Editing Alfred Kinsey (section)

=== Controversial aspects ===
Kinsey's research went beyond theory and interview to include observation of and participation in sexual activity, sometimes involving co-workers. Kinsey justified this sexual experimentation as being necessary to gain the confidence of his research subjects. He encouraged his staff to do likewise, and to engage in a wide range of sexual activity, to the extent that they felt comfortable; he argued that this would help his interviewers understand the participants' responses.<ref name="Vern1">{{cite journal|first=Vern L.|last=Bullough|title=Book Review "Alfred C. Kinsey: Sex the Measure of All Things; A Biography"|journal=Journal of Sex Research|date=August 1, 1999|doi=10.1080/00224499909552001 |url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Alfred+C.+Kinsey:+Sex+the+Measure+of+All+Things%3B+A+Biography.%28Review%29-a061487453|volume=36|pages=306–315}}</ref><ref name="Vern2">{{cite journal|first=Vern L.|last=Bullough|title=The Kinsey biographies|journal=Sexuality & Culture|issue=1|date=March 1, 2006|volume=10|pages=15–22|doi=10.1007/s12119-006-1002-8|s2cid=144490686}}</ref> Kinsey filmed sexual acts which included co-workers in the attic of his home as part of his research;<ref name="pbs">{{cite web|title=Kinsey Establishes the Institute for Sex Research|work=American Experience: Kinsey|publisher=PBS|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kinsey/peopleevents/e_institute.html|access-date=January 3, 2008| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080121074608/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kinsey/peopleevents/e_institute.html| archive-date= January 21, 2008 | url-status= live}}</ref> Biographer Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy explains that this was done to ensure the films' secrecy, which would have caused a scandal had it become public knowledge.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/publications/column2.html |title=The Kinsey Institute – [Publications&#93; |publisher=Indiana.edu |access-date=December 4, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/publications/duberman.html |title=The Kinsey Institute – [Publications&#93; |publisher=Indiana.edu |date=November 3, 1997 |access-date=December 4, 2013}}</ref> James H. Jones, author of ''Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life'', and British psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple, among others, have speculated that Kinsey was driven by his own sexual needs.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jones|first=James H.|title=Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life|year=1997|publisher=Norton|location=New York|isbn=0-393-04086-0|edition=1.|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/alfredckinseypub00jone}}</ref>

Some of the data published in the two ''Kinsey Reports'' books is controversial in the scientific and psychiatric communities, due to Kinsey's decision to interview volunteers who may not have been representative of the general population.<ref name="Boothe">{{cite news|url=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/50-years-after-the-kinsey-report/|title=50 Years After The Kinsey Report|author=Boothe Cosgrove-Mather|publisher=Associated Press, CBS News|date=January 27, 2003|access-date=April 4, 2014}}</ref>  University of Chicago sociology professor Edward Laumann also argued that Kinsey's work was focused on the biology of sex and lacked psychological and clinical information and analysis.<ref name="Boothe" />

