Dr. Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research

Many scientists believe that he ranked with Freud, and his two landmark books Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female raised one of the most violent storms since Darwin. Yet it was the supreme paradox of this complicated man that he remained virtually unknown to the public as a human being.

With the publication of this book, the whole story of Kinsey and his controversial career as a pioneer in sex research is available for the first time. Pomeroy follows Kinsey from his childhood in New Jersey to his appointment as biology professor almost accidentally turned marriage-guidance lecturer, and in the process learning how to put strangers at ease – experience that later proved invaluable in getting timid volunteers to tell him intimate details of their case histories.

Here are described the interviewing techniques used for his two great books, and his tremendous battles with his critics over their response to their publication. Here are accounts of his valuable research on all levels of American society, from the bars in Times Square conservative suburban enclaves, from prisoners to high-powered women executives. Here is described the foundation and work for the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, its library and archives (the world's largest collection of erotica), its continuing research, and its impact on scientific thought.

This is a fascinating study not only of a great scientist's career but also of one of this century's most important scientific surveys and a major contribution to the tolerance that we know today.

Wardell B[axter] Pomeroy. Dr. KInsey and the Institute for Sex Research. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd, 1972. xii+479pp. 32 black-and-white illus.