Talk:Kinsey Reports

Discussion

OMG his sample wasn't random!! --welcome to psychology

Seriously, why are these presented as valid criticisms? I think they would be better termed as caveats, caveats which apply to lots of psychological research besides Kinsey's. Does anyone really think it is possible to obtain a random sample on a sex survey? I do this kind of thing for a living and let me tell you, you are lucky to get 50% response rate on a 5 item survey on something like water quality. Kinsey's work was and is phenomenal and is as scientific as anything is in psychology, his results are hardly more "controversial" in the field than evolution is in biology.

"Kinsey's own sexual behavior has been subject of more scrutiny than that of perhaps any other researcher."

- why? I dunno.

---

Conservative groups were trying to find evidence of "abnormal" sexual behavior, to argue that his primary interest was promoting this kind of behavior in the mainstream. "He's a pervert, so he's trying to make us all perverts", the logic goes. Don't look at me - read Reisman's work for a good example of that kind of propaganda. This is NPOV though -- that his sexual behavior has been examined to a very large extent is a fact. -- user:Eloquence

I guess it's similar to the scrutiny that a religious reformer would get: if you criticize the sins of society, society will look for ways to shut you up by calling you a hypocrite. But an ad hominem attack doesn't affect the soundness of a person's reasoning (not in my eyes, anyway). --Ed Poor

Are you saying that since all psychology satisitics are so biase, any rubbish is good as any? I disagree. Sampling of voting intention, for example, can be verified after the polling day. So not all sampling have to be rubbish. It's an another example of political incorrectness gone wrong when a valid academic criticism is accused of right leaning bias. Kinsely opened himself up for accusation of bias because he did something which is obviously faulty from the ouset. Vapour

There's a difference though: Kinsey wasn't a hypocrite, those who scrutinized his sexual behavior appealed to societal prejudices. The religious fundamentalist who preaches the evils of sex and then winds up in bed with a prostitute is a hypocrite. That doesn't make him wrong (to claim so would indeed be ad hominem) but it may make him less trustworthy. -- user:Eloquence

Perhaps I didn't make my point clear. I agree that someone who preaches one thing and does another is a hypocrite, and I have found that calling someone a hypocrite is often an effective way of getting people to dismiss what he says. My analogy may have gone too far, because I meant that Kinsey's opponents may have been trying to discredit him ad hominem by trying to dig up dirt on him. If he had been shown to be gay or a pedophile, I surmise, his opponents would have exposed him hoping that his research would be dismissed as self-serving.

Anyway, I'm not so interested in Kinsey's character as I am in his research methods: does his research tell us anything about American sexual practices? --Ed Poor

The intent of the attacks on Kinsey may have been to smear him as a paedophile, but even once it was accepted that he was not, the suggestion that he had used data made available to him by paedophiles through their criminal acts left an issue congnate to that of the use of data from Nazi medical experiments. In practice, this juxtaposition exposed apparent hypocrisy on both sides of the divide. -- Alan Peakall 17:45 Nov 29, 2002 (UTC)

Kinsey was rarely attacked on personal grounds in his heyday. Great emphasis was placed on his extensive, boring research on gall wasps to reassure the public that this was no weirdo, but a serious scientist who, having exhausted gall wasps, had simply moved on to another species to study. It is only recently that it has come to light that the Kinsey coterie were swingers, that Kinsey encouraged his wife to participate (pimped her, you might say), that he was a masochistic bisexual who had had gradually gone from a 6 to a 1 or whatever his scale about sexual preferences was, that the "research" on orgasms in infants and children was performed by pedophiles, etc.etc.etc. This all appeared in a serious work of scholarship that was excerpted in The New Yorker, hardly a hotbed of rightwing propaganda. For some non-rightwing examples, check out this link to Clean Sheets Erotica Magazine or this survey from Knitting Circle: Gay and Lesbian Studies. It seems natural that righwingers too should be taking this point up. I believe he was a hypocrite, however important his scholarship may have been. Deal with it. It is disingenuous to pretend there was no connection between his behavior (which he kept secret) and his research. Ortolan88

I am sorry my phrasing above was misleading. I meant even were it accepted that he was not (a paedophile). I accept that it may be the case that he was (I am not disinclined to deal with it), but the hypocrisy that I was referring to on the pro-Kinsey side was that of those who protested that Kinsey was subject to smears of guilt by association while reserving to themselves the right to assert a progressive identity by expressing moral outrage at the use of data from Nazi medical experiments. -- Alan Peakall.

