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This article is very disturbing

The Kinsey Whitewash

I know nothing about Dr. Kinsey, in fact I never even heard of the guy until I read Scott Holleran's glowing review of the movie. I haven't gone to see that movie based on his review because, quite frankly, it didn't sound that interesting. After reading this Whitewash article I'm glad I did not. This Dr. Kinsey sounds like a real charletan not to mention totally unscientific and rather immoral to associate with a pedophile and use his "research." I don't know why anyone would want to make a movie to this person, it sounds like his "ideas" may have led to all sorts of nefarious enterprises like NAMBLA, etc.

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I totally disagree with this slanted article.

I'm sure the movie did not treat the subject objectively, as it is a work of fiction. I'm sure there have been some disgusting influences and outcomes to this research, and yes - there might be questions about the scientific validity of Kinsey's methods (even though I believe he did TRY to get as large and accurate sample as possible).

The fact remains that this is a man who dared to suggest, in the puritanical America of the 50s, that sex can be the subject of scientifical study, that it's a natural phenomena, and that religious dogma should be ignored in studying it.

Yes, he went too far in separating morality from scientifical study. The movie does not "gloss over" it. In fact, that's one of the movie's main themes. Still, Kinsey remains largely responsible for the more healthy and open attitudes towards sex today.

Teenager are no longer forced to take ice baths or wear strange contraptions to avoid masturbation, gays are no longer treated as sinners and excomminucated, female orgasms are a widely known fact, and oral sex is not considered dangerous.

Everyone should be able to appreciate Kinsey's sexual revolution, even if parts of it went too far.

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Why is it slanted? Because the author works for the Heritage Foundation? While that may mean a certain bias, it does not mean there is automatically no validity to the article or that what she says is not true. If they pedophile part of the article is true then the article is damning in the extreme.

Also, there is no point in over-glamorizing this man's "achievements." Open sexuality isn't a good thing when it isn't tied to morality, it leads directly to hedonism which is what is all around us today. America's puritanism during the 1950's is as much of a myth then as it would have been in the 1750's. Puritans only existed in one colony of the country and only for a relatively short period in power, their morality is long since dead, and certainly played no role in 1950's America, so please do not, in the future, hyperbolize. That is not to say that religion (which does not mean Puritanism, which refers to a specific set of ideas) did not play a large role in how people generally viewed sex in the 50's. But to attack an supplant an irrational view of human nature with one equally if not more pernicious is not an achievement and certainly not something to celebrate in film.

As to the rest of the points erandror makes I will address them separately:

Yes, he went too far in separating morality from scientifical study. The movie does not "gloss over" it. In fact, that's one of the movie's main themes. Still, Kinsey remains largely responsible for the more healthy and open attitudes towards sex today.
Anyone who can look at today's view of sex, which is often base and cheap, and say that this is healthy has an odd definition for that word. Open is certainly is, but I don't see that as a good in and of itself.

Teenager are no longer forced to take ice baths or wear strange contraptions to avoid masturbation

I'm not sure the extent that this happened at all, and I doubt that it could ever work, but lets assume it was widespread. I would agree that it is good parents don't do this (at least most parents as I'm sure there are some throwbacks out there) anymore, but replacing it with a nonchalant attitude towards sex is a mistake as well.

gays are no longer treated as sinners and excomminucated
They aren't? Excommunicated from what? The Catholic Church? That would seem a blessing to me. From society? They still are because their behavior is antithetical to species survival (because if everyone was gay the species would die off) and therefore strikes most people as odd.

female orgasms are a widely known fact

Oh come on now, I think you've been watching too much Leave it to Beaver, female orgasms have been a widely known fact for millenia, just read some bawdy fiction from a few hundred years ago to show that this "revelation" at least predates Dr. Kinsey. Just because people don't talk about things openly, does not mean common sensical things are entirely unknown.

oral sex is not considered dangerous
This falls under the same heading as the last one. Just because parents may have told children certain things to keep them from having sex too young doesn't mean that all parents actually accepted every myth and old wives tale they were selling. Just a quick reading of De Sade or any number of books from the 1600s on will tell you that people, adults that is, did not view sex, on the whole, in this way. Granted, religion changed much of this, especially the revivalism and awakenings that hit America in the 19th century. However, I doubt in most bedrooms in the 1950's or any era between husbands and wives in love, they thought oral sex was dangerous, religion can only go so far before people find it ridiculous, and the bedroom is a prime place for people to rebel, for no one, aside from the participants, will ever know.

