Alfred Kinsey, and Judith Reisman's Dirty Little
Mind
Adult Christianity,
November 2004
http://www.jesus21.com/content/sex/index.php?s=kinsey
By Miss Poppy Dixon
|
The movie "Kinsey,
Let's Talk About Sex," with Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, opened in
selected theaters on November 12. This article is an updated version of
a piece on one of Kinsey's contemporary detractors, Judith Reisman,
which I originally had written and posted in 1996. |
Judith Reisman
Judith Reisman was recently
quoted in the Sunday Los Angeles Times as one of Alfred Kinsey's chief
detractors. Indeed, she has made a career out of trying to discredit Kinsey, a
career which we will review here. Reisman's work would be of little
consequence were she not referenced by so many conservative Christian
organizations, from the Family Research Council, to James Dobson's Focus
on the Family, to Beverly LaHaye's Concerned Women of America. [1]
In the 1970s Judith Reisman was
a singer on the Captain Kangaroo show. The chanteuse's career
ended badly when the free-agent singer-songwriter ran headlong into modern
market research and the crushing competition of what she later referred to as
"the fast-action and increasing violence of cartoons on other
stations." Retreating under the cover of artistic integrity she turned to
academia, and a career in communications and media analysis. The fact that
children's minds wandered during her music videos had to be about something
other than the quality of her performance, and she was going to find out what
it was.
Enter Alfred Kinsey: Reisman's
personal scapegoat.
The move from kid's show
celebrity to academia was not an easy one for Reisman. Intimidated by her
husband, a university professor, and his colleagues, she reinvented herself as
a doctor of communications, expert on pornography, and token Jewish friend of
the American conservative religious right. In her Personal
Odyssey she writes that the academicians she met were "...out of
touch with the reality of the majority."[2]
Dr. Reisman began writing
extensively on Dr. Alfred Kinsey. Her first book was self-published, by her
occasionally defunct Institute for
Media Education, of which whe is President. Her second Kinsey book, and
another on pornography were published by Huntington House Books. Huntington
House, along with its subsidiary Vital Issues Press, will publish
almost any book on "conservative issues, politically incorrect exposés,
christian apologetics, cults/occult, evangelism, family issues, anti-globalist
issues" and "patriotism/survivalism" as it says in its appeal
to prospective authors.
The sad thing is that Kinsey's
books are highly accessible, written in straightforward prose interspersed
with dry and witty commentary. But like that other unfortunate and unread
tome, the Bible, it's become the handmaid of bloodless and shriveled
interpreters.
Type Judith
Reisman into the Amazon search engine and you'll see a display of
out-of-print and yet-to-be-printed (World Net Daily Publishing) mentions. You
can still dig up some of her books used. The obscurity of her work has not
prevented her from becoming a regular
writer for the right wing rag World
Net Daily.
QUESTIONING REALITY
The online-only Journal
of Human Sexuality, sponsored by http://www.leaderu.com/Leadership
U (a spinoff of Campus Crusade for Christ), has published Reisman's essay, Kinsey and the Homosexual Revolution. The
essay is comprised of 31 complex and leading questions, questions designed to
prejudice the reader, questions like "...what if all of Kinsey's work was
fraudulent, or worse?", and "...could not some American scientists
teach pederasts and pedophiles techniques for sexually abusing children for
'science'?", and "Was Kinsey himself a closet homosexual, pedophile
or pederast?"
The answer to these questions
is "no," which is why they're posed as questions and not as
statements. Though Dr. Reisman includes tables and footnotes, she offers no
proof or support for the innuendo she directs at Kinsey. In fact, her
"research methods" could call her own background into question.
In her Personal
Odyssey Reisman claims that rather than accommodate the criticism of her
work for the good of the Captain Kangaroo show and her child fans, she
decided quit the show. But, was this the real reason? Or is this just the way
Reisman chooses to cover her real crime, and deny her guilt? She IS an expert
witness on child pornography and pedophilia. Could the reason Reisman was
asked to leave the Captain Kangaroo show be that she molested several
of her young charges? No. But this is how complex questions work. In fact,
after reading this article you may have difficulty remembering what was true,
and what was only asked about, and forever wonder if Reisman is, or was,
herself a child molester, even though I specifically stated that she is not.
Not exactly scientific, is it?
