Download Alfred Kinsey

Pioneers of the Sexual
Revolution:
Alfred Kinsey (1894 – 1956)
 Margaret Sanger (1879 – 1966)

What WAS the Sexual
Revolution?
 A period of time from 1960 to the 1980’s
which brought about profound social
change in the attitudes toward women’s
sexuality, homosexuality, pre-marital
sexuality, nudity, and the freedom of sexual
expression in Western Culture.

How did this happen?
Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956)
American biologist, professor of entomology
and zoology. Founded the Institute for Sex
Research at Indiana University in 1947, now
known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in
Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. Most famous
for the Kinsey Report and the Kinsey Scale
Alfred Kinsey and his study of
Gall Wasps
As Kinsey’s academic background was in
entomology, he was an expert on gall
wasps.
 Kinsey discovered among his collection of
tens of thousands of gall wasps, that there
was the presence of subtle variation.
across all specimens.

Kinsey Conducts Massive Study
on Human Sexual Experiences

In his attempt to catalogue the sexual
experiences of modern Americans, Kinsey’s
research team interviews over 10,000
individuals.

Kinsey collected the “sexual histories” of his
research participants, which were structured
questionnaires.
The Kinsey Reports
The Kinsey Reports are two books on human
sexual behavior, Sexual Behavior in the
Human Male (1948), and Sexual Behavior in
the Human Female (1953).
 The findings caused shock and outrage in the
general public, but are associated with a broader
change in societal perception of sexuality.


Age, social-economic status and religious
adherence influence sexual behavior!
The Kinsey Reports (cont’d)

One particular finding in the Sexual Behavior
in the Human Male is that, according to
Kinsey’s data, a major portion of the male
population has at least some homosexual
experience between adolescence and old age.

In addition, about 60 per cent of the preadolescent boys engage in homosexual
activities.
Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the
Human Female
Based on personal interviews with nearly 6,000
women.
 Kinsey's evidence suggested that women were
less sexually active than men in all aspects of
sexual life but that they were still more sexual
than traditional views allowed.


Ultimately, Kinsey felt that both men's and
women's sexuality seemed shaped, not merely
repressed, by social and cultural forces.
Kinsey Scale
According to Kinsey:
“Males do not represent two discrete
populations, heterosexual and
homosexual. The world is not to be
divided into sheep and goats. It is a
fundamental of taxonomy that nature
rarely deals with discrete categories... The
living world is a continuum in each and
every one of its aspects.”

(What do YOU think?)
Kinsey Scale (cont’d)

Attempts to describe a person's sexual
history or episodes of their sexual activity
at a given time.

It uses a scale from 0, meaning exclusively
heterosexual, to 6, meaning exclusively
homosexual. In both the Male and Female
volumes of the Kinsey Reports.
Kinsey Scale (cont’d)
Who is Margaret Sanger?
(1879-1966)
*Sex educator and nurse.
*An American birth control activist;
popularized the term birth control.
* Established organizations that evolved into
the Planned Parenthood Federation of
America.
Margaret Sanger and
“The Pill”

Sanger was largely responsible for the
development of the first combined oral
contraceptive pill (COCP), first approved by the
FDA for contraceptive use in the United States in
1960.

Its use spread rapidly in the late part of the
1960’s which generated an enormous social
change.
But First…
“EUGENICS”
Before our discussion about the birth control pill, it
is useful to explore the background of Eugenics.
So, what was this social movement all about?
Eugenics: a social movement during the
19th/early 20th Century which sought to
improve the genetic features of human
populations through selective breeding and
sterilization.
Through selective breeding, the human
species should direct its own evolution.
“Superior” vs. “Inferior” blood.
Eugenics
(cont’d)
Eugenics is now generally associated with
racist and nativist elements, as the
movement was to some extent a reaction
to a change in emigration from Europe
rather than scientific genetics.
 Eugenics largely
influenced the thinking
behind the Nazi
Holocaust.

Margaret Sanger and
Eugenics

Margaret Sanger was a supported of
Eugenics as they both sought to “assist
the race toward to elimination of the unfit”

Sanger was a proponent of negative
eugenics, which aims to improve human
hereditary traits through social
intervention by reducing the reproduction
of those who were considered unfit.
“The Pill” (cont’d)

More effective than any other previous
birth-control method, which gave women
unprecedented control over their fertility.

The choice to take the pill was a private
one and required no special preparations
at the time of sexual activity that might
interfere with spontaneity.
The 1960’s, Sex, and Social Norms
The Pill divorced contraception from the act of
intercourse itself, and sex became more socially
acceptable outside the rigid boundaries of
heterosexual marriage.
 Although conservatism was still present,
liberalism enjoyed a widespread revival, which
helped to facilitate the climate in which the
'sexual revolution' took place.
 Before the pill was introduced many women did
not look for long term jobs.

Women and the Labor Force

The pill was a primary mechanism in forming
women's modern economic role, in that it
prolonged the age at which women first married
allowing them to invest in education and other
forms of human capital, as well as generally
become more career-oriented.

Soon after the birth control pill was legalized,
there was a sharp increase in college attendance
and graduation rates for women.
Science and Technology:
Agents of Social Change

How have other studies on
sexuality/human behavior, and/or
technological developments changed the
broader social attitudes or “narratives” in
society about morality? (ab)normality?
Examples?