Everyone should be able to appreciate Kinsey's sexual revolution, even if parts of it went too far.

Appreciate it why? The things that even made it possible, like the birth control pill, he had nothing to do with. His whole contribution was to make sex something non-spiritual (of course not in a religious sense, but in the Atlas Shurgged sense) and lower it on the planes with the other animals, which is not what human sex is about at all, we aren't insects, dogs, or rats. Scientifically studying human sexuality can only go so far and tell so much, it cannot do what it does for the sexuality of the other species because our brains our so much beyond theirs that the nature of sex entirely shifted when man first walked the earth. But leaving this aside and focusing back on this Dr. Kinsey, I don't see why we should applaud him at all, he's merely the other side of the same irrational coin your 1950's puritans are on. The article attempts to show why, and notice that the writer didn't say the views Dr. Kinsey was challenging were the correct views, only that the movie paints a misleading picture of Dr. Kinsey, who was in fact a not so honorable man.

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Look,

I obviously agree with you that Kinsey's materialistic approach was wrong (though personally I prefer to live in today's sexual world than the one of the 40s-50s, and certainly of the world before that). But in terms of his influence, I think you are underestimating the positive effects this man had.

Yes, the female orgasm was a known fact - to scientists and pornographers. But the common man did not discuss it, did not read about it in the papers, and did not learn it in school.

Yes, not everybody was forced to wear these horrible contraptions, but they existed, and their use was considered legitimate.

And as to gays... even talking about gays was taboo in popular culture just a few decades ago. You wouldn't read about gays in the paper, or talk about them as freely as you can today. I pity a gay teenager who had to live without this knowledge, feeling totally isolated.

I suggest you rent the movie out and then compare it with the article. I think you'll reach the same conclusion as I did - that both of them are ignoring important aspects of the man. However, one is a work of fiction and the other presumes to be an objective criticism.

These religious nuts find it convenient to ignore how taboo was the whole subject of sex just a few decades ago, when Playboy's first issue featuring Marilyn Monroe was such an outrage, and sexual matters where never discussed "in mixed company".

EDIT: As to the honorable character of Kinsey himself... well, that's not the real issue of the film OR this article. The article is attacking Kinsey's character as a way to discredit his ideas and influence. I have no opinion of the real man, as shouldn't you - who have neither seen the movie nor read an objective account of his life.

Edited by erandror
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Montesquieu, I'm surprised you can judge the ideas, work, and influence of this one man from having read two short opinion pieces.

I had barely even heard of Alfred Kinsey prior to the release of this recent film. And a friend of mine--a highly educated graduate student with long-standing interests in psychology and philosophy--hadn't heard of him ever.

I'm not saying your evaluation of Kinsey is wrong. I don't know. But don't you think making such a judgment of him deserves more research on your part?

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This here strikes me as a gross injustice of this article:

While not for the faint-of-heart, biographer James Jones’ book, “Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life,” provides a troubling expose of a man who labored to prove, among other things, that no “latency” period in childhood exists — that young boys and girls are fully capable of experiencing sexual pleasure.
This is basically an ad hominem, and a false one at that!

He "labored to prove" here is a dirty insinuation that he had an interest in proving this, that his objective was not the truth (after all, what he "labored to prove" is true!), and that his methods of proving it were by molesting children, or at least supporting such an act.

None of this is correct. The only way to discover such a thing is to talk to pedophiles, which is a disgusting necessity in the interest of producing a complete scientific account of human sexuality. Just as it is necessary to go to gay bars and talk to gays before describing gay sexual behaviour, and just as it is necessary to talk to prostitutes to get a sense of many other sexual behaviours.

Other than that, Kinsey interviewed people from all walks of life, to learn about common practices in different groups.

