Alfred Kinsey

Published: 2003Updated:

ALFRED KINSEY

"It is ordinarily said that criminal law is designed to protect property and to protect persons, and if society's only interest in controlling sex behavior were to protect persons, then the criminal codes concerned with assault and battery should provide adequate protection. The fact that there is a body of sex laws which is apart from the laws protecting persons is evidence of their distinct function, namely that of protecting custom."

~ Alfred Kinsey, W. Pomeroy and C. Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,

(Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders, 1948)

1999 was the 50th anniversary of the publication of Kinsey's first volume in 1948.

"When children are constantly warned by parents and teachers against contacts with adults, and when they receive no explanation of the exact nature of the contacts, they are ready to become hysterical as soon as any older person approaches, or stops and speaks to them in the street, or fondles them, or proposes to do something for them, even though the adult may have had no sexual objective in mind. Some of the more experienced students of juvenile problems have come to believe that the emotional reactions of the parents, police officers, and other adults who discover that the child has had such a contact, may disturb the child more seriously than the sexual contacts themselves. The current hysteria over sex offenders may very well have serious effects on the ability of many of these children to work out sexual adjustments some years later..."

~ Alfred Kinsey, W. Pomeroy, C. Martin, and P. Gephard,

Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Philadelphia, W.B. Saunders, 1953)

Alfred Kinsey on

The Social Control of Sexual Behavior