TheNZThrower
Active Member
Hi everyone! I have encountered this one website by the name of ''Stop the Kinsey Institute'', which claims that in a testimony he gave to the California Subcommittee on Sex Crimes in 1949, Alfred Kinsey claimed that children are unharmed by sexual abuse:
In case anyone is curious, here is the report in question housed in the Stanford Auxiliary Library #3. In addition, Reisman cites a series of quotes allegedly from a book by Judge Morris Ploscowe titled ''Sexual Patterns and the Law'', which states that:
Of course, this isn't much to work with, especially since I wasn't able to obtain a PDF of Ploscowe's work. However, if we do a more detailed analysis of the original citation, we find that it comes from a book titled ''Sex Habits of American Men, A Symposium on the Kinsey Report'', allegedly by an Albert Deutsch.
Here are the results I was able to obtain via a simple google search of the above citation. I was also able to obtain the following book review on the JAMA network, locked behind a paywall of course:
The source for this claim appears to come from one of the books written by conservative author Judith Ann Reisman, titled Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences. It makes the following claim on page 212 of the book:Kinsey also claimed that his extensive data on children proved they are unharmed by sex;
There was not a single source cited for this claim in particular. However, the book, on page 213, offers the following transcript allegedly from the aforementioned subcommittee:In 1949, Kinsey told a special session of the California legislature that his Indiana University team had determined that most child sex offenses result from sexual repression. He and his team were, by definition, secret “sexual psychopaths” fearful of prosecution and prison, public condemnation, and ruin of their scientific careers. Therefore, Kinsey energetically advocated against the legislative and judicial move toward tougher sex offender penalties. The data, he said, proved the “sexual psychopath” laws invalid since all sexual conduct was normal, “mammalian,” and thus largely noncriminal.
Here is a screenshot of the source cited:After claiming that their massive database found most children harmed more by hysterical parents, police and social workers than by sexual molestation, Kinsey used his false data to argue for paroling rapists and even child sex offenders:
- DR. KINSEY: For the last 11 years we have had a research project, as you know, under way at the university on human sexual behavior… [providing] a picture typical in the population as a whole as well as a special study of the persons who have been involved with the law as sex offenders. The research is supported by Indiana University, by the medical division of the Rockefeller Foundation, and by the medical division of the National Research Council at Washington… [W]e find that 95 percent of the [male] population has in actuality engaged in sexual activities which are contrary to the law.
- MR. BECK: [W]hat are your recommendations… at the present time?
- DR. KINSEY: by lessening the penalty—still arresting, still convicting, but lessening the penalty….
- MR. BECK: You mean by granting parole? DR. KINSEY: They grant parole immediately in 80 percent of… sex cases….87
In case anyone is curious, here is the report in question housed in the Stanford Auxiliary Library #3. In addition, Reisman cites a series of quotes allegedly from a book by Judge Morris Ploscowe titled ''Sexual Patterns and the Law'', which states that:
Before we continue, do note that Reisman never cites the Kinsey report directly, nor do they quote him directly. Rather, all sources for such claims come from second hand sources. According to Google Books, the only book that matches this title by Ploscowe is ''Sex and the Law''. By searching for the word ''Kinsey'' within the book, I obtained the following results:One of the conclusions of the Kinsey report is that the sex offender is not a monster... but an individual who is not very different from others in his social group, and that his behavior is similar to theirs. The only difference is that others in the offender’s social group have not been apprehended. This recognition that there is nothing very shocking or abnormal in the sex offender’s behavior should lead to other changes in sex legislation. …In the first place, it should lead to a downward revision of the penalties presently imposed on sex offenders.
Of course, this isn't much to work with, especially since I wasn't able to obtain a PDF of Ploscowe's work. However, if we do a more detailed analysis of the original citation, we find that it comes from a book titled ''Sex Habits of American Men, A Symposium on the Kinsey Report'', allegedly by an Albert Deutsch.
Here are the results I was able to obtain via a simple google search of the above citation. I was also able to obtain the following book review on the JAMA network, locked behind a paywall of course:
Well what can we say, we have a dearth of primary sources, all of which cannot be easily accessed online. Hence people ought to take this claim by Reisman, for now, with a dump truck load of salt. If anyone is able to progress this case and provide the relevant sources, please do notify me.The publication of the Kinsey report aroused a flood of essays and comments which approached the problem from many different points of view. The collection of essays included in this book is better than most because of the qualifications of the contributors. The work is certainly not one for the average reader, who is likely to come away from its reading more confused than if he had limited himself to Kinsey's original book. As might be expected, the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish points of view vary, and one wonders why a book of the type of the Kinsey book should be submitted to that type of study. The criticisms in the various chapters take the colors of the well established attitudes of the writers. If the reader has previously approached the subject he obviously colors what he reads by his own attitudes. If this seems confusing, it is.