That Kinsey Report

A commentary by a British psychologist, NOEL BRIAN

O scientist ever achieved the
triumphant fame of being a
music-hall joke more quickly than
Dr. Alfred Kinsey, of Blooming-
ton University, Indiana,

And soon we may expect com-
edians to be exclaiming ‘‘Girls,
girls, you're all at sexes and sev-
ens—Dr. Kinsey says so!” to en-
couraging roars of laughter.

For Dr. Kinsey is about to
launch his long-awaited volume,
on Sexual Behavior in the Human
Female, five years after the be-
havior of the American male had
brought him sudden -fame.

It.is a reflection upon our so-
ciety rather than on Dr. Kinsey
that sex is such a huge dirty joke
that even research into sexual be-
havior published in an expensive
volume becomes a best seller and
the subject of world-wide pub-
licity, often of a muck-raking
kind, even before it is published.

How seriously are Dr, Kinsey
and his facts to be taken?

One has read a good deal about
the seeret code in‘which they are
recorded, and the underground
vaults in which they are kept in
specially designed safes.

But we know very little from
the pre-publication summaries of
how his facts are checked} or
how typical the 5,900 women who
have given him the detailed story
of their sex-lives for this new
book really are. :

All were volunteers, and it
may well be that women who vol-
unteer to recall their sex-lives in
minutest detail are untypical —
some may be exhibitionists, others
may consider themselves ration-
alists in their approach to sex
questions.

Both types are likely to have

wider sexual experience than

Moreover, there are apparently

no cross-checking or confirmatory

- evidence collected for any of the

statements these witnesses made.

Supposedly scientific, Dr. Kinsey

seems to care much less for the

laws of evidence than an ordinary
law court. .

‘And no comparative sexual
studies exist anywhere with
which Dr. Kinsey’s statements can
be checked. :

All this must be borne in mind.
when we read that about half the
women interviewed told Dr. Kin-
sey they had had sexual relations
before they married — of which,
again, half were with their
@

‘Twenty-six percent of Ameri-
. €an wives admitted to committing
‘adultery after marriage, while. (in
the previous volume) 50 percént
of American husbands admit com-
 mitting adultery.

. Bighty-five percent of the wo-
men interviewed (and 95 percent
of the men) could be sent to pri-
son for some of their sexual be-
havior if the laws of America’s
48 States were strictly carried out.
_ But does this really prove very
much more than that the legal
code of American states is com-
pletely out of step with the nor-
- mal conduct of the vast majority
of their citizens?
There are many sexual acts
_ listed as “crimes” in the Ameri-
_ ean legal code which are régard-
_ ed as purely matters of private
_ morality in Britain.
Of course Dr. Kinsey produces

some staggering exceptional cases:
the 90-year-old woman who claim-
ed to be leading an active and
regular sex life, and the one who
enjoyed 100 climaxes in, an hour.

When Dr. Kinsey comments
gravely that this shows that wo-
men “show greater extremes than
men in sexual experience,” one
cannot help wondering if he was
having his leg pulled.

But apart from such cases, the
behavior of the American female
comes as no surprise to anyone

who knows anything of the crazy
licentiousness of American life.

Yet the general picture Dr. Kin-
sey gives does not appear to dif-
fer so widely from sexual be-
havious in Britain, for example.

highly colored. And we have to
ask how far comparable facts,
where they are obtainable, in
Britain, are the result of Ameri-
can “culture” creeping across the
Atlantic.

One positive thing comes out of
these promiscuity statistics: that
Dr.. Kinsey finds that there has
been a marked decrease in the
number of married women who
get no pleasure from the: sexual
side of marriage.

So one source of bitter unhap-
piness and husbandly infidelity

appears to be gradually disap-
pearing. (

Dr. Kinsey remarks that in the
past many people did not even
' know that a woman could enjoy

“He’s just old-fashioned.”

Official estimates give the num-

~ber of illegitimate babies born

a year in the United States at
130,000, and Dr. Kinsey says:
“The actual facts might multiply
this figure several times.” That is
out of a population of 157 mil-
lion.

In Britain the number of ille-
gitimate babies born a year is
about 32,500, in a population of
50 million, and nearly 30 percent
of all first legitimate babies are
conceived before marriage.

Let us remember, however, how
many of the illegitimate babies
born in Britain were fathered by
American servicemen; 70,000 in
Britain alone since U.S. troops
began to arrive here in 1942.

And today in the occupied areas
of Britain the rate of illegitimacy
is nearly double the average —
eight out of 100 births in Oxford,
for instance, of which nearly
half are laid to the door of the
GI’s in the neighborhood.

Even allowing for the fact that
occupation troops usually behave
badly, we know,-from the behav-
ior of these men in Britain that
Dr. Kinsey’s picture is not too

intercourse, and that many hus-
bands and wives did not “believe
it preper for a well-bred female
to respond even to her marital
relationships.” He puts the hap-
py disappearance of this attitude
down largely to “franker &tti-
tudes and the freer discussion of
sex.”

It would surely be more rea-
sonable to attribute it to the
much greater equality which wo-
men have achieved since the ‘frst
world war. This has brought a
new relationship into marriage
and made general the assumption
that sex must be enjoyed by both
partners or it is a cruel and op-
pressive thing. ~

There are other “facts” quot-

ed by Dr. Kinsey, which he seems
to regard as biological facts but
surely are social rather than

_ biological.

