Alfred Kinsey

He married Clara Bracken McMillen in 1921. His estranged father refused to attend this function. The couple’s first born son died as a child; they had three other children who lived to adulthood.

He was bisexual. His marriage with Clara was an open one and both the parties had the freedom to have sexual relations with other people also.

He suffered from ill health during his later years and died on 25 August 1956 at the age of 62.

He was born on 23 June 1894 in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was the eldest of the three children born to Alfred Seguine Kinsey and Sarah Ann. His father, a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, was a very strict and religious man.

Alfred suffered from several medical conditions as a child and his parents being poor could not afford good quality treatment for him. He suffered from rickets which led to a curvature of the spine.

He was interested in nature from a young age and loved camping. He became a Boy Scout with his parents’ support and earned an Eagle Scout in 1913, becoming one of the earliest Eagle Scouts.

He attended Columbia High School where he shone academically and was also a good pianist. He developed a deep interest in botany, biology and zoology and decided to study botany in college, much to the chagrin of his father.

His authoritative father ordered him to study engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology to which Alfred reluctantly agreed. But he could not force himself to study engineering for long and left the course after two years.

He was appointed as an assistant professor at the Indiana University in 1920. In 1926 he published a biology textbook, ‘An Introduction to Biology’ in which he unified the fields of zoology and botany which were previously treated as separate from each other.

He was promoted to full professorship in 1929. He published his works ‘The Gall Wasp Genus Cynips: A Study of the Origin of Species’ and ‘The Origin of Higher Categories in Cynips’ during the 1930s. However, he was getting disillusioned with his career at this time.

In 1938, he was offered an opportunity to lead a team-taught course on marriage and the family. He lectured on the biology of sexual stimulation, the mechanics of intercourse and contraception. His course became very popular.

He founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, a nonprofit research institute at Indiana University in 1947. The Institute’s mission was to encourage sexual health and research on sexual issues. The founding of this institute too was met with much controversy.

His book ‘Sexual Behavior in the Human Male’ was out in January 1948. It became a best-seller immediately upon its release even though it was a very thick volume of 804 pages. The book infuriated the religious leaders because of its sexual content.

He is best known for the Kinsey Reports which consist of his two books on human sexual behavior: ‘Sexual Behavior in the Human Male’ (1948) and ‘Sexual Behavior in the Human Female’ (1953). The reports though highly popular also kindled considerable controversy due to the taboo attached to the subject of sex.