This Tuesday we will be showing The Kinsey Reoprt in Class for extra credit - plus it is a really good documentary about the man who pioneered the study of sexuality in psychology. If you saw the movie, please take a few minutes to discuss your thoughts and reactions about the movie below. Thanks!
I had actually just learned a small bit about Kinsey in my one of my current classes. He seemed so interesting to me because he went against the mainstream thoughts of society and stood on his on ideals and pursued them. I however, was a bit shocked at some of the things I saw int he film. I never realized the degree to which the American people were so secretive of sexual behavior. It is shocking compared to today imagery that we see. I was also a bit shock on some of Kinsey's thoughts and practices. I knew about the interviews he did but the sexual experiments he did on his colleagues and his own wife was strange to me. I never knew that he had a vision of a utopia where anyone could be with anyone. However, overall I think that Kinsey's work did help society and help us to better understand others and ourselves.
This was the first time that I can really recall hearing about Kinsey and his studies. I thought it was incredibly interesting how taboo sex and talking about sexuality was in the 1930s, especially in comparison today. Talking about sex can be very common between friends and parents and teachers make sure that most students are well informed before they hit puberty. I really enjoyed how open he was and how his studies changed the way people think about sex. It was rather odd to me though the way he filmed individuals having sex and encouraged his colleagues to sleep with colleague's wives for research purposes. Overall though I did enjoy this movie and look forward to hearing about his thoughts on women's sexuality next class.
Crazy! I'm a pretty liberal guy, but when you're seducing your research assistants, I think that's a little shady...
I admire Kinsey's spirit and his passion. Sex being taboo is pretty ridiculous, since everyone does it (after all, we'd die out if we didn't). With that said, it's unfortunate that Kinsey couldn't use better research methods in his studies. I agree with his assessment that it isn't really possible to collect data randomly, because you have a kind of response bias (not everyone feels comfortable talking about this to a complete stranger). The problem is, you run into the same problem when you sample selectively: you don't get denied by as many people, but you still only interview the people who want to give you information. In his sampling strategy, Kinsey only had the illusion of good methodology.
On Tuesday when we watched the Kinsey report it was quite obvious he had a mountain to climb in order to overcome the views of America at the time. He slowly turned from entomology to a study of sex as his time teaching the class on sex grew in popularity. He did vast amounts of field research to quantify his studies. He published the first Kinsey Report on males and it was a huge success. It helped to open the eyes of people everywhere. However as we watched Thursday when he published his study on women there was a huge backlash and uproar in America. I feel that this is because he dared to question the sacred vessel of a woman’s body.
I felt that at times he tried too hard to separate sex from emotion. He slept with his associates and associates wives and his associates did the same. It seemed that there were no boundaries on anything. I would have to think that all separation of sex from emotion can never occur and these practices surely created some animosity in the group. Kinsey’s thoughts and ideas were revolutionary for his time and he helped to bring some of America into the light about sex and separate them from their ignorance.
I have never heard of anyone quite like Kinsey. At first going into this movie I thought that he must be pretty conservative and that he had conservative research habits. It wasn't until a little later in the movie that I was very shocked. I admire Kinsey a lot though. He has taken his research to extremes that I feel not many would dare to reach. He really covered a lot of the main realms of sex and sexual behavior. Everything that he researched was definitely taboo then, and I can also see it being taboo a little bit now in society. I did have a bit of a problem with Kinsey either sleeping with his colleagues, or with their significant others. I felt like this might have been a tid bit unethical, but in Kinsey's mind, he must have felt differently, and that's okay. I found it very sad that Kinsey died before the 60's. I think that living to see the liberation movements, and the way people started to think for themselves would have made him happy.
A conclusion that I drew from watching this movie was that Kinsey in some ways woke up a sleeping giant. I thought Kinsey was very brave for exploring sexuality in psychology because everybody else hardly considered it. I think that his classes would have been neat to be a part of, or even observe. I think looking at people's reactions to the slides he was showing would have been funny to see. People were so shocked and at the same time interested in what Kinsey was exploring. They had just been hidden from it their whole lives. It wasn't all positive though. I was surprised how much abuse Kinsey took for exploring more about sexuality, especially from a woman's point of view. Why is it ok to talk about male sexuality more than women? If anything it can be argued that women are more comfortable talking about sex than men. Back then it just wasn't a social norm. Kinsey just happened to be more mature than so many people who were afraid of a harmless word like masturbation.
The movie taught me that people weren't as active with social interaction, or public illustrations when it came to the topic of sexuality. In the movie it seemed like Kinsey took off the blindfold that society and people had on for too long. Today we see topics involving sexuality everywhere. We see it in magazines, movies, papers, books, stores, websites. Kinsey was an important figure to learn about. His work is fun to study. I wouldn't have known who this man was if it wasn't for this movie.
I really enjoyed the movie. I thought that it was incredible that Kinsey would quit his job in order to continue his research. I was also somewhat surprised that he was allowed to conduct a marriage and sexuality class, but could not do any research on the students, even if they were willing to volunteer the information.
I have heard some about Kinsey's work involving homosexuals, but I found it very interesting that he would go to gay bars and other areas to gain information. I also couldn't believe that there were so many "open relationships" involving kinsey, his research partners, and their wives. Over all I found this movie to be really interesting, and I enjoyed learning about his life and work.