Another idiocy:

Kinsey, trained as a scientist in the field of zoology, is often credited as the first researcher to use science to address sexual behavior. But Kinsey’s goal was to radically redefine what was considered normal and abnormal behavior.

This is a statement of fact which is totally unsupported in the article. But even if his goal really WAS to shake America out of it's puritanism - does it make him any less of a scientist. To these guys, challenging the Christian convention, is bad enough to make him a monster.

As to his zoology training... one of the movie's themes is that zoology is not background enough to study human behaviour, and that in human sexual behaviour LOVE is key. Kinsey himself, in the movie, recognizes this towards the end, and even gets into a major depression over the damage he has done.

I don't know to what extent this is true, but if that's true it would give you an indication of his intellectual honesty.

Edited by erandror
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None of this is correct. The only way to discover such a thing is to talk to pedophiles, which is a disgusting necessity in the interest of producing a complete scientific account of human sexuality. Just as it is necessary to go to gay bars and talk to gays before describing gay sexual behaviour, and just as it is necessary to talk to prostitutes to get a sense of many other sexual behaviours.
So it is perfectly ok to use the "research" of the sickest of criminals to find out total irrelevancies. I cannot believe anyone would countenance such an idea, let alone rationalize it. Talking to consenting adults about their sexual behavior is far different from talking to a criminal who ought to have been in jail cut off from scientists or anyone else, except perhaps the other prisoners for the meting out of jail justice, about his victims and then presenting that as scientific research.

This is a statement of fact which is totally unsupported in the article. But even if his goal really WAS to shake America out of it's puritanism - does it make him any less of a scientist. To these guys, challenging the Christian convention, is bad enough to make him a monster.

That wasn't stated in the article, it seems to me the biggest complaint was that a professed biopic, which is not supposed to be fiction in the sense of an Atlas Shrugged movie, failed to show this man entirely. Again, puritanism? Should we have another thread to discuss what Puritanism was so that it won't be used improperly on this page anymore? The problem with Christianity or any religion is not that they are wrong about everything, but that even when they are right they do damage because the base their ideas in irrational mysticism, making them worthless.

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Montesquieu, I'm surprised you can judge the ideas, work, and influence of this one man from having read two short opinion pieces. 

I had barely even heard of Alfred Kinsey prior to the release of this recent film.  And a friend of mine--a highly educated graduate student with long-standing interests in psychology and philosophy--hadn't heard of him ever.   

I'm not saying your evaluation of Kinsey is wrong.  I don't know.  But don't you think making such a judgment of him deserves more research on your part?

I will concede that I know very little of the man, since I never heard of him until very recently. I don't think many people know very much about him, which is why a biopic is important in terms of accuracy. I don't contend the man was vile or pure evil, I'm sure he made contributions, in that any modern academic may make some contributions to knowledge, but like most modern academics, any good is usually tempered by more bad. That is the context in which I am interested in Dr. Kinsey at all, and the fact that I had read Scott Holleran's review of the movie and was mildly intrigued (especially since I tend to like Liam Neeson movies; Rob Roy, Schindler's List, Darkman) though not very interested in the subject matter, as I think Ayn Rand made more of a contribution to mankind on the subject of human sex than Dr. Kinsey could ever hope to achieve by figuring out if little kids or babies can have orgasms by talking to predator pedophiles. His work, what little I know of it, and I freely admit that much, seems Freudian in its attempt to make man a base animal and should view sex in an animalistic brutish sense. This seems to be the way modern sciences and economics, devoid of morality, place man in the universe.

Edited by Montesquieu
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So it is perfectly ok to use the "research" of the sickest of criminals to find out total irrelevancies. I cannot believe anyone would countenance such an idea, let alone rationalize it. Talking to consenting adults about their sexual behavior is far different from talking to a criminal who ought to have been in jail cut off from scientists or anyone else, except perhaps the other prisoners for the meting out of jail justice, about his victims and then presenting that as scientific research.

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Isn't the scientist's job to find the truth? And isn't determining the chronology of sexual development an important part of human sexuality? You are letting your emotions get in the way of your thinking. Think of a scientific book on human sexuality, and the facts that it should include. Then think of the ways to measure and collect these facts.

