Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia Subject: REVIEW OF KINSEY SEX & FRAUD From: jinks@u.washington.edu (Virginia McMillan) Date: 15 Apr 1995 23:01:45 GMT C O N S E R V A T I V E C O N S E N S U S(tm) ***************************************************************** Events * Analysis * Forecasts * Commentary * Readers' Opinions ***************************************************************** B O O K R E V I E W ::: Editor's Desk Distribution: World For Immediate Release Copyright 1995 by Conservative Consensus, ISSN 1074-245X. QUOTATION AND REPOSTING ARE ENCOURAGED, provided our name & address are credited. V1X10 KINSEY, SEX, AND FRAUD Review by Jeryl Struble....... ______________________________________________________________________ "Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: The Indoctrination of a People," by Dr. Judith A. Reisman and Edward W. Eichel. (c)1990, 1993 Huntington House Publishers. Softcover, $11.99. Available from: First Principles Press, POB 1136, Crestwood KY 40014. ______________________________________________________________________ ALFRED C. KINSEY'S research on child sexuality has done more than influence the content of modern sex education. Clothed with all the trappings of scientific prestige, Kinsey's assertions that all sexual behavior is normal are still revered in sexology circles today. Unfortunately, the famed pioneer of sexology research did convince many people that sex and sin are mutually exclusive -- that there is no form of sexual behavior that is or can be intrinsically wrong. In 1983, writing in "Esquire," Stanley Elkin described Kinsey as the Patron Saint of sex and the man responsible for the "first wave of the sexual revolution." Hugh Hefner said he drew inspiration from Kinsey's research for Playboy magazine. Morton Hunt of the Playboy Foundation wrote in his book, "Sexual Behavior in the 1970s," that: "Kinsey was the giant on whose shoulders all sex researchers since his time have stood... We used his data, his thoughts and his words every day until we supposed them our own." Kinsey's views on childhood sexuality have become incorporated as givens into modern sexology's corpus of knowledge by constant repetition over the last forty years. Kinsey's view that children are sexual beings and should enjoy all the rights and privileges thereof is already finding its way into the textbooks used in modern sex education programs. Today many of Kinsey's disciples argue that infants of both sexes are born with the capacity for sexual pleasure and response. But how did Kinsey reach such conclusions, and was his research valid? Dr. Judith A. Reisman and Edward W. Eichel have thoroughly researched the matter in the book, "Kinsey, Sex and Fraud." Theirs is a revealing study that should be heeded. Its usefulness to cultural conservatives is perhaps bolstered by the Jewishness of the two authors; they can hardly be labeled apologists for the Christian right. More importantly the scholarship is highly impressive. This reviewer has crosschecked their references in Kinsey's two primary volumes, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female," and she has found nothing inaccurate or exaggerated in the citations. On the contrary, Reisman and Eichel exhibit thoroughly scientific methodology and careful attention to detail. Indeed, one regrets to find their startling accusations so painfully clear in Kinsey's own books. In order to believe the Kinseyan nightmare, the authors urge the reader to practice what English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge once called the "willing suspension of disbelief." One must suspend both common sense and an unwillingness to see evil in a scientist's work, to come to grips with the fact that a major scientific institution -- now the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research at the University of Indiana -- launched a vicious and even diabolical assault on the most elementary standards of morality, common decency and respect for the innocence of children. With today's awareness of the harmful psychological effects of sexual abuse, it is hard to imagine that a mainline University would sponsor an experiment whose goal was to discover the orgasmic potential of children. Yet forty years ago Kinsey and his subordinates did exactly that. In their expose, Reisman and Eichel reveal details of sexual experiments done on children ranging from 2 months to 15 years of age. These statistics were presented to the public at large in 1948, when Kinsey published the book on male sexuality. Information was allegedly obtained from interviewees who manually and/or orally masturbated several hundred infants and children in order to elicit orgasm. Sigmund Freud originated the idea that boys and girls are sexual beings, but an attempt was made by the Kinsey team to demonstrate the reality by providing the first "scientific" data to support the thesis that, almost from birth, children not only desire genital sex with adults but even benefit from it. Kinsey claimed to have proved that sexuality begins in infancy, and thus to have debunked the Freudian myth of a latency period in children. Any such latency or delay, he claims, was a function of social repression. The experiments seem to have had a consistent design. Data were obtained by "actual observation" and "timed with a second hand or a stop watch." (Male Report, Chapter 5) Some of