THE PORN STUDY
In the early 1980s "the US
Justice Department had given Reisman a grant for $734,371 to study pictures in
Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler." [3] Reisman used
the grant to confirm her conclusion of "Kinsey's role in child sexual
abuse and the link to children appearing in mainstream pornography..." [4]
Dr. Reisman poured over thousands of pages of pornographic literature. She
felt herself persecuted at every turn and complained of a conspiracy to derail
her efforts, going so far as to blame the Kinsey Institute for her inability
to get published by a legitimate publishing house. [5]
And to an extent, she was
persecuted, though not for the reasons she assumed. The Reagan-appointee who
had commissioned the study, Alfred Regnery (the head of the conservative
publishing house, Regnery Press),
admitted he had been wrong to do so. Avedon Carol writes:
It
was a scientific disaster, riddled with researcher bias and baseless
assumptions. The American University (AU), where Reisman's study had been
academically based, actually refused to publish it when she released it,
after their independent academic auditor reported on it. Dr Robert Figlio of
the University of Pennsylvania told AU that, 'The term child used in the
aggregate sense in this report is so inclusive and general as to be
meaningless.' Figlio told the press, 'I wondered what kind of mind would
consider the love scene from Romeo and Juliet to be child porn'. (Carol,
1994, p.116) [6]
Dr Loretta Haroian, the cochair
of the plenary session of Child and Adolescent Sexuality at the 1984 World
Congress of Sexology, an expert on childhood sexuality, commented on Reisman's
work,
This
is not science, it's vigilantism: paranoid, pseudoscientific hyperbole with
a thinly veiled hidden agenda. This kind of thing doesn't help children at
all. ... [Reisman's] study demonstrates gross negligence and, while she
seems to have spent a lot of time collecting her data, her conclusions,
based on the data, are completely unwarranted. The experts Reisman cites
are, in fact, not experts at all but simply people who have chosen to adopt
some misinformed, Disneyland conception of childhood that she has. These
people are little more than censors hiding behind Christ and children."
(Carol, 1994, p.116). [7]
There
were difficulties in publishing the study, though Reisman tends to gloss over
this fact as illustrated in the case of The State of Ohio vs. the
Contemporary Art Center and Dennis Barrie (Mapplethorpe and Cincinnati).
Dr. Reisman was called to testify as an expert witness.
Mezibov,
the defense attorney "asks if [Reisman's] study has been published by
the Justice Department. 'It is on the shelf. It was published. You can buy
copies.' A series of truths, not adding up to the truth.
"Mezibov pulls out the pretrial testimony. 'You said before that there
was a six-year delay, that the study was published not by the Justice
Department but by Huntington Press. Would you like to change your
answer?'" [8]
The Executive Summmary of
Reisman's study was eventually published by Donald Wildmon's American
Family Association.
KINSEY - 1, REISMAN - 0
In 1990 Reisman wrote Kinsey,
Sex, and Fraud, with Edward Eichel, published by Vital Issues Press
(Huntington House). Reisman describes the book on her web site claiming that
"Kinsey's research involved illegal experimentation on several hundred
children."
The Kinsey Institute refuted
Reisman's allegations prompting a lawsuit filed in 1991 by Reisman against the
Institute's then director June Reinisch and Indiana University. Reisman
alleged defamation of character and slander. Reisman's attorney "withdrew
from the case" in 1993, and "in June 1994 the court dismissed
Reisman's case with prejudice [which means that Reisman is prohibited from
refiling the suit]." [9]
SHOWTIME
After almost thirty years Dr. Reisman has made it back to television..., in a
way. She was recently portrayed by actress Nancy Beatty in Showtime's movie Dirty
Pictures, starring James Woods. Woods plays Dennis Barrie, of the
Cincinnati Arts Center. Both Barrie, and the CAC, were charged with obscenity
for hosting Robert Mapplethorpe's controversial show The Perfect Moment
Nancy Beatty delivers a
perfectly brittle performance, gesticulating elaborately as her character
attempts to describe the way the light emphasizes a penis in one of
Mapplethorpe's photographs. Woods quips to his attorney "What is this,
porno for the deaf?"
Later in deliberation the jury
amuses itself mimicking Beatty's performance as Reisman. Though lampooned by
the left-wing, liberal media elite, in real life, despite her expert
testimony, the jury consisting of midwest Ohio citizens delivered a unanimous
verdict of not guilty.