SOME facts can only be gained through the morally questionable. That doesn't mean that the information itself is questionable!

Are you implying that a scientist should limit his research to law abiding citizens, and thus cutting off entire areas of what can be scientifically learned? Is criminology not good science because criminologists interview criminals for their studies?

A scientist is charged with giving the most complete, accurate, and detailed account of what he is studying. Of course he should take into account the morality of his own actions. But frankly, does the very act of INTERVIEWING a pedophile make you immoral?

I should say not!

You may say that he should have gone to the police and give them the names of pedophiles he talked to. But frankly, I don't know any details about this situation beyond what I saw in the movie. Maybe he DID tell the police... or maybe the police already KNEW... or maybe he signed a contract beforehand that obliged him to keep quiet. I would agree that this kind of theoretical research does NOT justify letting a pedophile go free. But I need to learn much more on the specifics of this case before I'd pronounce Kinsey immoral.

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I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Isn't the scientist's job to find the truth? And isn't determining the chronology of sexual development an important part of human sexuality? You are letting your emotions get in the way of your thinking. Think of a scientific book on human sexuality, and the facts that it should include. Then think of the ways to measure and collect these facts.
The ends do not justify the means, which in this case are entirely immoral and illegal. I don't care what end is at stake, molesting children is never acceptable. And to claim I am letting my emotions cloud my thinking on this is insulting and sickening in the extreme. In as much as I value the protection of inalienable individual rights, then you're damn right I will get emotional over the wholesale violation that is committed in crimes like child molestation, and the utter absurdity of a supposed scientist coming to use any "research" obtained through entirely illegitimate means. Human beings are not guinea pigs (unless as adults they voluntarily consent to be so) to be used for any purpose no matter how noble it might be, such as the pursuit of the truth. Either a scientist must search for some method that does not violate the rights of the people he is studying or he must give up that path of inquiry.

SOME facts can only be gained through the morally questionable. That doesn't mean that the information itself is questionable!

Perhaps if through murdering you I discovered something new about the human anatomy it would be a boon, but that doesn't mean I was right to murder you or that my methods were therefore justifiable in any way whatsoever. You are approaching a eugenic-Mengele stardard for scientific research that is disturbing.

Are you implying that a scientist should limit his research to law abiding citizens, and thus cutting off entire areas of what can be scientifically learned? Is criminology not good science because criminologists interview criminals for their studies?

No, I'm saying he should respect the rules of morality and the law. If he cannot possibly study something ethically he should not study it at all. Criminologists aren't aiding and abetting crimes. One more point, this "research" Dr. Kinsey made use of is highly suspect scientifically in the extreme while also being obtained through highly nefarious ends. The fact that Dr. Kinsey didn't own up to his source publicly in his works so that his peers could review his work properly suggests that even he understood there were moral and scientific problems with it, to say the least.

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Please read the last paragraph of my last comment.

Let me say so again: there is nothing immoral or unscientific about interviewing a pedophile. There IS something immoral in knowing the name of a pedophile unknown to the police and not reporting it... but we don't know for sure if Kinsey did that or not.

A closer look might prove you right, but I don't believe you have enough data as of right now to form an full and objective judgement.

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Please read the last paragraph of my last comment.

Let me say so again: there is nothing immoral or unscientific about interviewing a pedophile.  There IS something immoral in knowing the name of a pedophile unknown to the police and not reporting it... but we don't know for sure if Kinsey did that or not.

A closer look might prove you right, but I don't believe you have enough data as of right now to form an full and objective judgement.

The fact that we can't learn this from a biopic of the man tells us that the movie has failed in a major respect. The article I used to start this thread mentions that the pedophile is in the movie briefly, is he in jail? I suspect any biography of Dr. Kinsey would have to mention this man, I suspect the info could be there, but I've never seen one in a bookstore anywhere. Perhaps next time I'm in my college library I'll try to look it up, as I agree, there is a lack of information here to continue this argument much further as it is based on assumptions gathered from the movie and articles written about the movie.

