1. Alfred Charles Kinsey SAMANTHA BORKGREN

2. Father: Alfred Seguine Kinsey  Born in Mendham, New Jersey in 1871  His family moved to Hoboken, New Jersey shortly after.  When he was 13, he left school to find work. He only reached 8 th grade.  At 15, his father, a carpenter, placed him at the Stevens Institute of Technology – a trade school – as a shop assistant.  He stayed at the Institute for the rest of his working life – 55 years.  In 1908, he became a full professor.  In 1892, he was finally able to afford to get married.

3. Mother: Sarah Ann Charles  She was a carpenter’s daughter.  She only had a fourth grade education so she was virtually uneducated.  She was a very gentle woman, but she was totally dominated by her iron-hard, stubborn, and dictatorial husband.

4. Alfred Charles Kinsey: Childhood  Born in Hoboken, New Jersey on June 23, 1894 in a poor, cramped, cold-water rental.  Not a happy one!  Three main influences on his childhood: poverty, illness, and religion.

5. Poverty  His mother would run up debts at the stores and send Alfred to beg for more credit. He felt humiliated by begging.  He was bullied as a child. He would use his allowance to escape the bullies.  His sister Mildred was born in 1896 which increased the deficiencies already present in Alfred’s diet.  They lived in a poor neighborhood with unpaved roads which led to poor drainage and sanitation.

6. Illness  Kinsey spent most of the first 10 years of his life in bed. He missed a lot of school and was isolated from the other kids.  He had normal childhood illnesses such as measles and chicken pox.  He also had rickets and rheumatic fever which are mostly considered third world diseases now.

7. Religion  His family belonged to a strict group of Methodists and his father was the strictest of them all.  Sundays were a day for church – and nothing else.  His father was very egotistical in his lectures.  His father tried to reform the whole neighborhood and would use Alfred as bait.

8. Kinsey gets Typhoid Fever – Yay!  In 1903, Kinsey contracts a more serious disease – there was no treatment at the time and mortality rates were 60% for young children.  Agonizingly painful and lasts for about a month.  The high fevers that ranged from 104°F - 106°F killed off the streptococcal bacterium of his rheumatic fever.  Kinsey’s health and the family finances improve, and they move to South Orange.

9. South Orange  Bullying continues at first – until Alfred’s parents intervene and tell the other parents that it is not only morally wrong to bully Alfred, but also dangerous because his heart has been weakened by illness and he won’t live past 21.  Girard Oberrender and Don Salisbury become Alfred’s protectors.  Alfred believes that he is going to die young and becomes afraid that he might die before he can complete everything that he starts.

10. Kinsey Discovers the Outdoors  Doctor’s orders: get outside and walk.  Becomes interested in Biology because of Natalie Roeth.  In 1908, Robert is born and scouting starts in England.  In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America starts and Kinsey joins immediately.  He passes all the tests in two years and becomes one of the first Eagle Scouts.

11. Kinsey’s Early Sexuality  In 1913, Kinsey began talking to the kids at camp about their questions and fears about sex.  Religion and his father’s influence created a lot of guilt and confusion for Alfred and other teenagers about sex, particularly masturbation.  The Venereal Disease Epidemic created the idea that sex was not only sinful, but dangerous.

12. Stevens Institute of Technology  Kinsey attended only because his father wanted him to be an engineer.  He hated it and struggled at first, particularly in physics.  But he started to work hard in his classes because of his competitive spirit.  After two years, he’d had enough and confronted his father.

13. Bowdoin College  Kinsey started in 1914 and received a $200 scholarship.  He majored in Psychology and Zoology, and minored in Botany.  He started as a junior but worked almost the whole time in order to catch up on classwork and because he had no friends.  He graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1916.

14. Bussey Institute  He received a scholarship.  William Morton Wheeler, an atheist and a famous entomologist is his greatest influence.  He write his dissertation on the gall wasp.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOgP5NzcTuA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOgP5NzcTuA  In 1919, he graduated with a PhD and used his Sheldon Travelling Scholarship to start collecting gall wasps.

15. The Gall Wasp  He was fascinated by their extreme variability due to his interests in Darwin and evolution.  The gall wasp was largely unresearched in North America.  He wanted to become the expert on the gall wasp and have the biggest collection.  He had 7.5 million wasps in his collection.  He was a pioneer of taxonomy.

16. Kinsey the Collector  Gall Wasps  Pressed Flowers, Leaves, Ferns  Records – “Pancake Discs”  Irises  Stamps  Butterflies  Sex Histories

17. Indiana University  Wheeler recommended him for the job.  His starting salary was $2,000 a year and $800 was set aside for gall hunting.  Kinsey accepted and started teaching as an assistant professor of zoology in 1920.

18. Clara Bracken McMillen – “Mac”  They met briefly – she noticed him, he didn’t notice her.  She takes the matter in her own hands on the zoology department picnic trip.  They begin dating – sort of.  He proposes, but she rejects him because of another proposal.  Shortly after, she accepts his proposal after a basketball game.  They were married June 21, 1912.

