Kinsey: a Sex Pioneer

Our society has evolved in many of the aspects of life that tend to be private, personal, or risqué. We can now hear curse words on television, see scantily clad women dancing in the background of rap videos, and witness promiscuous relationships in many different forms of television. However, the sexual freedom that we seem to possess today was not always a norm. Alfred Kinsey was a pioneer in the social evolution of popular views on sex.

In a world of traditional Victorian views of the sexual nature of humans, Kinsey was a bright orange splash on a portrait of browns. He believed that sexual nature was another aspect of human life that society turned a deaf ear to. He believed that the expression and discussion that could result from a more open attitude towards sexuality could result in a more knowledgeable public people. He also believed that the aspects of a person's life that would seem personally bizarre and in some cases freakish. Rather, he perceived that more people would have these bizarre tendencies in common than not.

However, society believed that something so personal should not be discussed outside of the home. And in some cases, not even in the home. No previous researcher delved so deeply into the personal lives of true human experience. Kinsey was also very upfront and honest in his research. He would not speak in the traditional words used by the highly prudent society. He took "histories" from willing subjects and asked them very blunt questions in a manner that would facilitate honest answers without making the subject feel too uncomfortable.

Kinsey himself was very open about his sexuality. There is a moment in the movie where he has a homosexual experience with a colleague of his. The publication of his work at first had a very riveting effect on the nation. People's eyes were beginning to open to the world of sexuality that once seemed so private and in some cases, so wrong.

Yet, some readers grew wary from the cold hard truths that Kinsey was revealing. The reality of one's grandma having sexual experiences at an older age, the actual pervasiveness of homosexuality in society, as well as the oddities that occur in individual people's sex lives made some readers uneasy with the new found intelligence.

All in all, I believe that Kinsey's research, though it was not accepted whole-heartedly at first, had a great deal of impact on today's views of sexuality. Whoever would be the door-breaker in this field would obviously not be accepted completely at first. But it took that first person for society to be exposed to the reality that exists. Kinsey definitely became that person.