Kinsey collected sexual material from around the world, which brought him to the attention of U.S. Customs when they seized some pornographic films in 1956; he died before this matter was resolved legally.<ref name="pbs"/> Kinsey wrote about pre-adolescent orgasms using data in tables 30 to 34 of the male volume, which report observations of orgasms in over three-hundred children aged from two months up to fifteen years.<ref name="kinsey-tables">{{cite book|title= Sexual Behavior in the Human Male  |last= Kinsey|first= Alfred Charles|author2=Clyde Eugene Mart|year= 1998 |orig-year=1948|publisher=Indiana University Press|pages=178–180 |isbn= 0-253-33412-8}}</ref> This information was said to have come from adults' childhood memories, or from parent or teacher observation.<ref name="kinsey-inst">{{cite web|url=http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/controversy%202.htm |title=Kinsey Institute statement denies child abuse in study |publisher=Kinseyinstitute.org |access-date=December 4, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130123084849/http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/controversy%202.htm |archive-date=January 23, 2013 }}</ref> Kinsey said he also interviewed nine men who had sexual experiences with children, and who told him about the children's responses and reactions. Little attention was paid to this part of Kinsey's research at the time, but where Kinsey had gained this information began to be questioned nearly 40 years later.<ref name="BeyondBed">{{cite news | last = Brown| first = Mick | title = The bedroom and beyond | publisher = Telegraph magazine | date = November 2004 | url = http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/12/1100227565498.html | access-date = December 7, 2009| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20091202074932/http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/12/1100227565498.html| archive-date= December 2, 2009 | url-status= live}}</ref> It was later revealed that Kinsey used data from a single pedophile and presented it as being from various sources. Kinsey had seen the need for participant confidentiality and anonymity as necessary to gain "honest answers on such taboo subjects".<ref>{{cite news|last = Welsh-Huggins |first = Andrews|title = Conservative group attacks Kinsey data on children |work = Herald-Times|date=September 1995|url = http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/1995/09/06/archive.19950906.b0c15bb.sto|quote = 'There couldn't have been any research if we turned them in,' he said. "Of course we knew when we interviewed pedophiles that they would continue the activity, but we didn't do anything about that.' Providing such absolute assurances of anonymity was the only way to guarantee honest answers on such taboo subjects, said Gebhard.}}</ref><ref name="Pool">{{cite news|last=Pool |first=Gary |title=Sex, science, and Kinsey: a conversation with Dr. John Bancroft – head of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction |publisher=Humanist |date=Sep–Oct 1996 |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_n5_v56/ai_18640605/pg_1 |access-date=January 7, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080327222948/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_n5_v56/ai_18640605/pg_1 |archive-date=March 27, 2008 }}</ref>  Years later, the Kinsey Institute said that the data on children in tables 31–34 came from one man's journal (started in 1917) and that the events concerned predated the Kinsey Reports.<ref name="Pool"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/cont-akchild.html |title=Kinsey Institute director denies allegations by Reisman |publisher=Kinseyinstitute.org |access-date=December 4, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140212143625/http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/cont-akchild.html |archive-date=February 12, 2014 }}</ref>

Jones wrote that Kinsey's sexual activity influenced his work, that he over-represented prisoners and prostitutes, classified some single people as "married",<ref name="Jones">Jones, James H. (1997). Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life. New York: Norton.</ref> and that he included a disproportionate number of homosexual men, which may have distorted his studies.<ref name="Vern1"/><ref name="Vern2"/> While he has been criticized for omitting African-Americans from his research,<ref name="Reumann0">{{cite journal|last = Reumann|first = Miriam|title = American Sexual Character: Sex, Gender, and National Identity in the Kinsey Reports|journal = Archives of Sexual Behavior|volume = 36|issue = 5|page = 294|publisher = Springer Netherlands|location = University of California Press, Berkeley|year = 2005|doi=10.1007/s10508-007-9230-z |s2cid = 189871726}}</ref> his report on the human male includes numerous references to African-American participants.{{sfn|Reumann|2005|page=24}}  Historian Vern Bullough writes that the data was later reinterpreted, excluding prisoners and data derived from an exclusively gay sample, and the results indicate that it does not appear to have skewed the data. Kinsey may have over-represented homosexuals, but Bullough considers that this may have been because homosexual behavior was stigmatized and needed to be better understood.<ref name="Vern1"/><ref name="Vern2"/>  Paul Gebhard, who was Kinsey's colleague from 1946 to 1956 and who also succeeded Kinsey as Director of the Kinsey Institute following his death,<ref name=gebhardrelia>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/gebhard.htm|title=NEW RIVER MEDIA INTERVIEW WITH: PAUL GEBHARD Colleague of Alfred Kinsey 1946–1956 Former Director of the Kinsey Institute|author=New River Media|publisher=PBS.org|access-date=October 27, 2014}}</ref> attempted to justify Kinsey's work in the 1970s by removing some of the suspect data where Kinsey allegedly showed a bias towards homosexuality.<ref name=gebhardrelia />  After Gebhard recalculated the findings in Kinsey's work, he found only slight differences between the original and updated figures.<ref>Gathorne-Hardy, Jonathan (2005). ''Kinsey: A Biography'', p 285. London: Pimlico</ref>

Bailey et al., in their 2016 review of the sexual orientation [[literature]], stated that Kinsey's survey likely overestimated the frequencies of nonheterosexual attractions and expressions.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bailey|first1=J. Michael|last2=Vasey|first2=Paul|last3=Diamond|first3=Lisa|last4=Breedlove|first4=S. Marc|last5=Vilain|first5=Eric|last6=Epprecht|first6=Marc|title=Sexual Orientation, Controversy, and Science|journal=Psychological Science in the Public Interest|date=2016|volume=17|issue=2|pages=45–101|doi=10.1177/1529100616637616|pmid=27113562|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301639075|doi-access=free}}</ref>