19. The Honeymoon  They went hiking in the White Mountains through strong winds, snow storms, hail, and rain.  They tried to consummate their marriage on the trip – unsuccessfully!  They ran into physical problems: Kinsey had an extremely large penis, and Mac had a very thick hymen.  There were psychological problems as well: They were both virgins, they had to overcome their learned inhibitions, and they were trying to make love for the first time in a blizzard on a mountainside.

20. Kinsey’s Family  Donald was born July 1922, Anne was born January 1924  Donald fell sick shortly before Joan was born in October 1925  He had an operation on his thyroid, but fell very ill in March 1926. He was diagnosed with diabetes and died shortly after.  Bruce was born November 1928.

21. An Introduction to Biology  It was published in October 1926.  It combined zoology and biology, which was seen as impossible at the time.  It stated Darwin’s principles of evolution and natural selection as scientific fact.  He wanted to get students to learn by exploring, observing, collecting, and testing for themselves so he published a companion volume for teachers: Field and Laboratory Manual in Biology.

22. His Gall Wasp Books  The Gall Wasp Genus Cynips – A Study in the Origin of Species was published in 1930.  It pioneered the use and publication of vast numbers, wide geographical range, and numerous measurements.  He produced a thorough taxonomy of almost an entire genus.  The Origins of Higher Categories in Cynips was published in 1936.  This book challenged the existence of higher categories (earlier categories).

23. The Marriage Course  In the spring of 1938, the Association of Women Students approached the President of Indiana University and asked for a course.  The first course was only offered to married or engaged students, seniors/last year student, and faculty and their wives.  The course was very necessary: the ignorance surrounding sex was very high.  6 biology lectures taught by Kinsey, 5 other lectures by other faculty on economics, sociology, psychology, law, and religious aspects  The most revolutionary aspect was that Kinsey would ask for sex histories at the end of every class.

24. Sex Histories – “Conferences”  350 basic questions and 220 “unusual” questions conducted in an interview setting.  Kinsey used a complicated code that was never written down.  One page could take 25 pages of information.  He only taught 3 members of his team the code: Pomeroy, Martin, and Gebhard.  It took between 30 minutes and 3 hours to complete one interview.  He would move from innocuous to significant questions – it took him 20 minutes to ask about sex.

25. Kinsey and Homosexuality  He developed a scale to rank heterosexuality and homosexuality in 1939.  Kinsey falls along this continuum, but never as a 6.  He fell in love three times: Mac, Ralph Voris, and Clyde Martin.

26. Kinsey’s Team Kinsey, Martin, Gebhard, Pomeroy  Clyde Martin: met Kinsey in 1939. He was the third and last person that Kinsey fell in love with.  Wardell Pomeroy: gave his history to Kinsey in 1941 and joins the team in 1943.  Paul Gebhard: joins in 1946. He begins an affair with Martin’s wife Alice – who begins to fall in love with him and Kinsey tells him that the affair must stop.

27. Collecting Histories  In 1939, Kinsey goes to Chicago to collect homosexual histories.  Ralph Voris dies from pneumonia in May 1940 and Kinsey is devastated.  In 1940, ministers petition the University and Kinsey is forced to choose between teaching his marriage course and collecting histories – he is furious at first, and eventually chooses his histories.  He visited prisons – and felt that 90% of sexual crimes weren’t crimes at all.  His research is founded by the NRC and the Rockefeller Foundation.

28. The Male Volume  By the end of 1947, he had collected 12,214 sex histories  The book was published January 5 th, 1948  Three sections: History and Method, Factors Affecting Sexual Outlet, and Sources of Sexual Outlet  735 pages long  37% of men have had a homosexual experience to orgasm  10% of men have been exclusively homosexual during a 3 year period  4% of men have been exclusively homosexual their whole lives

29. Success and Criticism  It sold 40,000 copies in the first month.  By June, it was in its 8 th printing and was topping all the charts, including the New York Times bestseller list, and had sold 150,000 copies.  In the end, it sold 270,000 copies in 11 translated languages and sold in English in 80 countries.  Gallup poll: 78% approval, 10% disapproval  His data was gathered over 8 years  His samples weren’t random

30. The Female Volume  Kinsey started writing it in 1950 and it was published in September 1953  The media blew up over the book. The reactions were good - at first. Then came the outrage.  Despite the outrage, it sold faster than the male volume.

31. Kinsey’s Declining Health  In February 1954: the Rockefeller Foundation pulls it funding because they didn’t want to be associated with the subject of sex.  Kinsey’s health began to decline in June 1954 – he collapsed, spent some time in the hospital and began to use drugs to maintain the workload he was accustomed to.  He went on a trip to Peru and spent 2/3 of it in the hospital.  The last few years of his life were spent worrying about trying to get funding and him having multiple episodes of congestive heart failure that he kept trying to work though.

32. Kinsey’s Death  His last history, number 7,985 is taken in May 1956.  In June, the doctors told him that his heart was dangerously enlarged, his pulse erratic, and he had water retention problems, and would die if he didn’t let up.  He gave his last lecture on July 7 th to biology teachers on how to teach sex in high schools.  He died August 25, 1956 at the age of 62

33. Discussion Questions  How should we teach sex education in schools today?  Our culture today is very different from Kinsey’s time, but in what ways has our sex culture stayed the same?