Most of the dung-flinging against Kinsey comes from one person, Judith Reisman, who also believes that there's a huge homosexual conspiracy to turn children gay -- see article. What the propaganda against Kinsey has in common is this: a lot of funding from Christian-fundamentalist sources. Kinsey made absolutely clear in his book that the data came from men who had illegal sexual relationships with children. Where else should he have gotten the data from? Had he himself observed chilren's sexual behavior, the allegations would be even more furious. Child sexuality is one of western society's biggest taboos, and anyone who dares to violate it must be punished, if posthumously. From this it becomes understandable that a child who experiences orgasm must obviously have been "tortured", as some detractors have claimed. A child experiences orgasm? Unthinkable! --Eloquence

An Ad Hominem abusive against Kinsey does nothing at all to discredit his research. Even if he did every horrible act he's charged with that still doesn’t do a thing to make his research invalid. After all even Josef Mengele's work, though highly unethical, could contain useful research.--Matt 13:49, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Nothing to discredit his research? Using pedophiles to determine if children enjoy sex and experience orgasm? I've seen interviews with a man who had sex with his daughter, and he was quite adamant she "enjoyed it" and was a willing participant etc. Then she was interviewed, and said the opposite! Many pedophiles (like date rapists) insist their victims "enjoyed it" - it's self-serving. They have an obvious interest in exaggerating the "sexuality" of "children" and their ability to experience orgasm. If you cannot see this then you are blind. The fact that Kinsey went ahead and published this anyway, along with the rest of his work, does raise some questions about his data, as much of it is subjective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.161.78.193 (talk) 05:45, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

A tad too late, but even Oprah Winfrey told live on TV that the two guys allegedly sexually abused by Michael Jackson claimed they have found pleasure in being abused by Michael and claimed to have lied in court about that because they loved Michael and wanted to protect him. Oprah's point: except for violent child sexual abusers, the child usually likes being sexually abused. And she said that's the very perverse part of it, that children instead of blowing the whistle, they love the person who abuses them, and get desperate if they cannot be close to him/her. Oprah confessed that when she was a child she loved the person who was sexually abusing her. That's right, she did not hate him for sexually abusing her, she loved him. Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-oprah-child-abuse-idUSKBN22N2XI or https://www.podgist.com/oprahs-supersoul-conversations/oprah-winfrey-presents-after-neverland/index.html or see Nuns Sexually Abused These Women For Years. Now Survivors Speak Out. on YouTube, wherein the victims (female) tell it felt good and loved the women who abused them. The victims were seduced and made to feel special, feel loved and free. Experts say that victims spill the beans about sexual abuse when they are 50+, while the statute of limitations cancels their legal remedies about age 26. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:55, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

That was not Oprah's point whatsoever. And as for "liked being sexually abused"? No. The child has genitals. And if those genitals are sexually stimulated, pleasure can result. Child sexual abusers use this to act as though the child wanted it and/or consented. Little children's brains are not developed enough to understand what was done to them. Like I stated here, it's "often the case that when the victim becomes a late teenager or adult, they view the sexual activity as having been child sexual abuse because they did not have the cognitive ability to actually consent as a child. If they had been a late teenager or adult, they state that the sexual activity with the perpetrator would not have happened. So now, with the cognitive ability they didn't have as a child, they know that they were taken advantage of and it was victimization." Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:11, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I did not deny that. The girls abused by the nuns said they loved receiving gifts from them and living the privileges reserved to adults (e.g. drinking alcohol). Oprah's point in respect to them: they were bribed and seduced, they weren't raped with violence. Of course their mind was unripe. Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:18, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Your "02:55, 22 November 2020 (UTC)" post is all kinds of messed up. I do not think you understand the topics of pedophilia and child sexual abuse well, as should be clear by a discussion we once had at the Pedophilia talk page. I'm done replying to you in this section. I know that I'll just become more upset. This talk page should be archived. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:23, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Coming back to the accusation of Kinsey was a pedophile, his choice was clear: either accept the journal written by a pedophile or reject it. Kinsey did not encourage that pedophile to do "research", all "research" was already past time without any involvement from Kinsey. If Kinsey decided to turn the pedophile to prosecution, Kinsey's research would have been over. He promised keeping mum to all his respondents, pedophiles or not. In fact, the prosecution would not have wanted a single felon, but access to all the felons. And over 90% of the people interviewed by Kinsey were self-declared felons, according to the law of the land and time (practically any form of sex except for missionary position between the husband and his own wife was a severely punishable felony; while masturbation was something ascribed to mentally ill people in need of therapy). Compare this with war: war is highly immoral, but if no one fights for your country, your country is doomed. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:56, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Reisman's argument was Kinsey was the ideologue of the sexual revolution, and the sexual revolution led to widespread pedophilia. Well, that's empirically wrong. Pedophiles are the losers of the sexual revolution. We may even say they had a better position before the start of the sexual revolution. Many groups have won sexual liberties, but for pedophiles it turned from bad to worse. Source: Paternotte, David (2014). "16. Pedophilia, Homosexuality and Gay and Lesbian Activism". In Hekma, Gert; Giami, Alain (eds.). Sexual Revolutions. Genders and Sexualities in History. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 264. ISBN 978-1-137-32146-6. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:19, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Judith Reisman - censorship