the "partners," as Kinsey euphemistically refers to the abusers, were "technically trained." Kinsey implied that these observations on the results of homosexual masturbation of young children are a valid and meaningful way to learn about childhood sexuality. It seems extraordinary that Kinsey's assumptions were not more forcefully challenged by the media in the beginning, or that law enforcement officials never intervened. In the studies themselves, a significant omission is that the identity of the 196 children is never revealed. The data, contained on page 161 of "Sexuality in the Human Male," is arranged into tables. In the notorious table 34, the first column lists the age of the child, the second column gives the length of time the child was stimulated, and the third column indicates how many orgasms occurred in the specified time frame. Kinsey admits that many of the children, whose ages ranged from teenagers to infants under a year in age, became emotionally upset -- sobbing or weeping -- during the experimentation. Predictably, he attributes most such reactions to cultural conditioning and guilt coming from Judeo-Christian morality. Kinsey asserts with confidence, and a barely concealed yearning, that in an uninhibited society the majority of the children could experience orgasm by 3 or 4 years of age. Basically, Kinsey felt that children are sexual creatures practically from birth, who can benefit from adult guidance in discovering their erotic potential. He explains that most children haven't experienced orgasms because they haven't had the opportunity to participate in experiments or experiences like the ones he provided. (Male Report, p.178) One has to wonder what sort of parents volunteered their offspring to be in these studies. Perhaps some were unaware of what was really going on in these experiments. Or it may be that some parents shared Kinsey's view that no appreciable harm was actually being done to the child. These experiments happened more than four decades ago. But we must keep in mind that Kinsey's disciples are still alive and well, and are influential in designing modern sex education curriculums. It may be hard to believe that there are people, fellow citizens, seemingly respectable, who want to bring about cultural change in which sex with children is an accepted norm. For example, Mary Calderone of SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Council of the United States) sees this goal as a high calling. Pedophiles are asserting their rights -- and would like their preference to be perceived as an orientation -- rather than an abnormality. They see our children as fertile ground for creating a utopian, uninhibited society. An article by Joan A. Nelson, Ed.D., in the "Journal of Sex Education and Therapy," entitled "Intergenerational Sexual Contact" (1989), views sex acts with children as acceptable and even essential to the child's healthy development. She postulates harmful effects from society's condemnation of adult-child sex. Hers is an approach right out of Kinsey's book. Both these articles provide the reader with a new and politically correct vocabulary. The children and their molesters are called "participants," while their exploitation is referred to as "sexual experience." She even proposes a new word to use in place of pedophile -- namely visionary. These "visionaries", she claims, are "helping the child acquire practical knowledge" of sexual matters. Taking the thesis a step further, Nelson argues that much of the problem with today's youth stems from their sexual repression. Another sexologist, James Raney, predicts hopefully that after the taboo against homosexuality breaks down, incest as the last social taboo will soon follow suit. Imagine liberated family life, if you dare, under Raney's scenario. Are not these pioneering pedophiles pursuing much the same subtle path that we have seen in the so called gay liberation movement? Reisman and Eichel suggest that one milestone to watch for is the appearance of the word "pedophobia" as a description of those who oppose the rights of pedophiles. Could the legitimization of pedophilia have been high on the list of priorities of the Kinsey team?. This reviewer has been forced to conclude that Kinsey was a pedophile in a frock coat, whose goals included giving scientific and eventually cultural sanction to his own sins. Beware, lest sins of omission -- looking the other way in our own time -- allow this man's ideas to set the standard for the sexual mores of coming generations. [Ed: Jeryl Struble has a Masters degree in Linguistics. She teaches the Russian language at Bellevue Community College.] ### ========================= NEWS FLASHES, BOOK REVIEWS, AND INTELLIGENCE BRIEFINGS are prepared by the editors of Conservative Consensus(tm) on key events affecting: *** The US Constitution * US & World Security * Political Corruption Individual Liberty * World Financial Markets * Religious Freedom *** WANT TO LEARN MORE? Send us an email at either address below. Put the words "subscribe cc" as the subject. We'll enter a complimentary email subscription in your name! We'll also send you complete information about our efforts and organization. _________________________________________________________________ 72253.1544@compuserve.com * POB 17912 * SEATTLE WA 98107 * USA * jinks@u.washington.edu * _________________________________________________________________