Alfred Kinsey's, Ph.D., groundbreaking book Sexual Behavior in the Human Femaleis celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year. Indiana University, which sponsored the research, is planning a yearlong series of lectures, films and exhibitions to explore women's heath and sexuality. The book, which revolutionized the study of sexuality, records his research. He was the first sexuality researcher to use the scientific method, rather than anecdotes, to do research. Now, a half-century later, Kinsey's work is still highly regarded, as a benchmark of sexuality research. It also gave us a glimpse into the bedrooms of the 1950s.
"Kinsey is noted for really bringing sexuality into the open," says Joanne Marrow, Ph.D., sex researcher and professor of psychology at California State University at Sacramento. "His work was really the turning point in American human sexuality."
While his work has been lauded, his findings raised many eyebrows at the time. He found, for example, that half of all women at the time had sex before marriage. Also, one in four married women committed adultery, compared with half of all married men. Needless to say, his studies caused significant uproar when the study was released. "People considered him immoral," says Marrow.
