Sex-ploration: The beginning of sex research at IU

His lectures filled auditoriums and stadiums; his face graced the cover of Time magazine; and now, 48 years after his death, the story of his life and controversial research will be projected upon big screens across the country for audiences who might not realize the continuing influence of his volumes.\n"Kinsey," to be released Friday in select theaters by Fox Searchlight Pictures, brings Alfred Kinsey and the sexual research he conducted at IU in the 1940s and '50s into the public awareness. Kinsey was a pioneer in researching both the topic of sexuality and the methods for which to do so. \n"The model that Kinsey established for the rest of us was the critical importance of confidentiality," said Jennifer Bass, head of information services for the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. "Anyone who was willing to give their sexual histories had to be guaranteed privacy and (assured) there was no way their identities would be revealed."\nWhen Kinsey gathered data at IU and across the country from interviews for his two books, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female," he and his colleagues used an elaborate code that the researchers memorized. To protect confidentiality, no written key to the code was permitted to exist.\nKinsey's early research covered many facets of sexuality, including orgasmic frequency and homosexuality. No one had researched these subjects before with the kind of scientific principles Kinsey used. \nThe Kinsey Institute Web site quotes Kinsey as saying, "We are the recorders and reporters of facts -- not the judges of the behaviors we describe." \nToday this objectivity is taken for granted as an essential part of gathering accurate data about sexuality and other sensitive topics. However, the Kinsey Institute now focuses on more specific aspects of sexuality in its research, including condom use, oral contraception's effect on women, and sexual inhibition and excitation. \nThe Kinsey Institute stores Kinsey's original data as part of its collections, and students, faculty and researchers can all have access to this information. \n"It is important to look back and think 'Were things really different? What's different about sex now, and what's the same? What is influenced by social change and what's just part of our biology that might be constant across cultures and time?'" Bass said. \nWhat Kinsey's data revealed about sexuality in the '40s and '50s was very eye-opening, said Bass. \n"What was going on in the outside wasn't necessarily going on in the inside. There were very strict rules, both literal and social, about relations between individuals," she said. "Sexual relations in particular and what was allowed by social standards might have been quite different than what was really going on."\nAccording to a statement issued by the Kinsey Institute, initial responses to his books were favorable, but "a second wave of comments were negative, and Kinsey was attacked by religious and conservative groups, and in some cases by the academic community, which questioned his data collection and analysis."\nBecause of the controversy and political pressure, the Rockefeller Foundation withdrew its financial support. The movie, "Kinsey," also depicts IU as withdrawing its financial support from the Institute. This is not a factual representation. \n"IU has always consistently supported the research," Bass said.\nIn actuality, then-IU President Herman B Wells requested funds from the board of trustees to increase funding of the institute to supplement the loss of funds. The board granted the request.\nAccording to a 1953 Time magazine article, Kinsey addressed the critics who said his research was harmful and useless by saying, "Reproduction, or sex, is one of the great forces of life. Most everyone talks about sex. ... Before we can learn why humans behave sexually as they do, we've got to find out just what it is that they do."\nLife has changed little since he spoke those words -- most everyone still talks about sex. But with the release of "Kinsey," they will also be talking about Kinsey talking about sex.\n-- Contact staff writer Nicole Hindes at nhindes@indiana.edu.