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I am one of those who went to the movie knowing in advance about Kinsey's shoddy research. The movie does mention the weaknesses in Kinsey's methodology, but allows Kinsey to say that the errors were corrected in later surveys. As for the pedophile, the movie includes him, makes Kinsey's distate for him clear, but does not inform us about what happens to this character. As played by the excellent Liam Neeson, Kinsey comes across as a relentless researcher who was also a bit of a didact and a monomaniac. The film points out that in the name of "science," Kinsey and his reserach team personally engaged in a variety a sexual acts, which in turn lead to unfortunate emotional consequences. The film treats as courageous Kinsey's struggle to open up frank discussion at a time when such discussion was taboo. But it also recognizes that Kinsey was no saint, and sometimes his own worst enemy.

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The fact that we can't learn this from a biopic of the man tells us that the movie has failed in a major respect. The article I used to start this thread mentions that the pedophile is in the movie briefly, is he in jail? I suspect any biography of Dr. Kinsey would have to mention this man, I suspect the info could be there, but I've never seen one in a bookstore anywhere. Perhaps next time I'm in my college library I'll try to look it up, as I agree, there is a lack of information here to continue this argument much further as it is based on assumptions gathered from the movie and articles written about the movie.

Well, in the movie Kinsey only meets this pedophile once, is shocked by what he is hearing, and the meeting ends with a break-up. One of Kinsey's aids is so outraged he can't even sit through the first few minutes.

No, the guy is not in jail at the time. He seems to be living in an expensive home, if I recall correctly.

Anyway, this pedophile thought Kinsey would approve of his actions, and Kinsey was very clear about disapproving. Though what he did with this disapproval - the movie doesn't say.

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They aren't? Excommunicated from what? The Catholic Church? That would seem a blessing to me. From society? They still are because their behavior is antithetical to species survival (because if everyone was gay the species would die off) and therefore strikes most people as odd.

This statement is extremely peculiar. Is a desire for "species survival" the motivation of gay-bashers and thus excusable? What does "species survival" have to do with anything, anyway?

Anything you don't do yourself is odd; I find it odd that people can hate tomatoes and eat liver (ick). I don't see homosexuality as being immoral; it doesn't conflict in any way I can decipher with the needs of man's survival (specifically A man, not the species) short term OR long-term, while trying to deny or hide homosexuality can be very painful and DOES conflict with the requirements of one's survival and happiness.

I realize this is a bit off-topic and I will take it elsewhere if necessary, but reading that statement in the middle of all this discussion was like a slap in the face with a dead fish, and I would like some clarification if possible.

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This statement is extremely peculiar.  Is a desire for "species survival" the motivation of gay-bashers and thus excusable?  What does "species survival" have to do with anything, anyway?

Anything you don't do yourself is odd; I find it odd that people can hate tomatoes and eat liver (ick).  I don't see homosexuality as being immoral; it doesn't conflict in any way I can decipher with the needs of man's survival (specifically A man, not the species) short term OR long-term, while trying to deny or hide homosexuality can be very painful and DOES conflict with the requirements of one's survival and happiness.

I realize this is a bit off-topic and I will take it elsewhere if necessary, but reading that statement in the middle of all this discussion was like a slap in the face with a dead fish, and I would like some clarification if possible.

Gladly.

Biologically speaking, homosexuality is a dead end, and this is entirely indisputable. Dead end behaviors are, by and large, considered odd by most people. I wasn't referring to run of the mill odd behavior like eating liver or not bathing, but odd in that it strikes almost all people as odd, not just a plurality or a simple majority. Even though homosexuality is, biologically, a dead end behavior, that does not make it anything other than odd, and homosexuals should accept that most people will view it that way. I never said it was immoral for people to be homosexuals insofar as they have anything to do with the choice, but either they choose oddness or they are the unwitting victim of a genetic defect, like having blue eyes.

Sorry to have wielded a dead fish at you, if I must do more clarifiying, which I most certainly will probably have to do, please feel free to make further inquiry.

Edited by Montesquieu
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Dead end behaviors are, by and large, considered odd by most people.