Judith Reisman isn't mentioned in the text. Even if you don't like her, she has a page. Xx236 (talk) 10:41, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:ONEWAY. She is a WP:FRINGE/PS paranoid conspiracy theorist. She accuses a dead man of child sexual abuse and she does not have a shred of evidence (she claims that all the evidence is locked in the archives of the Kinsey Institute—and of course they never dared to show it to her, they would rather burn it than make it public, I suggest that she calls the cops before they do that). She makes agitation and propaganda with character assassination almost 63 years after he died. Sexologists who live by publish or perish have plonked her almost unanimously (telling them that they are Nazi serial pedophiles does not earn her friends). She has zero papers at PubMed (correct me if I'm wrong). By the titles of her books you shall know that those are paranoid rants. Her explanation for his success: Kinsey plotted because he was a madman, and universities all over the globe followed in his footsteps because academics are members of a gigantic Satanic planetary conspiracy. How do we call that? Systematized delirium. She claims that people who watch porn may no longer plead the First Amendment, for their own good, since porn is toxic and has subverted their cognition. Q.e.d. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:08, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Please discuss Judith Reisman there. I can see " is an American conservative author, best known for her criticism and condemnation of the work and legacy of Alfred Kinsey. " rather than " a WP:FRINGE/PS paranoid conspiracy theorist". Xx236 (talk) 06:57, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not joking. I wish it were a joke. The lady is mad and dangerous for sexual minorities all over the globe. She sells conspiracy theories and hate speech. According to her, homosexuals will revive Nazism in the USA. In respect to sexual morality, the Pope is more liberal than her. Even Pope Benedict XVI would not agree with her, since he disapproves rants (just because he is a conservative does not mean he would be a moron). She thinks that LGTBQ are a wing of the NSDAP and she uses all available means to fight against the Nazi party. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:38, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Ordeal which is basically confirmed by her obit at Wakefield, Lily (17 April 2021). "Anti-LGBT+ author Judith Reisman, who said homosexuals caused the rise of the Nazi party, dies aged 85". PinkNews. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:28, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Reisman was so fringe, that according to her obituary from The Washington Times, For her courageous work, Judith endured the scorn of the media, academia and even conservatives who were afraid of guilt by association. (My own bold letters, not from the original).

Mutatis mutandis, Richard B. Spence wrote about Secret Agent 666: Whether these antics delighted Viereck is uncertain, but if they were not also intended to lampoon and discredit Irish separatism, they certainly should have been. As such, they suited British interests very well.

The obit is right: conservatives who aren't foolish avoided her as the pest. Her allegations were a house of cards and every aware intellectual could see that. Her strategy was bluff, like in Bluff Your Way in Philosophy. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:45, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Basically, Reisman was a ranting, paranoid adept of McCarthyism. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:26, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Selective quotation, exaggeration, and outright lies are time-honored tactics of the Right. Judith Reisman has long circulated the calumny that Alfred Kinsey conducted sexual experiments on infants at his institute; she offers no substantiation.