HOUSE RESOLUTION 2749
In December of 1995 House Resolution 2749 was introduced to the House by
Representative by Steve Stockman, [10] and 40 cohorts. The
bill's short title is "Child Protection and Ethics I Education Act of
1995," while the official title offers an idea of what the bill is really
about - "A bill to determine if Alfred Kinsey's 'Sexual Behavior in the
Human Male' and/or 'Sexual Behavior in the Human Female' are the result of any
fraud or criminal wrongdoing." Reisman makes much of the bill in her curriculum
vitae, "This Bill is the culmination of Dr. Reisman's 20-years of
research and advocacy for children. A Senate hearing waits in the wings."
It's been nine years.
Who is Representative Steve
Stockman, the man who introduced HR 2749? He is a Texan swept from oblivion to
the US Congress on the 1994 conservative wave. Dubbed "Congressman
Clueless" by Mimi Swartz of The Texas Monthly, he described himself in an
interview with the American Enterprise Organization [11],
I
didn't even have a car at one point. In the summer of '80 I was living in
the Ft. Worth Water Gardens. I didn't go to the government for help when I
was homeless. I collected cans to earn money to eat. Hunger was a tremendous
incentive to get up and work. And in the long run, it taught me the work
ethic. I ended up going from a person who didn't like to work to now being
called a workaholic, because I have that fear or understanding of what it's
like to go hungry. I was 110 pounds and now I'm up to 208. So I caught up a
lot.
Stockman later became
born-again and joined socially-conservative Christians to reclaim America. In
Congress he signed Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, and was known for
mandatory prayer meetings for his office staff.
The religious right had high
hopes for Stockman as he tried to make a name for himself by signing his first
pieces of legislation - "bills designed, variously, to 'provide that
human life shall be deemed to exist from conception'; to 'repeal prohibitions
relating to semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity,
ammunition-feeding devices'; and to determine if Alfred Kinsey's well-known
books on sexual behavior are 'the result of any fraud or criminal
wrongdoing.'" [12]
How much influence did
Reisman's work have on this legislation? As well as being long-time Reisman
supporters, Donald Wildmon of American Family Association (her
ostensible employer), Gary Bauer of Family Research Council and Beverly
La Haye of Concerned Women for America are also members of the ultra
right-wing organization Council on National Policy founded by Tim La Haye. Who
else is a member? Representative Steve Stockman. Members of the CNP donated
over $35,000 to Stockman's 96 campaign via Phyllis Shlafley's Eagle Forum,
the Gun Owners of America, and the Majority Leader's Fund (Dick
Armey) - all members of the CNP. [13]
House Resolution 2749 died in
committee. It was not debated on the floor.
Stockman was defeated in 1996,
after one term, by Nick Lampson. Democrats were successful in charging that
Stockman was a "right-wing extremist with ties to militia groups." [14]
Perhaps now Huntington House will publish his memoirs.
SUMMARY
Let's review. First Reisman 'leaves' the Captain Kangaroo show. Then she
accepts over $700K for a report that both her university and the Justice
Department refuse to publish. She sues the Kinsey Institute for defamation,
loses, and is forbidden to try again. She appears as an expert witness at The
State of Ohio vs. the Contemporary Art Center and Dennis Barrie (Mapplethorpe
and Cincinnati) and the defense has her for lunch. And finally, she supports a
bill introduced by a wet-behind-the-ears, born-again freshman Congressman from
Texas, which never even makes it to the floor. It's unlikely Reisman could get
arrested at this point. Yet what makes her dangerous is the rarely questioned
nature of her writings, and her association with ultra-conservative religious
policy makers.
In Kinsey's highly readable
'Sexual Behavior in the Human Male' he writes,
It
is, precisely, the function of a population analysis to help in the
understanding of particular individuals by showing their relation to the
remainder of the group. [Kinsey's emphasis] ...Without such a background,
each individual becomes unique and unexplainable except through an elaborate
investigation of him as an isolated entity. [15]
By attempting to prevent access
to information about sex, social conservatives attempt to separate the
individual from his social context and exploit his insecurities. By convincing
an individual that his sexual interests are aberrations that grieve an ever
voyeuristic God, social conservatives can control that person through both
fear and guilt. Factual information about sexuality, and an individual's
relation to the group, serve as a pure light - banishing ignorance and healing
fear and guilt, bringing the individual back into the social milieu to which
he belongs.
Kinsey has admitted that his
sample was not adequate to draw firm conclusions, and longed for a more
comprehensive study to be conducted in the future. But the research Kinsey
provided has given people a context for their own sexuality, protecting them
from the priests and witch doctors who are ever ready to pry and condemn.
