[CS-FSLUG] American Experience: Alfred Kinsey

[Brian Derr]

Dear CS-FSLUGers,

Last night was aired, on PBS (Public Broadcast Station for you
non-Americans), a biography of Dr. Alfred Kinsey.  To those unfamiliar
with him, Dr. Kinsey was a professor of zoology at Indiana University
in the 1920-40s.  He is best known, however, as the first contemporary
sex researcher.

The results of his study were astounding, especially for the era,
concluding that something akin to 70% of all males had visited a
prositute.  There are other startling "facts" contained in his book,
"Sexual Behavior in the Human Male."  For more information about him
and his research a quick google search will bring up more hits than you
could care to view.

My point in writing this is two fold: one, I want to give a quick
synopsis of the program and two to pose a question.

The program started off giving the childhood history of Dr. Kinsey.  He
had several health conditions that made him very weak and thus couldn't
go outside to play sports with other boys.  His father, being a
self-ordained Methodist minister forbid any concact with girls outside
of school.  Thus, Dr. Kinsey spent much of his time in solitude.

After going to school to become an entymologist he was giving a position
on the faculty of Indiana University.  There he met a young woman and
eventually they started dating.  The got married and the wedding night
arrived.  Because of medical complications in his wife they were unable
to consumate their marriage for almost a year.  The medical condition
was unknown to them and they were very frustrated.

This situation led Dr. Kinsey into his sex research because he found a
lacking supply of existing research.  The problem with Dr. Kinsey is
that he is not a follower of Christ.  Rather than look to the creator of
life for answers he would spend the next two decades of his life trying
to find the answer to sexuality in nature, the created.

To make a long story short, Dr. Kinsey was a practicing bisexual that
was horrified at laws that prohibited certain sexual acts such as
homosexuality and adultery.  He is the man that brought us the idea that
sex does not have to have an aspect of love attached to it, it can be
purely "mechanical".  The results of his research has brought America to
the place it is now with rampart pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy and
sexually transmitted diseases.

Not only was Dr. Kinsey glorifying sex outside of marriage and in anyway
that felt right but the research he conducted was flawed.  His study
included the sexually of young boys as early as the age of 5 months.
Where did he get such information you might ask?  Well, from the local
pædopheliac of course.  Who claimed to have molested hundreds of young
Mexican immigrant boys.  Dr. Kinsey's research also had a flaw in that
he sought college students, inmates and prostitutes for his research.
These people being more likely to submit to his hour long questionarre
of their complete sexual history.  This of course left a large swath of
the American public.

All in all, Dr. Kinsey was a very sinful man that above all wanted to
create a sexual utopia of free love without constraints.

My question to the list is this: more than fifty years after the
publication of his "research" it appears that the American public has
fully accepted his findings, how do we, as followers of Christ, combat
this sinful understanding of God's gift to a married man and woman?
What do you think of his research, was it flawed or an accurate
portrayal of the sexual appetite of the American people?

Brian
-- 
The just man walketh in his integrity:
his children are blessed after him.  -- Proverbs 20:7