I found this book to be exceptionally interesting; I hadn't been prepared for it to grab me so thoroughly at the very beginning and never let me go. The first chapter is a great portrait of Kinsey's "Childhood from Hell," raised by an egotistic, brutal control-freak father who was also a hypocritical extreme Methodist. Just as an example, when the young Kinsey announced that he wanted to be a biologist (rather than an engineer, his father's choice), his father broke with him -- forever!

Kinsey then put himself through school and wound up with a Ph.D. Cleverly, he then wrote a general biology text -- an excellent textbook which generated considerable revenues and raised Kinsey out of poverty. He pursued the gall wasp with incredible energy and tenacity for the next 10 or 20 years, and made his reputation as one of the premier biologists of his time.

Kinsey was a worker bee, who amassed tremendous collections of data, and drove his subordinates as hard as he drove himself. He devoted much thought to the sexual frustration and misery of his youth, and was appalled at the ignorance and frustration among his Indiana students. He conceived the idea of a "marriage course," and the experience of teaching that led to his first attempts at taking sexual histories.

Within a few years, this became his career, and he pursued this new collection of data just as ferociously as he had the gall wasp. Almost singlehandedly, he revolutionized the atmosphere for sexual discussion in the United States (although Freud had to come first, and break the absolute silence on the subject!)

Looking back, it becomes clear that Kinsey was a devoted and compassionate human being, as well as being a great scientist. Truly a hero of the 20th century. I think you'll enjoy this book, and enjoy getting to know a very interesting man.

I have not yet read this particular book, however, I am interested in edible wild plants. I have found a good book by Tom Brown, Jr. on the topic and thought I would inform other interested persons of this author because it seems not many people except those on the east coast have heard of him. So, if you are into edible wild plants, check it out! : > )

I first came into contact with this one at a school library. After looking at it once, I found myself buying a copy. It actually surpasses its title. It claims to be only about edible plants, but it also directs you in the process of making Mescadine Grape leather (a type of cold drink) and other recipes, and it even tells about edible fungi.

Recent attempts to discredit Kinsey originally drove me to read Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. I'm not a scientist and was worried about Kinsey's accessibility. But like Freud, he is a great writer with an empathic style. Kinsey builds a lyrical momentum that carries the reader to each new chapter.

By actually reading the book many histrionic notions about Kinsey's work are exposed as just that. But there's more. I especially enjoyed the stats that show excessively pious people overrepresented among those practicing beastiality, and Kinsey's unintentionally droll interpretation.

But more importantly Kinsey is committed to framing sexual aberrations in a social context. I'm sure it was a great comfort to many at the time it was written, as it must still be now. Rather than viewing the individual as twisting in the wind of his own personal sins, Kinsey provides perspective via a sexual continuum which draws the individual back into the human family to which he belongs.

If you really want to know about Kinsey, read this book, not just the widely published Bible-banging protests which the first two reviews reflect.

The folks who call this book "bad science" are the folks who hate science. It is surely possible to find faults with the Kinsey Research, but the obvious answer in the real world is to DO BETTER. Interview more people with better controls and better interviewers. To date, no one has done this.

Kinsey and his staff made the interesting discovery (about 50 years ago) that the most common sexual orientation for the human male was actually one of the bisexual orientations. There are some men who are exclusively straight, and there are some men who are exclusively gay, but the most common case is the male who is attracted (to some extent) to BOTH sexes. One example would be myself -- I consider myself 100% gay, but, when it comes down to the truth, I cannot honestly say that I have NEVER had sex with a female. And a lot of other guys cannot honestly say that they have NEVER had sex with another guy. They may be 98% straight, but their orientation is SLIGHTLY bisexual.

When you compare this interesting fact with the popular American mythology that men are 95% straight and 5% gay (hmm, no bisexuals at all!), you learn a very interesting lesson!

Al and me have a lot in common. We both graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood, NJ. We're both uninterested in the myth of objective morality. Lastly, we both would do anything to reach our goals--to bring glory to our Egos! This book, along with its Female counterpart, have had about as much impact on our society as Darwin has. Even if you're a bible-totin' Xian, you should read these volumes and then do some research into Kinsey. It may be "bad science", but it's good history--and good fun!

"Awkward" and "provincial" wrote the NY Times reviewer, and I can't disagree. To get an idea of the biographer's perspective on Kinsey, consider that he refers to an interest in S/M as "peculiar," and closes by predicting that had the atheistic Kinsey lived to see the age of AIDS, he would have seen AIDS as the work of a "wrathful God."

James Jones's biography of Alfred c Kinsey is a valuable antidote to the hagiographies and demonologies published so far. Jones presents the nastier sides of his subject's personality and exposes his strategically concealed sexual practices. However, Jones presents Kinsey as a pervert and charlatan, failing to understand the moral and scientific rationales for Kinsey's approach to sex research and thus totally misrepresents both the man and his achievement. Jones's last-page sop to Kinsey's greatness seems to be a cowardly after-thought to a bilious, splenetic and angry book.

I would recomend reading Judith Reismman's new book: Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences.

The Kinsey Institute revealed that Kinsey used pedophiles to document orgasms in hundreds of boys and girls as young a 5 months old. One of his favorites reported abusing at least 800 children. These

Kinsey reclassified prostitutes as married woman when he could not find enough woman willing to submit to his questionnaire. He used child molesters, rapists, homosexuals, prostitutes,sadists, masochists, etc. to represent the average American.

Kinsey would not allow anyone, even a janitor to work for him unless they submitted to a sexual history questionnaire. When applicants did not agree that adultery, pre-marital sex, and sex with animals was normal, he told them they would not fit in with his staff.

The Rockafeller Foundation's records reveal that Kinsey's associates were unqualified. Not only were the histories unscientifically administered but the statistics were proven unreliable and inacurate.

If you want to know the full truth of the Kinsey deception -- buy Reisman's well documented book.