Reisman's claims about the
inadequacy of Kinsey's work would bear more weight if they called for new, and
more comprehensive studies of sexuality. But this is not the case. Reisman and
her cronies labor to outlaw any kind of informational sex education not based
on conservatively interpreted biblical principles. Free of factual data on sex
Dr. Reisman and her followers are at liberty to publish any kind of
unsupported nonsense they choose about sex, homosexuality, and pornography.
NOTES
1)
Organizational links to Reisman's works:
Family
Research Council Links (The FRC site search yields only 1 link, though a
Google search yields 5)
Concerned
Women for America Links
Focus
on the Family Links
Dr. Reisman was on the payroll
of The American Family Association. This was revealed when she was called to
testify in the case of The State of Ohio vs. the Contemporary Art Center and
Dennis Barrie (Mapplethorpe and Cincinnati).
"Joseph hands him a copy
of the A.F.A. [Donald Wildmon's American Family Association] tax return.
Mezibov shows it to Reisman, uses it to establish that she has received
thousands of dollars from the Reverend Wildmon's anti-porn group. Showing her
a copy of an article that appeared in the Washington Times, a review in which
she labeled Mapplethorpe a fascist artist, he points out that it is signed
"Judith Reisman, associate research director of the American Family
Association. She is an apologist for the pressure groups that provoked this
trial..."
SHOWDOWN
IN CINCINNATI, by James R. Peterson, March 1991
2)
"Having spent the last fifteen years at a university as a professor's
wife, I was both keenly aware of the regard the world had for those with
advanced degrees and often disappointed in what I privately considered a lack
of intellectual curiosity and vigor within the educated community. I found
faculty parties and conversations somehow lacking in a basic sort of common
sense, and for all their degrees, most academicians seemed to welcome being
out of touch with the reality of the majority."
A Personal Odyssey to
the Truth, By Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D., undated.
3)
"United States Department of Justice, The Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, Project No. 84-JN-AX-K007. Images of Children, Crime
and Violence in Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler Magazines. According
to Reisman's site, an Executive Summary was first published by The
American Family Association.
"...in 1984, the US
Justice Department had given Reisman a grant for $734,371 to study pictures in
Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler. She claims that these magazines published
6,000 cartoons, photos and other illustrations of children between 1954 and
1984."
The X-Rated Hoax: A tale of
harridans, charlatans & poppycock | Evangelical Psychologistsby Irene
Graham, of Burning Issues August
18, 1999
4) A
Personal Odyssey
5) "The
commercial sex industry now joined forces with the Kinsey Institute and
academic sexology to prevent any light from being shed on their world. In time
I would obtain copies of secret letters and packages, clandestinely sent
worldwide by the Kinsey Institute and pornographers, to discredit my
investigation into Kinsey and that of children appearing in their
magazines....All along, the Kinsey Institute maintained a constant, stealth
effort, largely censoring me and my findings from the print and broadcast
media, all relevant professional conferences and journals, book publishers and
such." A Personal
Odyssey to the Truth, By Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D. Date last modified, Jan
3, 2000.
6) Carol,
Avedon 1994, NUDES, PRUDES and ATTITUDES: PORNOGRAPHY and CENSORSHIP, New
Clarion Press, Gloucester, p. 156-158.
7) Ibid.,
p. 156-158.
8) SHOWDOWN
IN CINCINNATI, by James R. Peterson, PLAYBOY March 1991.
"Kinsey, Sex & Fraud: The Indoctrination of a People," by Dr.
Judith A Reisman, Edward W. Eichel. Publisher: Huntington
House, P.O. Box 53788, Lafayette, LA 70505, 800-749-4009.
9) Kinsey
Institute News Release: Bancroft Responds to Allegations from Family Research
Council John Bancroft, director of Kinsey
Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, September 6,
1995.
10) Bill
Summary and Status for the 104th Congress, H.R.2749, Child Protection and
Ethics I Education Act of 1995. The Kinsey
Institute Response to HR 2749 to which Stockman refused to respond.
11) Firebreathers:
Interviews with Six House Freshmen, American Enterprise Organization
12) Wacko,
Texas: A legislative loose cannon takes aim on government, by Larry Bensky,
Mother Jones.
13)
Federal Election Commission records on contributions to Steve Stockman's 1994,
and 1996
campaigns.
14) 29
House Incumbents Bolt Out Of The Starting Gate, by Marc Birtel, CQ Staff
Writer
15) Alfed C. Kinsey, Wardell B.
Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin, SEXUAL BEHAVIOR IN THE HUMAN MALE, (W.B. Saunders
Company, Philadelphia and London, 1948), p. 26.
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