Founder of the Institute for Sex Research, Indiana University, in 1942, where he and his colleagues published two important reports: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). They revealed wide variations in sexual behavior and created something of a furor at the time. They were criticized for scientific inadequacies: sampling shortcomings and the problems of using material gathered by personal inter¬ views as objective data. Some of the criticism was probably oblique opposition to the outspoken nature of the contents, since the subject was surrounded by taboos.
The two reports are statistical analyses of 5,300 white U.S. males and 6,000 U.S. females. Neither was a statistically representative sample of the U.S. population, but both drew on broad groups and produced information that has yet to be bettered. Nine types of sexual behavior and eight characteristics of the subjects were identified. Many of Kinsey’s findings surprised and shocked the U.S. public, but the reports were undoubtedly milestones on the road of sexual understanding. Perhaps the most shocking statistics were the proportions of those admitting to homosexual acts (one-third of men and one-fifth of women) and as to being exclusively homosexual (4 percent of men, 2 percent of women).