Posted: 11/28/2004

Kinsey

(2004)

by Hank Yuloff

“Let’s talk about sex… How often do you masturbate? How many sexual partners have you had since you were married? Are you greatly turned on by members of the same sex? What color goats do you prefer?”

OK… So maybe that last one is a little off the mark, but in Kinsey’s warnings (the trailer) it seemed like we were going to see lots and lots of people talk about their sexual histories—or at least that was the hope by some reviewers. But what we got was a story about the man who began the Sexual Revolution in the late 1940s that The Pill kicked into high gear in the 1960s.

Liam Neeson (Schindler’s List, Gangs of New York, Love Actually) plays the title role of Dr. Alfred Kinsey, an Indiana University professor of zoology that found that his studying gull wasps would not benefit society very much compared to studying the sexual habits of homosapiens in America. His study, based on in-depth questioning of 1000’s of people all across the country became a shocking best seller and caused our Puritan societal self to raise its ugly head… Kind of like it did after the 2004 Super Bowl. What is very interesting is that he found the need for such a study by accident when he was questioned by some of his students on things concerning human sexual biology and he found that there was no scientific data to back up his empirical thoughts.

We see that Kinsey was a very driven man, no matter what his self-assigned task. Indeed, his obsession with the normal variances within the insect world probably helped him in his search to describe, for the first time, a look at the “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” in 1948 and “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” a year later. It is hard to imagine living at a time before the Kinsey reports when things like masturbation were taught to cause blindness and insanity… Oh, wait… In some places they still do. I guess he did not have that big an impact.

We are given wonderful insight into how Kinsey and his team of three researchers were able to develop an interview process that allowed people to skip past the fear of being found “not normal” or the shame and guilt that are set upon us (still) as children growing up in a sexually stilted society. That Kinsey did all of this against the background of the Cold War search for communists shows how special he and his team were.

Laura Linney (Love Actually, You Can Count On Me) plays Clara McMillen, Kinsey’s rudder of a wife who showed him by example how his thoughts that sex is just sex (factoring out the love) was a difficult road to travel. John Lithgow plays Kinsey’s father. It is the second time (Footloose being the first) that Lithgow has completely convincingly played a Reverend who feels it is his responsibility to save his flock from the evils that advanced society can offer. Look for him to get an Oscar nod for supporting actor.

Writer/director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) did an excellent job of telling the story, using graphic depiction’s when necessary without going over the lines of decency (but I have not heard an opinion of the FCC so we don’t know if this will ever be broadcast on our networks).

So, even if it is raining, put on your rubbers and go learn about sex.

Hank Yuloff is considered quite the expert on sex… using just his hands and his left foot, that is.

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