January 5, 1948: The Kinsey Report

January 5, 1948: Alfred Kinsey releases his first report on human sexuality. It was an eye-opener, in more ways than one. It was based on flawed data, and has been followed up by better studies.

Alfred John Kinsey was born on June 23, 1894 in Hoboken, Hudson County, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City. Hoboken is home to the Stevens Institute of Technology, where his father was a professor. His parents were devout Methodists, and would have been horrified by what he eventually became known for.

He grew up in nearby South Orange, Essex County, New Jersey, and became a Boy Scout, where he developed an interest in animals, especially insects. He got biology degrees from Bowdoin College in Maine and Harvard University, and wrote his doctoral thesis on a variety of wasp. He worked with the American Museum of Natural History, and wrote books on insects and botany.

An urban legend says that, while lecturing at Indiana University, in Bloomington, on the mating habits of wasps, a listener asked him if the same principles applied to humans. He decided to learn what he could about human sexuality. In 1947, he founded The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, and on January 5, 1948, he and his staff released their first report: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.

The reports also state that nearly 46 percent of the male subjects had "reacted" sexually to persons of both sexes in the course of their adult lives, and 37 percent had at least one homosexual experience. The study also reported that 10 percent of American males surveyed were "more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55," giving rise to the general belief, which pretty much still holds in American popular culture, that 1 out of 10 people is homosexual.

In 1953, the companion report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female was published. It said that 7 percent of single females ages 20 to 35, and 4 percent of previously married females in that age group, were more or less bisexual; while 2 to 6 percent were more or less exclusively homosexual in experience/response.

Studies done since have shown that more people than that are homosexual, probably reflecting the fact that the rise of the gay rights movement has reduced the level of stigma against it.

Kinsey himself married and had 4 children, but it was an open marriage, and Kinsey indulged himself bisexually. He died on August 25, 1956, of a heart ailment, at the age of 62. The Kinsey Institute has since been absorbed by Indiana University.

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January 5, 1948 was a Monday. Actor Ted Lange was born. It was also the day that the 1st live-action Superman film, a serial, was released. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball and football were out of season. There were no games in the Basketball Association of America, the league that became the NBA. And no games were scheduled for the NHL, either. So there were no scores on this historic day.