God, Kinsey's an awesome movie-- I mean, sex and naked bodies aside. Very well written and of course, can't beat Liam Neeson (no sex pun intended). I ordered it from Amazon.com not too long ago and it arrived in the mail the other day (I'd seen it once before) and so I watched it again tonight.
It's going on my favorite movies list. Btw, did anybody hear the rumor that now they suspect Alfred Kinsey had Aspergers? The way Liam Neeson portrayed him I'd believe it. But I don't know much about the real Kinsey.
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Fogman
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Prof. Michael Fitzgerald, who is the Henry Marsh Professor of child and adolescent psychiatry in my University (TCD), wrote a letter to the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders in 1999, saying that Alfred Kinsey had AS.
This is the reference...
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 1999 Aug, Volume 29, issue 4, pagers 346-347.
Alfred Kinsey: Asperger disorder.
Here is a short section of the letter (I don't want to infringe copyright too much)
Alfred Kinsey meets the criteria for DSM-IV Asperger
disorder (American Psychiatric Association
[APA], 1994). He showed a qualitative impairment in
social interaction with a failure to develop appropriate
peer relationships and lack of social and emotional
reciprocity. Jones (1997) described him as "a loner" who
never played ball with his classmates, was bullied, did
not take part in team sports and "just wasn't one of
the guys."
Jones (1997) pointed out that during his adolescence
"he did not make a single close friend, at least not in the
sense of having a best friend, and in addition he did not
form a single friendship that extended into adulthood"
while most people found him "cool and aloof."
etc. etc.
Yes, Kinsey was an Aspie, 100% - 24 carat, is the pope catholic? Yes
I've read some of Dr. Michael Fitzgerald's work. I read through The Genesis of Artistic Creativity and for a fair few I think he had it head on with ample amounts of info about the famous peoples' lives to back up his hypotheses. But some of them (despite that they very well may have had AS or HFA) he seemed like he was grasping for straws and didn't have enough information on their lives to have anything more than a vague suspicion.
I'm not too fond of his work by and large. Though for a number of his dead famous subjects, I really do think he's correct. As for his other subjects, he didn't provide enough conclusive evidence to support his claims. I also wasn't too fond of his writing style and his methods of argument. They seemed a bit old school.
I don't know enough about Kinsey, but I would suspect that Dr. Fitzgerald is correct in saying he most likely had Asperger's Syndrome.
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As far as I am concerned, I will not shell out my hard earned money to watch a movie about someone who has done much to destroy our society. Here are some important facts about Kinsey:
1. He was definitely a sexual pervert. If you feel that his sexual experimentation was not perversion and was perfectly natural, that is your opinion. I think the idea of an open marriage was sick, and I think his wife was sick for letting him get away with all this sexual experimentation.
2. His studies violated every tenet of scientific sampling. In order for a sample to be a scientific sample, there must be an equal probability for each subject in the study to be selected as part of the sample. Polling organizations use various types of scientific sampling for their polls. Kinsey used a purposive sample that was biased heavily towards persons whose sexual practices deviated from the monogamous heterosexual norm. It is a travesty that many people consider Kinsey's findings "scientific" when they were another example of conclusions being influenced by preconceived beliefs. The Rockefeller Foundation stopped funding Kinsey's research because he refused to engage in random sampling in his research.
Thus, Kinsey is no hero to me, and the movie is not worth seeing.
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God, grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
I'm sure he was biased in some ways. Everyone is, some more than others. But I still think his research (or at least the subject of it) was admirable given the frigid time it came out of. People have always been very sexual beings, some more than others, but at least he helped to get "sex" out in the open instead of conforming under the notion that it was something to be ashamed of.
He also was the predecessor to and opened up ground-breaking work for Masters and Jonhson, which has helped many people (even though as a business it's sorta gone down the toilet now).
I'm sure the movie painted Kinsey in a better light than he actually was. But I still admire him for his passion and guts.
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My Science blog, Science Over a Cuppa - http://insolemexumbra.wordpress.com/
My partner's autism science blog, Cortical Chauvinism - http://corticalchauvinism.wordpress.com/
To Kinsey did nothing that someone else would have done to change the Society of America or even the World. He just in the end did it and got credit for it in the end. Society of America if not this World would have wanted in the end too. It is Human Nature that has won out nothing else. Anybody can just blame one Man for the woos of being Human and the tenacity of being Human.
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Come on My children lets All get Along Okay.
Yeah, What CRB and Postperson said. Pretty much sums it up for me. Unhealthy sexual lifestyles are not enticing, nor even interesting to me; just dangerous to those involved.
Kinsey isn't the only one to be open about human sexuality, he's just the media's favorite; the one to get the publicity.
Most of Kinsey's work has been discredited by the scientific and psy. community. In other words; it's old stuff, history; going..going...gone. Just like Freud's work.
If Kinsey were AS, where did his sense of logic go?
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"Honey, would you buy me some boobles for my 40th b-day?" "No way, they're too expensive. Your own baubles will have to do."
Not suprised to see a lot of angry words when Kinsey is brought up. He wasn't exactly well recieved when he said some of these things either.
As far as the 'random samplings' thing goes. He didn't believe in it. But by the same tokens, I'm not going to assume that all his claims are accurate. Mind you I don't have a lot of faith in statistics either.
To say that sexual experimentation is wrong makes me break out into hysterical laughter. "Everyone! Let's all pretend to be monogamous and heterosexual. To do otherwise is ammoral and unhealthy! If you have psychological problems it's your own fault for being born wrong" Err wait, I forgot a lot of you people think these things are a choice.
I do however think that the swinging was inappropriate. I'm fairly wary of open relationships. But then again I also laugh when people call it 'cheating'. It's the dishonesty more than anything that's the problem. If the people involved are completely okay with it? Then I don't think there is anything wrong.
Mind you I also believe in Freedom, so I've got all kinds of crazy ideas.
As far as Kinsey goes. He layed the foundations for the science of human sexuality, something that was a farce before, and to extent still is. I don't think he was a monster, but I do think he made mistakes. No one is perfect.