Alfred Kinsey

Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956), American biologist, whose pioneering investigation of human sexual behavior resulted in two controversial studies that had far-reaching influence.

Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, June 23, 1894, Alfred Charles Kinsey was educated at Bowdoin College and Harvard University. He joined the faculty of Indiana University and became professor of zoology in 1929. During the 1930s he was occupied mainly with the taxonomy of gall wasps, on which he became a world authority. He wrote several biology texts and also Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America (1943).

In 1942, Kinsey founded the Institute for Sex Research, Inc., to investigate human sexual behavior. The findings of Kinsey and his associates, based on interviews with some 18,000 men and women, were published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior of the Human Female (1953). Both works drew fire for their controversial subject matter and unorthodox methodology. Nonetheless, they paved the way for later studies of human sexuality conducted under laboratory conditions and for a more realistic understanding of sexual behavior.

Kinsey died on August 25, 1956, in Bloomington, Indiana. The Institute for Sex Research published additional studies that were conducted under the direction of his associates.