Ms Daily continued: 'Whether they responded to Kinsey's work with hostility, scepticism, or confusion, the Kinsey correspondence indicates most Americans were surprisingly comfortable with a functional understanding of sex as a spectrum of biology or catalogue of behaviours.'Īlfred Kinsey (pictured) is generally regarded as the father of 'sexology' - and established the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University in 1947Īfter 20 years in this field of entomology, he began teaching 'Marriage and Family' - a course for senior and married students. Inquiries such as these from the Britons were in stark contrast to the American perspective on sex. He also asked Kinsey to send him information about the rate of premature ejaculation in uncircumcised versus circumcised men.
The Welshman blamed his own intact foreskin for the brief nature of his sexual encounters, 'brief not only from my own point of view but from the point of view of satisfying my partners'. In February 1954, a man from Cardiff penned a missive in which he complained about the lack of information about circumcision in Kinsey's book Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male. Although his analysis was carefully conducted, the studies were heavily criticised due to irregularities in the sampling and the unreliability of personal communication Known as the 'Kinsey Reports', they drew on 18,500 personal interviews. Kinsey's fascination with human sex life would lead to the publication of two books - Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female (1953). In the journal Twentieth Century British History, she wrote: 'The diversity of topics upon which British correspondents single-mindedly dwelled included the menstrual cycle, homosexuality in the boy scouts, the incidence of married virgins, the relationship between stuttering and repression, penis circumference, sexual jealousy, and the religious implications of conserving bodily fluids. Ms Daily said that compared with Americans and continental Europeans, British correspondents to Kinsey 'might seem to suggest the long-standing cliché of Britain as a particularly sexually repressed nations is, in fact, accurate'.
#ALFRED KINSEY CHILD ABUSE VERIFICATION#
'You will now understand', he wrote, 'why I am so tremendously interested in your unique collection of data … there are astrological configurations … which correspond to frigidity and promiscuity, but the verification of such tendencies are (as you will surely appreciate) almost impossible to obtain'. (Above centre, Lt General Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement walks among his young troops) In the post-war era, British 'armchair sexologists' were eager to discuss penis circumference, homosexuality in the Boy Scouts, the religious implications of conserving bodily fluids and the relationship between stuttering and repression. One letter writer, from the West Midlands, told Kinsey in 1953 that sexuality was determined by astrological signs. The letters show post-war Britons were also fascinated by star signs, sexual jealousy and the incidence of married virgins, according to a study of the correspondence by historian Ruby Ray Daily, of Northwestern University, Illinois. One letter typical of the correspondence Kinsey received was from a Bournemouth resident who wrote, 'I am an amateur Sexologist.'Īnd in 1951, a man claiming to be a police officer from Shepherd's Bush, west London, proclaimed that all Boy Scouts were 'homo-sexual' - and that the letter writer had 'never made the mistake of not recognising a H.S. An analysis of letters from British correspondents to Alfred Kinsey, pioneering sexologist of the 1940s and 50s, reveal that they had a 'very idiosyncratic' way of addressing the subject of sex.Īmong the topics these 'armchair sexologists' were eager to discuss were penis circumference, homosexuality in the Boy Scouts, the religious implications of conserving bodily fluids and the relationship between stuttering and repression.
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