Alfred Kinsey founded the Institute for Sex
Research at Indiana University, now called the Kinsey Institute for
Research in Sex, Gen. His two landmark books, Sexual Behavior
in the Human Male in 1948 and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female in 1953
reached the top of the New York Time's bestseller
list and helped launch the sexual revolution of
the 1960s.
The media went nuts over Kinsey. He was the cover boy for all of
the national magazines. Time magazine gushed over Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male, and wrote "Not since Gone With the
Wind had booksellers seen anything like it."
The first pop culture references to Kinsey
appeared shortly after the book's publication. In 1949, Mae West,
reminiscing on the days when the word "sex" was rarely uttered, said of
Kinsey, "That guy merely makes it easy for me. Now I don't have to draw
'em any blueprints...We are both in the same
business...Except I saw it first."
The publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Female prompted
even more intensive news coverage and Kinsey even appeared on the cover
of the August 24, 1953, The lead article concludes with the following
observation: "'Kinsey...has done for sex what Columbus did for
geography/" Just a few months later, the third season of the CBS
television series I Love Lucy, featured the episode, 'Fan Magazine
Interview' in which
Lucy Ricardo and her neighbor Ethel Mertz pretended to be conducting a poll and wanted to ask a woman some
questions. The woman replied, "Say, your name ain't Kinsey, is it?"
Both books stirred to a storm of controversy, primarily from the
Christian Right. Judith A. Reisman, head of RSVP America, allegeed that
Kinsey and his staff sexually abused children to produce some of the
data in the Kinsey Reports. James H. Jones's biography, Alfred C.
Kinsey: A Public/Private Life, describes Kinsey as bisexual and
experimenting in masochism, and claims that he encouraged group sex
involving his graduate students, wife and staff.
The 2000s have seen renewed interest in Kinsey. The musical Dr. Sex
focuses on the relationship between Kinsey, his wife, and their shared
lover Wally Matthews. The biographical film Kinsey (2004) stars
Liam Neeson as the scientist and Laura Linney as his wife. In 2005, PBS
produced the documentary Kinsey. We recommend the pairing
this documentary with Sex in a Pan as his birthday tributes. This popular dessert, also known as the
Better than Sex Cake. There are some minor variations of this
dessert including one called Better than Robert Redford Cake
that used chopped Hershey bars instead of semi-sweet chocolate chips. |