Demythologizing the Kinsey Reports By Sister Renee Mirkes, O.S.F. though the 50th anniversary 2003) of the IUnsey Reports KRs) received modest atten­ tion from the news media, I assure you that the folks at the Kinsey Institute, their friends and supporters, were pub­ licly toasting their founder's sociologi­ cal triumphs. They understood why this commemoration deserved a Page I, above-the-fold spot. And, truth to tell, they were dead right. After all, it was only 50 years ago that Alfred C. IUnsey launched a cul­ ture war that has been decisive in advancing major, hard-to-win behav­ ioral and social changes - and in record time, to boot. Protestations of scholarly objectivity notwithstanding, Alfred Kinsey the simple fact is that the implicit social propaganda that permeates IUnsey's 10 I," the legal/political movement that "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," would define same-sex unions as mar­ published in 1948, and "Sexual riage, the Supreme Court decision Behavior in the Human Female," (Lawrence et at. vs. Texas) that would released five years later - the ethics of find no state interest in protecting sexu­ tolerance and sexual liberation - has al values - all could, if they wanted, been instrumental in changing the sexu­ point to professor Kinsey and his sex al behavior and milieu of millions of studies for their "scientific" validity. Americans. The Catholic response? Demytholo­ As a scientific reference point, the gizing, not hand-wringing, should be KRs provide legitimacy for every sort of the order of the day. For, only until we contemporary "sexual athlete": Playboy intelligently challenge at least some of hedonist, exhibitionist, voyeurist, pedo­ the IUnseyan myths - those uncritical­ phile, transvestite, fetishist of every ly accepted beliefs that ground the KRs stripe. Similarly, our so-called absti­ - will we be able to thwart their contin­ nence-based public sex-education pro­ ued domestication and to expose their grams that even the kids dub "Porn errors. 44/THE CATHOLIC ANSWER Myth #1: The raw scientific data of the are involved in so many varied, "non­ Reports which argues that the studies people's sexual attitudes and mores Kinsey Reports constitute a definitive traditional" kinds of sexual behavior are more unrepresentative of human change very slowly. He was confident, authority regarding sexual behavior. with so much sexual satisfaction, such sexual behavior than they are represen­ however, that once people had the What should not escape our notice activity cannot be as bad for human tative. The fust Report doesn't describe Kinsey Report "facts," the sexual is how, from authors to reviewers, all beings and society as legal and religious the sexual behavior of the average male changes already in the air would even­ seem to faJJ into the habit of reveren­ norms have formerly duped them into as the study's title implies. It records tually seem irrefutable and irreversible. tially writing about either of the Kinsey believing. To disprove this myth is to the experiences of only 5,300 No matter how many times Kinsey Reports as "the Report." In the written demonstrate why the alleged authority Caucasian, middle-class, college-educat­ feigned the objectivity of being nothing context, the capital "R" subtly dictates of the Reports is far from conclusive or ed, under-35-years-of-age American other than a counter and a classifier - that the reader, at least subconsciously, definitive. Two questions are pertinent males, many of whom were chosen the study reported "what people do," acknowledge the singular importance How scientifically rigorous are the because their sexual lifestyles con­ raising "no question of what they and scientific authority of these stud­ Kinsey Reports? Are they a truly defin­ formed to the Kinseyan pansexual, the­ should do" - it just ain't so. His data ies. (Similarly, look at how, of all the itive account of male and female sexual more-the-merrier, schematic. Similarly, are a thinly veiled polemic. The real piUs in the world, the capital-p "Pill" behavior? the second Report is far from represen­ Kinsey, then, was a supremely confi­ refers only to that most famous of pills, One critic's assessment of the tative of sexual behavior among average dent scientific observer turned philoso­ the oral contraceptive.) Reports summarily answers the ques­ females. Only 6,000 American, female pher/social engineer, says Jones. What To read the Reports is, in effect, to tion of scientific rigor. Kinsey's field­ volunteers were interviewed, most of got this sexual taxonomist out of bed in hear Kinsey and his associates cry: workers, Philip J. Pauly points out in whom were "frustrated, neurotic, out­ the morning and kept him burning the "Pure Science!" and "Raw Scientific "Biologists and the Promise of casts of society," according to James H. lab lights long into the night was his Data!" with every turn of the page. This American Life" (1997), "had traveled Jones in "Alfred C. Kinsey: A goal of a sexual utopia, the end of