Why Are We Still HereEssay Preview: Why Are We Still HereReport this essayTalk like that made people really mad at Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey. When his first study of human sexual behavior was published in 1947, it was more or less universally agreed that masturbation would make you go blind or insane, that homosexuality was an extremely rare deviation, that most sex was within marriage and most married couples limited themselves to the missionary position.
Kinsey interviewed thousands of Americans over a period of years, and concluded: Just about everybody masturbates, 37 percent of men have had at least one homosexual experience, there is a lot of premarital and extramarital sex, and the techniques of many couples venture well beyond the traditional male-superior position.
It is ironic that Kinseys critics insist to this day that he brought about this behavior by his report, when in fact all he did was discover that the behavior was already a reality. Theres controversy about his sample, his methods and his statistics, but ongoing studies have confirmed his basic findings. The decriminalization of homosexuality was a direct result of Kinseys work, although there are still nine states where oral sex is against the law, even within a heterosexual marriage.
“Kinsey,” a fascinating biography of the Indiana University professor, centers on a Liam Neeson performance that makes one thing clear: Kinsey was an impossible man. He studied human behavior but knew almost nothing about human nature, and was often not aware that he was hurting feelings, offending people, making enemies or behaving strangely. He had tunnel vision, and it led him heedlessly toward his research goals without prudent regard for his image, his family and associates, and even the sources of his funding.
Neeson plays Kinsey as a man goaded by inner drives. He began his scientific career by collecting and studying 1 million gall wasps, and when he switched to human sexuality he seemed to regard people with much the same objectivity that he brought to insects. Maybe that made him a good interviewer; he was so manifestly lacking in prurient interest that his subjects must have felt they were talking to a confessor imported from another planet. Only occasionally is he personally involved, as when he interviews his strict and difficult father (John Lithgow) about his sex life, and gains a new understanding of the man and his unhappiness.
The movie shows Kinsey arriving at sex research more or less by accident, after a young couple come to him for advice. Kinsey and his wife Clara McMillen (Laura Linney) were both virgins on their wedding night (he was 26, she 23) and awkwardly unsure about what to do, but they worked things out, as couples had to do in those days. Current sexual thinking was summarized in a book called Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique, by Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde, a volume whose title I did not need to double-check because I remember so vividly finding it hidden in the basement rafters of my childhood home. Van de Velde was so cautious in his advice that many of those using the book must have succeeded in reproducing only by skipping a few pages.
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While he sometimes went ahead and wrote about the film, Kinsey was more interested in just how much time and effort it took to “give” himself to a certain degree. He told his co-stars just how much work he had put into the film and that he had no idea if they would make it. He described himself as “not to the point that we would think about what the film did.” Kinsey explained he had taken the film as he saw fit, but told them he felt a responsibility to put his movies out.
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With each new day, we are reminded of what we feel, what we know, what we seek, what we can take. We are aware of our surroundings. This is especially true for Kinsey, a man who had to deal with constant, uncomfortable and uncomfortable thoughts.
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From Kinsey’s perspective, he is not trying to find his own path or find the same path every day. Instead he is simply following the “rules of the game” to develop an advantage over others. He is not trying to conquer everyone or even achieve some goal (he feels in control). He feels as though he is about to find himself a “true master.”
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But his own journey begins with a sense at first frustration, a self-disgust, fear that was building up a new life for him, just a new reality. And as his first year of college began, he understood that his journey took him to a new place. For the first two years of his second year, he was frustrated that he couldn’t make it. And he came to terms with some of that frustration as well. He was disappointed that it was too late and that the man he dated didn’t just feel like he loved him. After the first “test” he realized he didn’t have many friends to date. He couldn’t leave him without seeing how happy they were because everyone at work was like, “Oh, it’s so cool.” This is the first experience in which an attraction was in complete control; it’s like when the first time you see your girlfriend, you find her like-minded and enthusiastic, and then when you look at her like that, you see her on a scale from really high, to a pretty poor, to really low. That is when the attraction begins to build, then it doesn’t. There is no shame, there is no despair, nothing to go through. His sexual feelings are only there for fleeting moments. He starts to feel more hopeful, more fulfilled, and more empowered.
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One of Kinsey’s most popular books, A Real Marriage, is about the