Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: ThenIndoctrination of a Peoplenby Judith A. Reisman andnEdward W. EichelnEdited by J. Gordon Muirnand John H. CourtnLafayette, Louisiana: HuntingtonnHouse; 256 pp., $19.95nWho now reads Alfred Kinsey?nAlmost no one. Who now remembersnthe great media event set offnin 1948 by the publication of his “monumental”nbook of 804 pages on SexualnBehavior in the Human Male? MostnAmericans over 40 probably do, whilenmost under 40 probably do not. Fewncollege students today recognize thenname, unless they have just had to passna multiple-choice exam in Sex andnSociety 101.nKinsey was not one of the conquistadoresnof sexology, among a pantheonnof modernist cultural heroes who lednthe conquest of two eons of Christianntradition; he seems to have seen himselfnas a humble statistician document-nJack D. Douglas is professor ofnsociology at the University ofnCalifornia, San Diego, andnthe author of The Myth of thenWelfare State.nCredulous Creaturesnby Jack D. Douglasn”If the world will be gulled, let it be gulled.ning the thunderous truths of the Marquisnde Sade, Krafift-Ebing, Freud,nEllis, Sanger, Malinowski, Mead, andnothers. By trade, Kinsey was an entomologistnwhose forte was the meticulousncounting of specimens and itemsnof behavior. His calling was the use ofnthis trade to “mop up” the lingeringntraces of Victorian hypocrisy by buryingnthem in an avalanche of statisticsnabout the sexual behavior of twelventhousand men, boys, and babies.nKinsey was well aware that his statisticsnwere only the ne plus ultra of manyndecades of interviews, questionnaires,ncompilations, and analyses by manynsexologists. But he also knew that, innan age of bureaucratic official informationnand technocratic journalists, anmountain of arcane numbers buried innmyriad analyses would pulverize anynpublic criticisms of the new faith ofnsexual liberation. Just as fifth-centurynChristians used their celibacy as anbreastplate of Christian righteousnessnto humiliate their pagan enemies, sonKinsey used statistics as his scientificnbreastplate of righteousness to humiliatenhis Christian and scientific opponentsnwith “proof” of rampant hypocrisy.nStripped of all its complexities,nKinsey’s argument was a bald assertionnthat “scientific statistics” on thesennn— Robert Burtonntwelve thousand men (soon to be followednby a supporting cast of eightnthousand females exposed in SexualnBehavior in the Human Female)n”proved” that Americans were secretlyncommitting a lot of sexual sins thatnthey publicly denounced. The undeclarednconclusion of his work was thatnthis proof of hypocrisy also proved thatnthe Christian tradition of sex confinednto marriage was wrong, and thereforenshould be abandoned in favor of sexualnliberation — that is, casual sex of whatevernpolymorphously perverse form fitsnone’s fancy at the moment, be it animalismnor Romantic Passion.nThough almost all the details ofnKinsey’s work have now been forgottenneven by sexologists, that work didnmuch to advance his calling in preciselynthe ways he anticipated. My reviewnof a small sample of major texts on sex,nmarriage, and family shows that theynstill routinely refer to Kinsey’s greatnimpact through the mass media in then1950’s. No single work that I know ofnhas noted the obvious facts that nonone, least of all Christians, ever doubtednthat deviant sex and hypocrisy werenrampant, and that ministers routinelynadvanced this fact as evidence of thenneed for Christianity. When the GreatnSpirit of an age decrees the triumph ofna Creat Myth, no amount of commonnSEPTEMBER 1991/33n