edu­ studied effect- science is the defmitive the countryside, opportunistically inter­ Public/Private Life" ( 1997). cating Americans "to think of sexuality authority on sexuality - lies in the viewing idiosyncratic populations As a result, the studies' methodology as fundamentally a biological issue," authors' hope that their awestruck about unverifiable, often long-past and sampling techniques can hardly be according to Pauly. readers will genuflect before this latest events, and then shoehorned responses characterized as scientifically rigorous Against this backdrop, Kinsey had a manifestation of the "science god." into a biological framework whose or "pure." Examples are instructive. definite preference for homosexuality Kinsey et al. unquestionably trust that intellectual limitations were papered Kinsey purposefully dedicated more and pansexuality, and he defmitely was as each table, chart or graph quantita­ over by the quantity of data." pages in his book to homosexual behav­ of a mind to shape the average tively (and mechanically) describes In other words, their lack of scientif­ ior than he did to that of married per­ American's preference in that image. every intimate aspect of what, for the ic rigor is rooted in the fact that the sons. Furthermore, the manner in Along with other sex biologists of the most part, was formerly considered Kinsey Reports were, at base, a social which he conducted the Reports virtu­ early 20th century, Kinsey was fully taboo sexual behavior, the reader will survey with all the subjective factors ally guaranteed that Kinsey would fmd aware that, with persistent effort, sci­ ever more surely conclude that, at last, that infect "the collection, tabulation, what he was looking for - namely, nat­ ence could have a major impact on sex­ this granddaddy of all scientific studies and analysis of responses to a ques­ ural (normal), robust sex for American ual thinking and behavior within the is just that definitive. tionnaire." How reliable, for instance, adults is best defmed as "variety" sex. larger movement of the "modernization With 6,000 case studies recounting is the response of Kinsey's record-keep­ This thinking touts that the normal of sex." In other words, these highly male sexual behavior and 5,300 cases ing pedophile that the children he vic­ American will (and should) find release influential, intellectual elitists - crypto­ recounting female sexual activity, how tirnized derived "definite pleasure from in as many outlets - self, heterosexuals, reformers all - recognized, but would could any unsuspecting reader of the the situation [of molestation]?" As homosexuals, children, adolescents and never publicly admit, the lesson that Kinsey Reports not be bowled over by Pauly noted, "Looking to sexual moles­ animals - and with as much frequency social scientists learned long before: the sheer force of numbers? And, by ters for information on childhood sexu­ as his or her sexual milieu will allow. Science and its so-called raw data have ever so subtly leading the reader to req­ ality is like drawing conclusions on the the power to manipulate, adjust and uisite attitudinal changes, Kinsey and sexuality of adult females from the tes­ Myth #2: The Kinsey Reports represent abrogate both sexual mores and sex­ his associates were betting the farm timony of rapists." morally agnostic science: Their data offender laws. that members of their audience would And, as to the defmitive nature of merely describe sexual behavior; they do So, when Kinsey reported that 92 be tempted to a non-sequitur kind of the Reports' data, I defer to a repeated not, nor will not, judge it. percent of American males and 62 per­ reasoning. If so many successful people (and valid) criticism of the Kinsey Kinsey was right about one thing: cent of American females masturbated, 46/THE CATHOLIC ANSWER THE ClTHOUC ANSWER/ 47 he was very much hoping that the read­ instrumental in putting the mantle of It has nothing whatever to do with giv­ cal and physiological; one's sexual life er would think: "Well, then, why should scientific legitimacy around various ing of self and receiving the other as a has no connection with one's emotional I feel shame about doing so?" And, strains of the revolution, such as the gift. Since, for Kinsey, sex has nothing or social life. when he reported that "half or more of women's movement. If there is one aim to do with love, it would have been The best way to demythologize this the boys in an uninhibited society could of Margaret Sanger and her latter-day completely out of character for him to sort of opinion about the nature of sex­ reach climax by the time they were disciples to which Kinsey was also see sex in procreative terms - that is, to ual experience is to ask reasonable peo­ three or four years of age, and that near­ attached, it was that of affording (genet­ see life as the culminating manifesta­ ple (those who can get out from under ly aU of them could experience such a ically superior) women the way and the tion of love.