Resistance to Sex Research free essay sample

The stories were to be fact checked by Kinsey and his staff.. No photographs were to be taken and only photographs purchased from Kinsey were to be used in the publications. The media was truly eating from his hand. What forms of resistance did Dr. Kinsey’s sex research encounter? What social factors motivated the resistance? Which individuals and organizations motivated the resistance? While Kinsey’s early work was well received, his work was later largely regarded as taboo. Reaction to the second book was initially favorable. Analysis of the leading magazines found all but one (Cosmopolitan) favorable, and of 124 leading newspapers, 64 per cent were favorable to 31 not. [4]. But later comments were resistive and Kinsey was bantered by conservative and religious groups. The academic community also questioned his data collection and analysis practices. Dr. Kinsey’s work was eventually labeled by some as amoral and ungodly. Billy Graham declared that Dr. We will write a custom essay sample on Resistance to Sex Research or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Kinsey certainly could not have interviewed any of the millions of born-again Christian women in this ountry who put the highest price on virtue, decency and modesty. [2]. Representative Heller, Democrat from New York, urged that the book be banned from the mail. He (Kinsey) is contributing to the depravity of a whole generation, to the loss of faith in human dignity and human decency. [5]. Neither Graham or Heller had read the book[5]. What were they so scared of? Dr Kinsey’s received financial support from the Rockefeller foundation beginning in 1935. By 1954, U. S. Representative B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee formed the House Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations. While it sounds like a broadly focused committee, its chairman stated, The Congress has been asked to investigate the financial backers of the institute that turned out the Kinsey sex report last August. [4]. So there was open resistance from religious and conservative groups while political resistance was veiled. How did Dr. Kinsey respond to the resistance? How did Dr. Kinsey’s research affect his personal life and local community? What resistance did he encounter from his local community? The film showed that Dr. Kinsey’s personal life suffered greatly at the expense of his career’s work. His wife, Clara McMillen’s character, clearly came second to his work. While she seemed like an open minded woman, her values were challenged by his research and she may have felt neglected. Kinsey’s academic friends were similarly challenged by the research. Later on in the movie two of Kinsey’s male assistants fought over a woman as Kinsey admonished one of them to leave his lover for sexual reasons. His sexual beliefs had cascaded into his community. In the movie, his inner circle expressed a sexual openness and enlightenment highly uncommon for the times. But they didn’t seem prepared for the consequences of this new openness. The same could be said for the rest of the world. While this was exciting and interesting news for the time, most were unprepared to accept such an affront to their views about human sexual behavior. SOURCES: 1. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Alfred_Kinsey 2. http://www. kinseyinstitute. org/about/earlycontroversy. html 3. http://www. kinseyinstitute. org/about/controversy2. html 4. http://www. kinseyinstitute. org/about/Movie-facts. html 5. http://www. indiana. edu/~kinsey/publications/PDF/Bancroft%20Kinsey%20and%20Politics%20of%20Sex. pdf