Running Head: ALFRED KINSEY AND SEXUALIY

Alfred Kinsey and Sexuality McKenna Talley, Hilary Holdsworth, Scott Halle, Ee Chien Chua, Drew Flack, Michelle Hintze and Emelia Sines Brigham Young University

ALFRED KINSEY AND SEXUALITY Alfred Kinsey and Sexuality Born into a world of strict social mores surrounding sexuality and gender roles, Alfred Kinsey broke boundaries that led to revolutions that would define human sexuality for his time as well as the future. He endured many experiences in his life that directed him toward a study of sexuality and societys perceptions of the sexuality of others. His studies and findings contributed to psychology and humanity as he pushed the limits on issues that were not commonly discussed. Alfred Kinsey was born June 23, 1894 in New Jersey. As a child and adolescent he battled a variety of diseases including: rheumatic fever, rickets, and typhoid fever. Due to the poverty of his family he did not receive adequate healthcare treatment. Because of these health records, he must have lived in unsanitary conditions. His health prohibited him from being drafted in World War I. Much of his life was also impacted by his Christian upbringing (Time, 1953). During his childhood, Kinsey showed a keen interest in nature and camping, often working and camping with the YMCA. He intentionally planned to work for YMCA when he

completed his education. He also joined the Boy Scouts which centered heavily on the Christian principles he was familiar with. Kinsey was quiet and hard-working. As a child he exhibited a lack of interest in sports but excelled in areas such as academics and the piano. He graduated high school with an interest in scienceespecially biology, botany, and zoology. Kinsey desired to pursue collegiate studies surrounding botany, but his father believed that he should study to become an engineer. Because of his fathers wishes he attended Stevens Institute of Technology studying Engineering. After two years there, his father finally relented and Kinsey attended Bowdoin College in Maine. After the decision was made, the relationship between him and his

ALFRED KINSEY AND SEXUALITY father was never the same. This was something that he regretted the rest of his life. He graduated cum lade from Bowdoin with degrees in biology as well as psychology, and went on

to attend Harvard University where he finished his graduate studies in their biology program. In 1921 Alfred Kinsey married Clara Bracken McMillen and had four children. Their first-born died before the age of five due to acute complications of juvenile diabetes. They also had two daughters and another son (Time, 1953). Kinsey is often regarded as the father of sexology, which is the scientific study of Human Sexuality, and is also regarded as an enabler of the sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. His research included theories, observation and participation. He also wrote about preadolescents and their sexual drives and has been a big influence in the media and its portrayal of sexuality. Alfred Kinsey contributed to psychology mainly by helping to give a different perspective on the sexuality of human beings. His research stemmed from the idea that everyone should be accepted for whatever sexuality they are comfortable with and should not be pressured by society to live a certain way or to act appropriately according to certain morals that do not apply to everyone. He wanted to help people that struggled with sexuality issues and provide research that helped psychiatrists and society understand how sexuality works (Kinsey et al. 1998). Kinsey was against labeling people as either homosexual or heterosexual because sexuality, according to him, was something that fluctuated and changed over time. Depending on what life situations a person was in would play a role in how they viewed their own sexuality. He wanted to get rid of the idea that homosexuality was deviant in the first place and show that the average man participated in certain sexual activities on a normal basis outside the social eye. Kinseys word was fluid; sexuality was fluid and therefore it could not be criminal to act on

ALFRED KINSEY AND SEXUALITY desires to engage in sexual behaviors with people of the same sex (p. 1106). He believed that

sexuality was more accurately represented by a continuum than by a homo/heterosexual binary (Drucker, 2010, p. 1107). In his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male he attempted to explain these concepts and more. Basically everything that he stated in his research and theories went against everything that was popular in society at the time. His views shook the grounds of domestic stability, security, and the nuclear family (p. 1107). Sexual Behavior in the Human Male is his culminating work in which he describes the interviews of 5,300 men about their sexuality and sexual activity and then interprets their answers (p. 1108). Throughout his chapters he also stated that the sexual activities of men were actually much higher than had previously been recorded. He found that 7.6% of men had seven or more outlets (orgasms) per week which meant that they had to be taking part in more sexual activity than was on record (p. 1109). He brought about the idea that the fullest expression of masculinity was to respond to all possible stimuliwith oneself or with whomever or whatever one found available (p. 1110). He saw men as masculine as long as they were expressing themselves sexually, not who they were expressing themselves sexually with, and thus homosexuality was something that should not be looked down upon; men were just expressing their masculinity whether they were homosexual or not (p. 1110). In the book he also created a scale, which he is most known for referred to as the 0-6 scale, with 0 representing exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual, 1 being predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual, 3 being equally heterosexual and homosexual, 4 being predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual, 5 predominantly homosexual, but incidentally heterosexual and 6 being exclusively homosexual taking into account all sexual activity from childhood. Males do not represent two

ALFRED KINSEY AND SEXUALITY discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual was a phrase that Kinsey believed and which drove most of his work and explained the reasoning behind the 0-6 scale (p. 1117). He also wrote a book that talked about these same ideas, but from the perspective of women that stated that women also participated in more sexual activity than was thought. The ideas in the Sexual Behavior in the Human Female helped move the issue of female sexuality on to the agenda of the growing women's movement of the late 1960s and the 1970s, and to encourage further studies of female sexuality (Bullough, 1998).

He denied the idea that homosexuality was caused by biology because if scientists tried to explain homosexuality, and to link it with anatomy, physiology, or culture, it was also necessary to explain heterosexuality, and every mix of behavior in between (Drucker, 2010, p. 1118). This is the idea that has affected psychology and media in the biggest way. The idea that homosexuality was not something to be shunned and not something that could be explained by biology or culture, but just another aspect of normal human behavior was shocking to society as a whole and was quite hard for people to accept, and still is difficult. This changed the way therapy was done and the way psychology viewed homosexuality because before this homosexuality was listed in the DSM as a mental disorder. Now, according to Kinsey, it is just another aspect of life, not something that should be treated or fixed. He changed the parameters of research on homosexuality to orient around behavior, which could be observed and recorded, rather than markers of personality, psychology, or mannerisms, which he considered subjective. (p. 1119). Not only did he change the construct of how sexuality was researched, he also challenged constructions of how sexual acts constituted sexual identity, and of how sexual identity itself constituted a marker of modernity (p. 1119). He also brought about the idea that the most appropriate extramarital affair, from the

ALFRED KINSEY AND SEXUALITY standpoint of preserving a marriage, was an alliance in which neither party became overly

involved emotionally, which seems to have given rise to the idea that affairs are not such a bad thing and that it is okay to have open relationships with people which are popular beliefs in todays society (Bullough, 1998). Kinseys studies have defined a century of beliefs based around sexuality. Though many of his ideas are still debated and controversial today, Kinsey was a key figure in sexual revolutions of the latter end of the 20th century and many of his ideas coincide with the mainstream thoughts of the present. Kinsey broke boundaries by challenging the social mores of society. It has been said, Kinsey has done for sex what Columbus did for geography (Time, 1953).

ALFRED KINSEY AND SEXUALITY References Bullough, Vern L. (1998). Alfred Kinsey and the Kinsey Report: Historical Overview and Lasting Contributions. Journal of Sex Research, 35. "Dr. Kinsey of Bloomington." Time Magazine 8 Aug. 1953. Web. 4 June 2011. Drucker, Donna. "Male Sexuality and Alfred Kinsey's 0-6 Scale: Toward A Sound Understanding of the Realities of Sex." Journal of Homosexuality 57.9 (2010): 1105123. Print. Kinsey, Alfred C., Wardell Baxter. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1998. Print.