Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life Book

In this biography, more than twenty-five years in the making, James H. Jones unlocks the long-closed archives of the Kinsey Institute to present a moving and even shocking portrait of the man who pierced the veil of reticence surrounding human sexuality. Drawing on tens of thousands of letters gleaned from more than a dozen archives and libraries and scores of personal interviews (ranging from members of sexual subcultures who demanded anonymity to congressmen, university presidents, prize-winning scientists, and heads of foundations), Jones has written an incisive, psychologically nuanced portrait that truly separates the myth from the man. Jones shows that the public image of disinterested biologist cultivated by Kinsey was in fact a carefully crafted public persona. The Kinsey who emerges in these pages was a social reformer, a zealot, who devoted his every waking hour to the destruction of sexual repression. Drawing upon extensive research on Kinsey's youth, Jones traces the roots of Kinsey's scholarly interest in human sexuality to his troubled upbringing. Weaving back and forth between the sexual tensions of the culture and the repressive atmosphere of Kinsey's devoutly religious family, Jones argues that Kinsey emerged from his childhood with deep psychological wounds, crippled at the core but nevertheless determined to rescue humanity from the emotional scars and sexual repression he had suffered. Tracing his subject's intellectual pilgrimage from religion to science, Jones shows how Kinsey's training in zoology and career as an entomologist provided both the philosophy of science and the methodological tools that later shaped his approach to sex research. Revealing, never-before-disclosed facts about his marriage, family life, and relationships with students and colleagues enrich the portrait of a complicated, driven man who was obsessed with imposing his will on others, even as he transformed the state of public discourse on human sexuality.