Kinsey: You
Never Know Where
The Visionaries Will Appear
By T. Patrick
Donovan
06 December, 2004
Countercurrents.org
The
recent film about Dr. Alfred Kinsey (starring Liam Neeson and Laura
Linney) could not have arrived at a more perfect poltical moment. With
all the post-election day handwringing, all the scurrying around about
vote fraud, and all the furrowed brows planning Election 2006/2008,
it is so refreshing to see the story of a 20th century visionary depicted
on the big screen.
Yes, visionary.
The heart of the
movie "Kinsey" lies in the powerful cultural-poltical confrontation
between the good doctor and his research institute and the forces of
reactionary moral values and conservative renormalization. It is a rather
disturbing parallel to the post-election climate that is so awash in
"moral values" that more than a few progresives are getting
onboard this reactionary vessel.
Will "moral
values," and "Democrats learning to speak the language"
of moral values be our next version of "Anybody But Bush"?
Dr. Alfred Kinsey,
if he were alive, would have none of it!
To understand Kinsey's
subversive power it is important to contextualize his two most famous
studies. "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" was published
in 1948, immediately in the aftermath of WW2 and with the shadow of
the Cold War looming ominously. "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female"
was published in 1953 in the midst of the Senator Joseph McCarthy-J.
Edgar Hoover political witchhunts.
The Puritans of
the day shook their heads and their fists when the first book hit the
stands. Charges of promoting homosexuality and pedophilia were hurled
at Kinsey and his reseachers. For the most part the furor simmered and
the "wacky scientists" in Indiana were left to do their research.
In a curious insight
into the patriarchal nature of 1950's America (and today as well), it
was the publication of the report on American women that dealt the crushing
blow to Kinsey personally and moved his institute beyond the pale (Kinsey
died a few years later).
It was bad enough
that men were discovered to be fondling women and (quite often) other
men too, but it was morally traitorous to besmirch American womanhood
(though one wonders: if all the men in the earlier study were fondling
women weren't the women fondling back?).
Suddenly the female
body was uncaged. The 200 years of Puritanical efforts at suppression
and dissociation from the pleasures of the flesh were exposed as merely
having driven sexuality underground. It was too much and Kinsey would
be made to pay.
Today the Puritans
are back. Let's distinguish them by calling them Techno-Puritans, for
they've upgraded from the blunderbuss and the public pillory to WMD
and the Patriot Act. But make no mistake, this country is founded on
Puritan ideology and it is to these psychological and political roots
that America defaults under stress. Has there been a greater stress
(excuse?) than 9/11?
Is it into this
Puritanical clearing in a morally ambiguous world that progressives
are going to be seduced (oops)?
Kinsey understood,
in all his complexity as a dispassionate scientist with his feet planted
in the sensuous, that knuckling under to the regressive dictates of
"moral values" was a step back into darkness.
Remember, when the
Kinsey Reports first were published it was a time when so-called "sexual
deviants" were being jailed, given shock therapy, called mentally
ill by the hallowed DSM-IV, and either self-medicating with alcohol
and drugs or committing suicide.
The fact that there
has been post-election, Monday-morning quarterbacking about how it was
"wrong" and "ill-timed" for homosexual marriage
to be advocated, is exactly indicative of the step that Kinsey warned
about and refused to take.
In dark times you
can never predict from where the next becon of light will shine forth.
In one of the most conservative and fear-ridden periods in American
history, Dr. Alfred Kinsey was such a beacon. His uncompromising efforts
to debunk dangerous attitudes and neurotic half-truths -- many of them
sexist and racist -- saved lives and saved souls.
Yes, souls.
The Techno-Puritans,
in their cultural support of expanded empire, know full well that turning
the clock back to a time when the repressive moral values of a body-denying,
Earth-destroying culture reigned is a crucial step. Kinsey reminds us
that our struggle is far from over.
Kinsey reminds us
that there are times and issues where the lines must be drawn so starkly,
the "No" stated so uncompromisingly, as to leave no doubt
who the forces of humanity are and where they stand.
Ready?
T. Patrick Donovan
is a doctoral student in Depth
Psychology