— Judith Levine

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 08:21, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

References

Zoophilia

A recent edit added a brief section on zoophila. Not in of itself at all inappropriate, but I would note that rather than including a percentage-of-population figure for the estimate, as Kinsey's report did, and as all the other sections of this article do, it gives an absolute number - eight million. Normally, I would simply replace this with percentage figure estimates, citing a better source (e.g. Laws et al Sexual Deviance: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment which discusses Kinsey on zoophilia in greater detail [1]) but I suspect I would immediately be reverted, since the contributor responsible for this has been spamming the same source across multiple articles, seems entirely unaware of the controversy over Kinsey's figures, and appears to be under the impression that this specific number - eight million U.S. citizens, for a 70-year-old estimate - is somehow of critical importance to any current discussion on zoophilia. Either that, or there is some sort of conflict of interest here, though given the contributors self-evident lack of subject-matter knowledge, this seems unlikely. Anyway, I'd like to hear from other contributors: is the 'eight million' figure appropriate, or should we follow the rest of the article? And which source should we be citing? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:32, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Andythegrump continues to hunt my edits because he only wants to allow percentages and disallow total numbers instead of coming to consensus such as allowing both.Foorgood (talk) 15:53, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

This is exactly the nonsense I've been having to deal with over multiple articles. From someone who apparently thinks that, seventy years after the event, Kinsey's research "still considered to be trustworthy", [2] and therefore we have to provide an exact number for an arbitrary, unspecified, point in time, in a context where percentage estimates are both more meaningful, and more consistent. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:15, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

The Bloomsbury book source says "Although the research indicated that about eight million US citizens had engaged in zoophilia, this can only be a mere fraction of the actual number, as one has to take into account that many people would conceal such experiences" https://www.google.com/search?q=million+zoophiles+america&client=ms-android-uscellular-us-revc&prmd=vin&sxsrf=ALiCzsbp394V7EzVmB8ObUuN-ZEjEXBM3g:1669911438830&source=lnms&tbm=bks&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3i_jw6Nj7AhVPlmoFHVliBhgQ_AUoBnoECAMQBg&biw=360&bih=627&dpr=2Foorgood (talk) 16:18, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. Hence me pointing out that your claim that Kinsey is seen as 'trustworthy' is untenable. There are have been good arguments presented variously suggesting his estimates regarding sexual behaviour in general might be wildly wrong, in either direction. Compiling data on human behaviour which is not only widely regarded as deeply morally objectionable, but also illegal in many legislations, is always going to result in uncertainty. Raw number estimates, even when not referring to seventy-year-old research, need to be presented in a manner that doesn't make them seem more authoritative than even the researchers themselves would consider appropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:51, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I have already agreed to presenting the figures with a great disclaimer on the criticism of their accuracy.Foorgood (talk) 18:02, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles don't have 'disclaimers'. Or at least, they shouldn't. If recognised reliable sources question earlier research, their reasons for doing so should be laid out in detail, not merely alluded to. And you have still to explain why exactly you are so insistent on spamming multiple articles with an arbitrary number obtained by multiplying a 70-year-old estimate by the then U.S. population. Why is it so important that the result of this bit of arithmetic be included? It adds no information. The original estimate is given. Kinsey's result. His estimates were his conclusion. Questioned since, but at least in some contexts worth discussing. As the results of research from long ago, since disputed. Not definitive numbers. Estimates. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:14, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

This article already discusses the criticism at length. But while you only believe percentages are noteworthy, I as well as the Bloomsbury publishing source feel the total estimates are worthy as well.Foorgood (talk) 19:07, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Is there any evidence that Kinsey considered such 'totals' noteworthy? Does he even give them in his original reports? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:11, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

The Kinsey Reports are a primary source for the purposes of this article. Relaying any figures from them should be based on reasonably recent secondary sources, and I agree that percentages are preferable. Most likely those secondary sources will have plenty of worthwhile commentary, critique, and/or contextualization of Kinsey's figures. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:59, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Vandalism

@vandals: The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association basically endorse Kinsey's conclusions. If he merely were a prevaricator, how do you explain that his view is still scientifically correct in 2022? As a pioneering work, he did not have to be altogether correct, but preponderantly correct does the job. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:21, 5 December 2022 (UTC)