é

° ;
For instance, Dr. Kinsey finds
that the average age at which
men and women experiece “‘peak”
sexual activity differs consider-

ably: the “peak” for American -

males is 16, for American women,
rag

This might suggest that “cra-

dle-snatching” makes for the hap-
piest marriages. But Dr. Kinsey
hastens to point out that even
though men’s sexual desires de-
cline steadily from the age of 16
onwards, they so far exceed wo-
men’s that this does not neces-
sarily lead to maladjustments.

And he sehsibly remarks that
the “best” age for marriage
should really be related to the
best age for women to begin hav-
ing children — from 18 to 22.

These American 16-year-olds
come as rather a shock. Then
one asks how far their extreme
sexuality is a reflection not of

_ biological conditions but of the

atmosphere of present-day Am-
erica.

This includes the films, maga-
zines, radio, advertisements, all
exuding “‘glamour” and the con-
centration on sex in the comics
which these boys read in hun-
dreds of million copies every
year. i

Sexual experience, like socking
a man on the jaw, or using flame-
throwers and napalm bombs, is
represented everywhere to the
young as the sign of being grown
up. This perverting idea is ram-
med into their eyes and ears for
almost every waking hour.

In fact, the thing that really
stands out of Dr. Kinsey’s reports,
both on the American male and
female, is that all of them are
living in a corrupt and frustrat-
ing society.

Why is there so much promis-
suous “‘petting’”’ among teenagers
there?

Dr. Kinsey lays his finger on
one very good reason: the fact
that they must wait to marry till
long after they have reached sex-
ual maturity.

Early marriage is healthier and
happier, but it is prevented by

Mel Colby ©

HERE are some residents of
this country of ours who never
complain because there is no-
thing for them to complain
about. Oh; we don’t mean the
members of the Bleeding Broth-
erhood. Under capitalism that
unhappy coterie will always com-
plain that profits should be high-
er. Under socialism they will ery
bitterly that things aren’t like
they used to be. ‘
_ The uncomplaining inhabitants
of the country whom we’ve just
become acquainted with, are the
nation’s animal life, or part of it.
An interesting brochure arms us
with the fact that in Western
Canada there are more than 20,-
000 protected animals, including
such big game species as buffalo,
elk, moose, deer, Rocky Mountain
goat, bighorn sheep, beaver and
antelope.

Theirs is a tranquil existence.
There’s never a_ discouraging
word and rarely does a cloud in
the sky cast a discordant shadow.
Protected by the government, the
animals are assured of never see-
ing television and having the
growth of their young stunted by
Howdy Doody, Sagebrush Trail
and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

No hunter’s horn lures. the
moose. No wolf or lynx causes
the deer’s heart to beat faster.
The buffalo is safe from Buffalo
Bill and the .bighorn sheep
wouldn’t know the difference be-

10
~ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 11, 1953 — PAGE

economic conditions and housime
shortage. At the same time all
the instruments of mass culture
over-emphasize sex, play upon
every physical desire and make 1
that much harder to ‘work and —
wait” as the moralists tell young
people they should.

Then there is the penal treat
ment of sexual offenders, of whom
Dr. Kinsey interviewed 1,300 12
the course of his researches, He
writes bluntly: :

“In many instances the law, i2
the course of punishing the oF
fender, does more damage to more
persons than was ever done by

by an individual in his illicit act.

“Somehow, in an age which —
calls itself scientific and Chris
tian, we should be able to dis
cover more intelligent ways of
protecting social interest without
doing such irreparable damage
so many individuals and to the
total social organisation to which
they belong.”

Fortunately, as Dr. Kinsey
Points out, “only a minute frac
tion of 1 percent” of those whose
secual behavior is contrary to the
law are ever apprehended.

But this is one of the very feW
judgments that Dr. Kinsey Pe
mits himself.: On the whole, the
like most American scientists
nowadays, he confines himself
collecting and recording inform?
tion, not to drawing conclusions —
from it, ;

. .

For the trouble with conclt
sions is that they imply criticisms
—criticisms of the existing stal®
of things. And, it takes a pit of
nerve to criticise anything in the
United States at present. So St
entific research is correspondinS: —
ly hampered.

Nevertheless the picture he Pf&
sents, though we may doubt how
fully representative it is, —
enough to show once more how:
far the American Way of Life ©
from being a civilisation we wall
either to import or to emulate.

tween a first and second mor —
gage if you explained it to him
There are no padlock oF a
migration laws to hamper ‘a
antelope getting together W!
the deer; the elk doesn’t have he
join a lodge to get along in mi
world; papa and mama buff f
can raise a family of little eat
faloes without worrying
they

rs

they'll be recruited before ©
reach manhood; the deer nek
faced with the problem of fit!
a gas mask on the fawn; ane i
one wants to put a shirt 0? ch
Rocky Mountain goat and tea°
him to hate the bighorn sheeP-
The beaver is not piagu' 1
Colonel Drew. There are 20 an
ticians baying at Hansa’ 1-
Globe and Mail editorials 5

f:
ing in the dawn. Waen the ve
falo wants to eat he doesn ichold-

to pay tribute to the stoc
ers of A & P and no one at
grudges the elk a fruitful
age.

Without having to lift a

paw t2

sto OL
clip a coupon they live the bead
a coupon clipper. Eve plied

they need and want’ is suP
for their comfort. ee
: e don't &

As a matter of fact, W
fe: .
ess

understand why they are re
to as ‘wild animals” — wit
it’s because they are ees wey.
what the 14,000000 ate frot
populate Canada put up wit au
the St. Laurent government: