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‘Kinsey' message rings true in contemporary culture
BY L. KENT WOLGAMOTT / Lincoln Journal Star
Wednesday, Dec 22, 2004 - 04:54:47 pm CST

Back in 1948, Alfred Kinsey, a University of Indiana biology professor turned sex researcher, published "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," sending shock waves through the then-conservative culture while bringing knowledge of sex into the 20th century.

What made Kinsey controversial is that he found that Americans weren't nearly as prudish as they pretended to be.

Using statistical calculations taken from a huge sample, Kinsey and his team of researchers found that 92 percent of men and boys masturbate. By age 20, over 70 percent of unmarried men have had intercourse. Forty percent of America's husbands have had extramarital flings. Sixty-nine percent of male Americans have had sex with a prostitute at least once. Ten percent of adult males are exclusively homosexual for a period of three years during their lives, while 4 percent of American men were "exclusively homosexual" throughout their lives.

Some of those numbers might have slipped one way or the other over the years.

But the light Kinsey shed on sexual behavior continues to shine while the man himself was largely forgotten — at least until writer/director Bill Condon and star Liam Neeson brought him fully to life with all his quirks and foibles in "Kinsey," one of the best pictures of 2004.

Released in major markets in mid-November, this pull-no-punches biopic is just now getting to Lincoln. That's not surprising given the nature of the film.

While it looks at Kinsey's research in detail and includes several scenes of sex and nudity, "Kinsey" is far from titillating. Rather, it is more of an intellectual journey into the world of a man who didn't quite fit in — anywhere.

The son of a domineering engineer father (John Lithgow), who expected Alfred to follow in his footsteps, young Kinsey had to break away to follow his interest in biology. Even then, his obsession was monklike. He began his career collecting and studying 1 million gall wasps.

He never might have left the world of wasps if not for Clara McMillen (Laura Linney), the graduate student who became his wife. Both virgins on their wedding night, the Kinseys had trouble figuring out how to make things work in the bedroom. Of course, the awkwardly intellectual Alfred saw his wedding night difficulties as a challenge and started looking into sex with the same detached interest he brought to his bugs.

Soon thereafter he was teaching "marriage" classes at Indiana, where students were shocked by basic reproductive biology. Then he extended his interest to the groundbreaking surveys in which people from all walks of life were asked a battery of questions about their sex lives.

To get enough surveys done, Kinsey rounded up a team of young researchers (Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton), threw them together and sent them around the country, eventually studying their sometimes-swinging sex lives as well.

Those kinks are referred to in "Kinsey," and Alfred's bisexual dalliance also makes its way to the screen. But in both cases, the sexuality is in service of the film rather than simply there to "shock."

When Kinsey published his book, he became the worst kind of media star. Totally unsuited for the attention, he was both evangelistic and defensive. And when the popular tide turned against the professor, his world nearly crumbled.

All of this is brought powerfully to the screen by Condon, who won a screenplay Oscar for his last movie, "Gods and Monsters," and driven home by the best performance of Neeson's distinguished career.

His Kinsey is tough-minded, scientific and totally lost when it comes to human relationships — with his wife, his children, his researchers, his boss (a very good Oliver Platt), politicians and the public. His determination and the purity of his effort are admirable. But his flaws are just as apparent, a mark of the quality of Neeson's acting and Condon's writing.

Linney gives another sympathetic performance as the understanding Clara, without whom it is clear Kinsey would have fallen apart. The rest of the cast is also strong, and Condon makes great use of editing and some clever visual devices to illustrate the studies.

Even though it isn't a sex romp, "Kinsey" is an entertaining picture, shifting from some genuinely funny moments to powerful drama, and back again.

The events in "Kinsey" take place from the 1930s to the 1950s. But the film is very relevant today with the resurgence of conservative culture, which tries to ignore what Kinsey and his successors have found or pretends that the research is somehow flawed.

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.