Let's talk about sex

Dr. Alfred Kinsey was a man who enjoyed nature in its most raw forms. He started out studying the lives of gall wasps, and ended up famous for studying human sexuality -- human nature at its most basic. His oldest daughter Anne Call, 80, said he loved to hike the hills of Bloomington or travel to the Smoky Mountains to relax and meditate in nature. She said he'd spend hours in his garden near campus, pruning leaves in his skimpy shorts. Observing life in its natural states not only excited Kinsey as a scientist, but also helped him relax and bond with his family. It's both sides of his personality -- the scientist and the family man -- that writer/director Bill Condon tries to reconcile in his new biopic "Kinsey," which premiered to Bloomington audiences at the IU Auditorium Saturday and opens nationwide tomorrow. A legend on the IU campus, Kinsey shocked the nation in the 1940s and 50s with research showing people are a lot more sexual than people were ready to believe. Soon afterward, he founded the Kinsey Institute here at IU to study such controversial issues as masturbation, homosexuality and sexual development. Nowadays, some, such as Condon, regard Kinsey as a hero. Others, like conservative author Dr. Judith Reisman, call Kinsey a pedophile who abused children for sexual study. With both of these contradicting views, making a biographical film on Kinsey seemed like an arduous task, but Condon was up for the work. Condon took his idea, along with his star Liam Neeson, and headed to Bloomington to study Kinsey's research at the Kinsey Institute. Condon then went out and interviewed those that knew Kinsey, including researcher Paul Gebhard, who revealed quite a bit about Kinsey's personal sex life. He spent six months reading oral histories, Kinsey's writings and four biographies on his life. After compiling information about both Kinsey the man and Kinsey the scientist, Condon was faced with the decision of what to focus on, how to portray this figure. "(With biopics), you're making these choices, thousands of choices of what to include," Condon said. "Because of the controversy that had always surrounded Kinsey, it was important to me not to leave anything big out. I think we've seen movies in years that have left important parts of people's sexuality out. With Kinsey, not only did I not want to do that with it, but neither did I think I really had a choice about that, because it's such an important part of his story."

KINSEY'S SEXUAL SIDE
Condon's take on Kinsey's life doesn't stray away from his dark secrets. Kinsey's rocky relationship with his father, his bisexual tendencies and cheating on his wife all are central to telling his story. Still, some people didn't see Condon's version as very accurate when it came to Kinsey's nonscientific life. The film's Kinsey is quite open about his sexuality, but others say he wasn't that way at all. Call, who wasn't interviewed by Condon for the film, said at the IU Auditorium premiere that her father was fairly old-fashioned and would have never cheated on his wife. Helen D'Amico, who knew Kinsey personally as his secretary, said he was a perfect sexual researcher, because he was actually a very asexual person. "He was really conservative," D'Amico said. "He wasn't at all the wild-man hedonist that people make him out to be. He was focused on his research and his family." Rev. Ted McIlvenna, director of The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, has studied Kinsey's life extensively and even hired Kinsey's former assistant Wardell Pomeroy as a dean of his institute. McIlvenna said Condon's portrayal of Kinsey as someone who slept with his researchers was completely false. "There were a lot of things going on at the institute, sexual but not illegal, but Kinsey never got involved in any of it," McIlvenna said. "He wasn't a very sexually active person." Condon portrays Kinsey's relationship with his wife Clara McMillen (played by Laura Linney) as one that is open, honest and caring, if not complicated. "So many people have marched up to me and said their marriage was so unconventional, so unconventional, so unconventional," Linney said. "I sort of stopped and thought -- infidelity is not unconventional. It's been happening for a really long time, and unfortunately it will continue to happen. What was unconventional about their marriage is that they were so open about it. And that frightens people -- terribly. That they were able to keep their sexual affairs from their children shows tremendous character. So whatever personal reasons they had to explore their sexuality, their family came first and foremost and that resonated profoundly with me." Despite the controversy over Kinsey's sex life, most people who knew Kinsey confirmed Condon captured his personality in the film. D'Amico said Kinsey loved playing the piano and listening to his hi-fi, both featured in the film. Condon also filmed extensive scenes of Kinsey's love of the outdoors and gardening in his backyard. Although Kinsey's children only make brief appearances, Condon said he doesn't deny the role he played in his life. "Because you are working with someone's life and collapsing it into two hours, there inevitably will be things that get skipped over or two people combined into one character," he said. Condon asserts that if Kinsey were to make a movie about his own life, a central scene would be where he lost own of his children a year before he died, but that scene doesn't appear in the film.

KINSEY'S CONTROVERSY
Just as he was protested more than 50 years ago, Kinsey has received criticism today. When the movie was announced, Reisman, a conservative author, alongside radio host Dr. Laura Schlesinger, planned protests for the film. Their claims are that Kinsey's data on sexual behavior in children was obtained through molestation and collaboration with former Nazis. "It's interesting that Liam Neeson played a Nazi who changes his perspective in 'Schindler's List,' and now he is going to play a man who collaborated with Nazis to contribute to the abuse of children," Reisman told the IDS before the film's release. The Kinsey Institute has vehemently denied all of Reisman's accusations, saying her "blatant lies" have no evidence. McIlvenna investigated the matter on his own and backs up the institute's position. Condon's version of the movie is consistent with the Kinsey Institute's explanation on how he obtained data on child sexuality. They both claim Kinsey stumbled upon a man who had more than 9,000 sexual partners in his lifetime, hundreds of them children, and this man kept notes on every encounter. Reisman and her followers have vowed to not make things easy for Condon, but so far he hasn't encountered too much trouble, saying less than a dozen protestors were at the film's Los Angeles opening. "There's no arguing with these groups. The objections to the film come through to us as being very anti-sex research in general," Kinsey Institute director Judith Heiman said. "We try to not get caught up in it, but if it's blatantly a lie, we say something about it." Condon said Kinsey's work has affected the lives of all Americans, including Condon himself as an openly-gay director. He said through his research, Kinsey was able to discover who he was. "There's a real connection between (Kinsey's) work and his life," Condon said. "I think often you see movies about a great writer or artist, but they never really deal with their personal lives, what made them great. Kinsey was driven in some ways by very personal ways to do this study. People misinterpret this as him having some agenda, which isn't true. The science is what interested and excited him, but at the same time, and he talked about this, he was tormented (sexually) as a child, and he wanted to help save other people with these problems." Linney said she thinks the film accurately portrays Kinsey as a man who stood up for his beliefs above all else. She said while starring in "The Crucible" on Broadway with Neeson, they would joke that this movie was "the Proctors reincarnated as the Kinseys." When it's all said and done, Condon decided not everything had to be told in Kinsey's story, and even if some people disagree with his interpretation they can still take something away from his film. "This is a movie, not the last word on Kinsey, and it's a point of view of him, and obviously not a University-sanctioned one," Condon said. "But I hope that my point of view can help people gain greater acceptance of what this man did for society."