how was alfred kinsey influential?

Answer 1

I'd personally have to say that what made Kinsey famous was NOT what made him influential.

What made him famous is rather easy to find, because that's what fame IS, neh? Toward the end of his life he published two books that are still the best-selling scientific books of all time: "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female". They were controversial to say the least, and some even credit them (and Kinsey) for the start of the sexual revolution in the 1960's.

But really there are many people who could have tried to publish such works who wouldn't have raised an eyebrow, and likewise many who wouldn't have been able to get them published in the first place, much less recieve grant money to conduct the research. It was possible for Kinsey, on the other hand, because he was already well-known (at least in scientific circles) and influential BEFORE he even started to work on them.

And what made him so influential was gall wasps.

Kinsey was a dedicated and meticulous scientist. He got his doctorate by making detailed measurements on each of hundreds of thousands of gall wasps, and the five million gall wasps he collected make up almost a third of the entire insect collection of the American Museum of Natural History.

He continued his work on gall wasps for years as he served as a professor and published several books on them. He also published what became a very widely used textbook on elementary biology and co-authored a book on edible plants that is considered authoritative to this day.

So you see that he was a well-known and respected biologist long before his work on sex. There are those who even suggest that it was his long study of variations of gall wasp mating habits that even led him to wonder more about human mating habits. So the next time you want to learn more about sex, just remember it all started with gall wasps, and not the birds and the bees!

Answer 2

OK, watch the movie for more details. I won't recommend the sex studies because I haven't read them and I doubt I will. I only have so much time, you know.

Kinsey actually catalogued and published what people really thought about sex and what they did when they had sex and who they had sex with...totally groundbreaking at the time. Nobody had even thought to *study* sex before, much less publish the results. People learned what their neighbors were doing, their parents, their friends...whoever answered the survey (and it was a big study, too.) People were really shocked and intrigued by the whole thing, and it got people thinking about what "normal" sexuality was all about. All the secrets were being listed in books! Amazing!

If you look back at the time when they did the studies and how prudish and weird people were about sex at the time, it was really a fantastic new idea to study sex in an academic, scientific way like any other anthropological subject.

And the movie's good in general. Very interesting.

Answer 3

He changed the public perception of sexual acts which had previously been considered wrongful, unpleasant, or unorthodox. In particular, homosexuality, masturbation and adultery.

He also broke down the taboo against discussing sexual matters..

Answer 4

he had a talent for getting his message through to the people....if you have something that you can not seem to bang into some ones head then you must learn a way to get the message through in a way that they they can understand it.....this can be very difficult, even though to you it is a simple matter

Answer 5

How is this a philosophy question?