A Tribute to Dr. Kinsey

by Lyn Pedersen

August 25th, 8 A.M.: Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey, aged 62, died at Bloomington, Indiana, in a coma from a heart ailment and pneumonia. His wife (once his zoology student) was with him when he died. He also was survived by two daughters, a son, and the Institute for Sex Research which he had founded. Dr. Kinsey had begun in 1938 the historic project which made him famous (teaching a marital problems class, he'd been appalled at the lack of scientific sex data) although as late as 1948, when SEXUAL BEHAVIOR IN THE HUMAN MALE appeared, his name was known only to other zoologists as the leading authority on gall wasps, a study of importance to recent genetics developments.

His name has long since become a byword. Preachers have called him amoral. Smut magazines headlined: "Homosexuals Hide Behind Kinsey." TIME snidely called him a "fascinating moral symbol of his age.' Many have termed his work epoch making. To the general public he was "Mister Sex." To the staff and the readers of ONE, his death is an immeasurable loss, deeply and personally felt. Here was a precise, yet bold scientist, daring the fury of those committed to antiquated bias, adding more light to the sex question than any predecessor, yet one who'd barely begun the work he outlined --to have included volumes on sex laws and their effect, homosexuality, sex in ancient Peru, European behavior, infant sexuality, sex in prison and animal habits.

7