A Century of Lies
Over the last few centuries, we have all benefited from the advance of science and technology. Three centuries ago, it took our ancestors 4 days to walk from NE Pennsylvania where I live to Washington, DC. A horse-drawn carriage could take you there in 2 days. Now we can drive there in less than 5 hours or fly there in one hour.
If you wanted to communicate with a loved one across the country or across an ocean, it would take weeks or months for your letter to arrive, but you can send an email or text message that arrives in seconds.
We have many reasons to appreciate and trust the hard work of the researchers and engineers who have created many amazing aspects of the world we live in. But there is also a dark side to modern science, which is that it often tells lies.
For example, take a look at the work of Alfred Kinsey, who is widely regarded as the first person to explore human sexuality from a scientific perspective.
In the 1930s, while teaching biology courses at Indiana University, Kinsey organized a new course on sex education. In 1940 he applied to the Committee for Research in Problems of Sex, which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, for a grant. The Committee was impressed by the 1,700 sexual histories he had compiled, mostly in his private conferences with students. He was awarded a $1,600 grant in 1941. By 1947, his research project was allotted $40,000 each year, the equivalent of a half million annually in today’s dollars.
In 1948, after several years of interviewing men about their private lives, he came out with a blockbuster book, Sexual Behavior of the Human Male, that caused shock waves across America and around the world. It was 824 pages, and was based on personal histories of 5,300 males collected during a 15-year period.
The book claimed that:
· 30-45% of American husbands had extramarital affairs.
· 70% of men had sex with prostitutes
· 37% had at least one homosexual encounter. 10% had been exclusively homosexual for 3 years.”
He became an instant celebrity whose scientific findings revealed a shocking reality about the sexual behavior of American men and boys.
Five years later, in 1953, he published Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, which was 842 pages, with 179 tables and 155 figures. Its shocking findings included:
· Nearly half of women had sex before marriage
· More than 1 in 4 had extramarital intercourse
· Nearly 4% had sex with an animal
· Women who had premarital sex and at an early age made better adjustments in marriage
Although shocking, since this was from a respected scientist, who did graduate work at Harvard University, and taught courses at Indiana University, many Americans concluded that his findings about the real sexual behavior of women were also authoritative.
Media coverage was glowing and adoring. Look magazine reported:
Today, on the campus of a midwestern university, a soft-spoken, keen-eyed man is quietly at work-producing a social atom bomb. His task, like the conquest of the atom, holds large promise for humanity. For in a half a million years of mankind’s history, it is to be the first, adequate, large-scale inquiry into man’s sex life.” The article went on to explain that, “leading American statisticians have examined and approved the statistical basis of Kinsey’s study. In fact, Kinsey’s entire technique and procedure for the survey have been highly praised by experts in fact-finding and scientific research. You will hear a good deal about Kinsey in the coming months ahead. Some of it will be condemnation form the conclusion-jumpers, some will be praise from the thoughtful. But whatever the reaction, Kinsey will go on wading into his big job,” seeking out facts “entirely with their social implications in mind, and with the undeniable conviction that discovering new truth about a subject too long in the dark can bring mankind nothing but benefit.”
It was later revealed that:
25% of his research sample were prisoners. Kinsey’s team actively sought out the worst sex offenders at prisons for interviews. According to his research associate Walter Pomeroy, Kinsey included 1,400 criminals and sex offenders, classifying them as “normal” men.
The book’s discussion of preadolescent male sex activity was based on detailed notes from a voracious pedophile named Rex King, a federal forestry employee, also known as Mr. “X”.
Mr. “X” had engaged in sex with 600 preadolescent male children, 200 female children, and animals of many species. He masturbated infants for hours, and sexually penetrated the children.
His report on female sexual behavior classified women who had “lived with a man over one year” as “married,” even if not faithful to the man. Thus, prostitutes living with a pimp for a year or more would be considered “married.”
Only 23% of the women were asked if they had a history of sexually transmitted diseases since asking all of the women would have revealed the connection of STD infection with higher rates of premarital or extramarital sex.
This, of course, was fraudulent research, but it was effective as propaganda to mislead the American people. Some scientists including the respected psychologist, Abraham Maslow, warned that his methods were unscientific, but the media paid little attention to his concerns. After all, sex sells, even or maybe especially when it's a sexy lie.
None of this would matter very much except when you realize that Kinsey’s research has greatly influenced legal decisions around the country. He appeared as a key witness in hearings before legislative committees in 21 states that were rewriting their sex offender codes.
He wrote to one court official, “in non-inhibited societies, the so-called sex perversions are a regular part of the behavioral pattern, and they probably would be so throughout the population if there were no traditions to the contrary. This statement applies to such things as… group (sexual) activities, relations between individuals of diverse age (adult-child), and animal intercourse.”
Another thing to remember is that the Kinseyan view that there should be no legal limits on human sex and that children can benefit from having sex with adults is the underlying basis for much of public school sex education today. But more about that next time.