Religion is a dead-end behavior, as well as collectivism and altruism, yet these aren't considered odd by most people. I think the "oddness" of a particular trait is solely determined by the percentage of the population (in a specific locale) that has the trait. I have met maybe one or two homophobes (the intelligent kind, that disguises their homophobia) that bothered to justify their hatred with this biological argument.

That's my question; do people REALLY consider "biology" before they decide these things? My experience is that they pick up whatever the local "general opinion" is and then use whatever bits of out-of-context knowledge they can find to justify their "ideas".

This was especially evident in the case of a Catholic friend I had who was desperately trying to reconcile liberal "homosexuality isn't evil" with the views of his Church.

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Religion is a dead-end behavior, as well as collectivism and altruism, yet these aren't considered odd by most people.  I think the "oddness" of a particular trait is solely determined by the percentage of the population (in a specific locale) that has the trait.  I have met maybe one or two homophobes (the intelligent kind, that disguises their homophobia) that bothered to justify their hatred with this biological argument.

That's my question; do people REALLY consider "biology" before they decide these things?  My experience is that they pick up whatever the local "general opinion" is and then use whatever bits of out-of-context knowledge they can find to justify their "ideas".

This was especially evident in the case of a Catholic friend I had who was desperately trying to reconcile liberal "homosexuality isn't evil" with the views of his Church.

I was referring to biological dead ends, in that an organism in which all individuals were homosexual would die off in one generation, thus dead-ending. Birth control isn't a dead-end, because a man and a woman could always procreate without birth control, but have decided that they don't want to, however it's easily reversiable and isn't intrinsically built into their lifestyle. As to religion, that is an irrational behavior that can cause big problems, and if taken to extremes by a large number of people, can seriously stymie or even destroy a culture, but man can choose to think and therefore undo the effects of bad ideas, so to the extent that religion and other irrational ideas are a dead-end, they can be gotten out of, which is not the case with homosexual procreation, which is impossible.

I have met maybe one or two homophobes (the intelligent kind, that disguises their homophobia) that bothered to justify their hatred with this biological argument.

Perhaps this was directed at me? I don't care what homosexuals do with each other, they don't bother me. I don't care if they marry or do anything else anyone else does, but that doesn't change reality, and the reality is, their preferences aren't self-sustaining, but since only a miniscule percentage of people are homosexuals it makes no difference at all.

I can't speak for Catholic friends you have and I don't care if people consider the facts of reality as related by modern biology or cow to "general opinion" whatever that means. Reality is not changed by whether people choose to accept it or not.

Anyway, this issue only came up because erandror said something about homosexuals being excommunicated in the 1950's as compared to now in the period after the sexual revolution. I thought this amusing because of his choice of the word excommunicated, usually associated with Catholicism and which I would consider to be a blessing (pardon the word). And because homosexuals are still treated differently by most people, in part to the antithetical nature of their lifestyle. This does not mean that denying homosexuals the same rights as everyone else is justified in any way, but in the private sphere people can interact with and judge whomever they want for whatever they want, even if irrationally, as this is part of being free. Seeing as homosexuals are such a small minority and as I have said their lifestyle is odd (and I hope this has been defined both negatively and positively enough by now) and even threatening to the insecure or the paranoid, I think they should see a certain amount of ostracism from parts of society as part of norm at least in the short term, whether Dr. Kinsey was around or not. I think that the treatment of homosexuals in the past century, while far from perfect, has been exemplary if you compare it to any other hundred year period in history, except maybe certain Greek city-states.

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Montesquieu, you have some odd ideas. I think you would benefit by critically examining many of the things you said in that post, and most notably the WAY you said them. However, my question is more or less answered, so I will refrain from discussing them here, as it is off-topic.

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My position on this is in line with a quote from Dr. Leonard Peikoff:

"Homosexuality is abnormal, but not necessarily immoral".

I don't think that homosexuality is a conscious choice for most homosexuals. It is a form of mental abnormality which is unnatural, but not necessarily volitional - and therefore it cannot be deemed immoral.

I've never had any gay friends, but there are a lot of gay people I respect. As long as I'm not forced to watch it, I can live with friends who do it in the privacy of their homes.

