As opposed to early sexologists such as Richard Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis, who categorized types of behavior as 'abnormal' or 'perverted,' Kinsey eschewed both the moralism of religion and the pathologizing gaze of psychiatry. Kinsey believed that everyone had the capacity for homosexuality, and so he spoke only of homosexual behavior, not about distinct identities or persons. Although the scale was unsuccessful as a research tool, it helped destabilize the cultural acceptance of rigid sexual categories. The well-known Kinsey Scale suggested that individuals might be located on a 0–6 continuum ranging from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual in both sexual involvement and interest. He challenged the notion of fixed sexual identities that nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century sexologists had advanced, arguing that 'The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats' (1948, p. Kinsey's significant legacy in the study of LGB people is largely conceptual and political rather than empirical. This led postwar LGBT communities to perceive him as an ally.

His insistence that he was an objective scientist translated into a refusal to condemn minority sexual groups. For example, he harshly condemned sex laws, especially the sexual psychopath laws that frequently targeted gay men.

Although he studied how social variables such as class, gender, and religion shaped an individual's 'total sexual outlet,' he generally viewed these as constraints on a 'natural' sexuality rooted in 'our mammalian heritage.' His focus on the 'natural' led Kinsey to criticize social institutions or customs that he saw as impeding sexual expression. Kinsey viewed sexual behavior as the result of a complex interplay of biological, psychological, and social influences. Although based on large numbers of adults, the Kinsey findings on sexuality could not accurately be generalized to the population at large because he used volunteers in his research rather than a representative random sample. The average interview lasted from ninety minutes to two hours, covering hundreds of items. The Kinsey team did not include the interviews they conducted with African Americans because the team believed its sample was not large enough.

His subjects were often members of particular institutions he visited, such as prisons, schools, or workplaces. Both Kinsey reports were based upon extensive sex histories conducted with almost twelve thousand white women and men. His pioneering research played a significant role in the transition from religious to scientific authority over matters of sexuality in the United States.ĭespite its shortcomings, Kinsey's research represented a significant departure from earlier sex research, particularly that of the case study method of psychoanalysis. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) gave the postwar nation a glimpse into American sexual lives while also underscoring the chasm between sexual norms and actual behavior. Kinsey and his associates at the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University (later named the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction) are best known for the two volumes popularly dubbed the Kinsey Reports. He became an assistant professor of zoology at Indiana University in 1920, where for twenty years he specialized in research on the gall wasp. Kinsey was a graduate of Bowdoin College and the Bussey Institute at Harvard.

Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, Kinsey later married Clara Bracken McMillen they had four children, one of whom died just before his fifth birthday. 25 August 1956), biologist, sex researcher.Īlfred Kinsey ranks as one of the most influential sex researchers (sexologists) of the twentieth century.

Alfred kinsey controversy