education
in US schools, despite the lack of any research evidence that this approach
is in any way successful, and President Bush's US$15 billion emergency five-year
plan for AIDS relief in poorer countries has been heavily criticized for its
insistence that a fair proportion of its prevention efforts must be spent
on `abstinence-based education'. Wider contexts, such as poverty and gendered
power imbalances, get little mention in the plan. And part of the moral right's
campaign to defend their approach involves attacking the initial Kinsey research
as well as the continuing work of the Institute established in his name (now
called the Kinsey Institute for Research on Sex, Gender and Reproduction).
Its recently retired Director has written a most disturbing article in which
he documents the long-running campaign to discredit and demonize Kinsey himself,
and to use him `as a scapegoat for many of society's current problems' (Bancroft,
2004). There have been a series of intensive personal attacks and counter-attacks,
actual and threatened lawsuits, the threat of withdrawal of research funding
for seemingly purely political reasons, a number of books and articles accusing
Kinsey of scientific fraud and child abuse, and rampant expressions of homophobic
attitudes. James Jones's book exposes Kinsey's hidden life as well as his
public achievements, and makes it pretty clear that there are some strong
links between the two arenas. But, in order to command respect for his public
persona-as-scientist, Kinsey had to keep his secret life hidden from view.
That he should feel the need to do this whilst exposing the hypocrisy of American
culture at the time is indeed ironic. But, equally, by delving so deeply into
this private arena, and exposing it so vividly, Jones himself may have fed
the opponents of Kinsey and his followers much useful material with which
(suitably embellished) to discredit these achievements. Sex remains, and may
well do so for many years hence, a challenging topic.
Bancroft, J. 2004: Alfred C. Kinsey and the politics of sex research, Annual Review of Sex Research 15, 1—39.