The Ugly Head It is very possible that Dr. Alfred
C. Kinsey is an honest and disinterested biologist, but his publications have a air about them which smacks unpleasantly of good salesmanship. Having titillated the appetite of a lascivious world with his survey of the sexual habits of the American male 'he is now feeding it with one on the female. As a scientist he has every right to probe where he fancies, but in human affairs, and in particular those relating to sex, the truth is far from being a constant.. The doctor's informants are volunteers and this in itself gives rise to suspicion, the desire to confess adultery or perversion coming to few who are not exhibitionists. Furthermore his subjects mostly come from the north-eastern States and California, Florida and Illinois, all of which boast a higher education and a lower sexual morality. Although Dr. Kinsey's report may be true as far as it goes, in daring to reach statistical conclusions he must surely be at least as unreliable as any other pollster. Couched in however serious, psycho-analytical, medical or biological terms I find it impossible to believe on his evidence that fifty per cent. of American women anticipate marriage, and if Dr. Kinsey is as astute as I think he is I feel he must, in his less clinical moments, share my disbelief.
Previous page
