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Alfred Kinsey: Sexual Behavior
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It’s the early 1900s, and young Alfred Kinsey is being raised in a strict Methodist home where newfangled inventions such as automobiles, electricity, telephones and zippers are thought to be the spawn of Satan. They’re just waiting to lure the unsuspecting into sexual immorality. Spurning his father’s wish that he become an engineer, Kinsey’s fascination with nature leads him to become an entomologist, specializing in the study of gall wasps.
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A look at the life of Alfred Kinsey (Neeson), a pioneer in the area of human sexuality research, whose 1948 publication "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" was one of the first recorded works that saw science address sexual behavior. more
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As Alfred Kinsey gathered information for his pioneering study of human sexuality, the question his subjects inevitably struggled with was that of normalcy. "Am I normal?" asked the young wife, innocent of the notion of foreplay, who found intercourse impossible. "Am I normal?" fretted the onanist, the lesbian, and anyone who did anything with their privates that failed to produce babies or conform to local erotic custom. By "normal," they meant "natural," and of the two fields of knowledge that define the idea of "natural," religion and science, the latter had barely begun to acknowledge it had a say in the matter.
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This astonishing biography of Alfred Kinsey, the man who launched the sexual revolution, is graphically frank about his decidedly out-of-the-mainstream sexual practices (including masochism and voyeurism), yet historian James Jones doesn't exploit the material for titillation. Instead, Jones argues compassionately and persuasively that Kinsey's personal sexual demons sparked his campaign to demolish Victorian taboos about sex by gathering the scientific data eventually published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). Jones reveals that the data were hardly as unbiased as Kinsey claimed, but it was world-shaking nonetheless. Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life is a magnificent work of cultural history as well as a sensitive study of a troubled individual.
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Alfred Kinsey was indeed a controversial figure of his era, particularly due to some of his views concerning human sexuality. One of his beliefs was that delaying marriage, and therefore, sex, was detrimental psychologically. His openness regarding taboo subjects such as homosexuality, pedophilia and group sex was most definitely contentious at the least, resulting in many criticizing not only his work but ... his character. By and large, Kinsey was respected for his scientific, methodical approach to a subject wrought with controversy.
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Alfred Charles Kinsey was a well-known entomologist, specializing in the study of gall wasps, when his increasing interest in human sexuality led him in a entirely new scientific direction. Appalled by the lack of reliable scientific information on human sexual practices and problems, Kinsey began conducting extensive interviews, first with his students and then with larger populations. Kinsey's landmark studies, which emphasized both the variety of human sexual activities and the prevalence of practices that were condemned by society, led to a new openness in attitudes toward sex. His work was part of trend in which laws were liberalized and sex education for children became commonplace. Kinsey's research revived interest in the science of "sexology."
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