By the way, Ayn Rand thought homosexuality was disgusting, but she wasn't prepared to say it was immoral. Something has to be volitional to be immoral.

Edited by erandror
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Montesquieu, you have some odd ideas.  I think you would benefit by critically examining many of the things you said in that post, and most notably the WAY you said them.  However, my question is more or less answered, so I will refrain from discussing them here, as it is off-topic.

Haha, I like that you used the word odd against me, it was rather ironic. However, what did I really say that was odd? Erandror seems to echo my thoughts on the subject. I make it continually clear, I don't think homosexuals immoral, nothing they do necessarily endagangers their life, except that homosexual promiscuity seems to make one more susceptiple to deadly diseases, but that can also be said of promiscuity in general. However, commenting that their lifestyle is odd is certainly not a controversial view, any rational homosexual would have to concur with that view. So please, what is being said that is so odd? What WAY am I expressing a rather inoffensive seemingly obvious idea that makes it odd? The main topic has already been concluded amicably due to lack of further information, so I wouldn't worry about at least answering my few queries on this topic.

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  • 1 year later...

I really liked the movie, but that is basically the only research I've done on him. Yes, his personal life suffered from the way he went about his expirements but that doesn't mean the movie showed him as an individual against the collective. He stood up against the irrationality that he was confronted with and that is highly admirable.

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This article is very disturbing

The Kinsey Whitewash

I know nothing about Dr. Kinsey, in fact I never even heard of the guy until I read Scott Holleran's glowing review of the movie. I haven't gone to see that movie based on his review because, quite frankly, it didn't sound that interesting. After reading this Whitewash article I'm glad I did not. This Dr. Kinsey sounds like a real charletan not to mention totally unscientific and rather immoral to associate with a pedophile and use his "research." I don't know why anyone would want to make a movie to this person, it sounds like his "ideas" may have led to all sorts of nefarious enterprises like NAMBLA, etc.

No offense intended, but did you even stop to consider that the sort of data Kinsey was trying to get from the pedophile could be used to make children safer from pedophiles? The best way to destroy a thing is to understand it. I do not believe you have thought your opinion through very well.

During war, loyal citizens frequently join the enemy's ranks for the purpose of discovering information that can later be used against that enemy. Such men are not reviled as co-conspirators; rather, they are hailed as heros. Frequently, the only way to destroy an evil is to seem to befriend it. I am sure you would not crticize these men as collaborators.

Every day law enforcement and the courts offer criminals immunity for the purpose of catching more dangerous criminals. No one in his right mind, no matter what his opinion about offering immunity to criminals is, would accuse the DA's and police of being evil in this regard. Furthermore, every day lawyers are ethically required to keep the secrets of their clients. If your client admitted to you that he is a pedophile, you can't tell the court, "Hey, guess what, my client told me he did it". You are ethically forbidden from revealing that information. If you do so, you will be disbarred. Why? Because a higher value is at stake: insuring that criminals get a fair trial. How much more important is it then to keep the communication between a scientist and a research subject confidential if that is the only way to stop sexual predators? Kinsey's actions were justified. While I know the law does not acknowledge such a privelege between researcher and subject, the moral grounds for it are the same: A greater good. Now, I could not bring myself to do what Kinsey did, but then again I couldn't bring myself to be a lawyer either.

I can tell from your post that you did not do any serious thinking when coming to this moral pronouncement. You mention no related facts; you appeal to no moral principles; you make no argument. It seems that you felt a certain way and decided to run with it. Indeed, you begin your post by claiming that you know nothing about the man whom you are judging. Judging people without the relevant facts and without reasoned argument is not objectivism. Basing moral judgements upon feeling alone is not what objectivists do.

Lastly, the idea that the quality of a movie depends entirely on the moral character of its subject is silly when the movie is biographical. Would you not see a movie about Alexander the Great because he murdered his best friend? Is a movie about Napoleon inherently evil because Napoleon was a butcher bent on conquest?

Whether you agree with my analysis of the Kinsey question, I hope I made one point clear: Moral judgement on the basis of feeling is absolutely, postively, utterly unacceptable.

Edited by Franklin
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