OUR PERSONAL TRIBUTE TO A GREAT MAN

Alfred Charles Kinsey
Hoboken, N.J., 6/23/1894 - Bloomington, IN, 8/25/1956 (62)

Let it be said that we feel a deep sense of personal loss in the passing of Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey, 62, the world-famous authority on the sexual habits of mankind, and extend our sympathies to his family and to Drs., Wardell Pomeroy, Clyde Martin, Paul Gebhard, Alice Field, Ritchie Davis and to Eleanor Roehr. They worked closely with Dr. Kinsey in the Institute for Sex Research which Kinsey set up on the Indiana university campus, and must feel a loss greater than anyone in the world except the famed doctor's own family.

The doctor, a dedicated scientist, never permitted himself to be ruffled by the storm of scientific and religious controversy touched off by his best-seller, “Sexual Behaviour of the Human Male” published in 1948 and the sequel on women's sexual behavior which came out in 1953, both written in unsensational, academic style. He had been ailing for six months but his condition had not been considered critical. He died August 25, of a heart ailment and pneumonia.

Many ministers and some scientists protested that Kinsey's reports reduced intimate human relations to cold statistics. He aroused further controversy by complaining that too many laws against sex offences made crimes out of widely practiced sex acts. Of interest to nudists, will be Dr. Kinsey's statement made to us in a personal letter, that, “I hope that you have gathered already from our publications that we think it an unnecessary cultural development that we should become so completely afraid of nudity in these United States.”

We had some correspondence with Dr. Kinsey with reference to his still pending dispute with the customs officials over an impounded shipment of nudist and other magazines. The doctor was interested in the progress of our own case with the customs over some of the same magazines. At last writing, Dr. Kinsey said, “It is not yet clear whether the Customs Department is going to force us to fight the case in court, but if so, it would be a help in establishing the precedent in the handling of such material. Certainly there are abundant decisions showing that the scholar should have access to any kind of material even though it is denied general circulation... we intend to fight for the exercise of the discretion which they (the customs) have in admitting such material for scholars.”

The institute's closely guarded library of material allied to sexual behavior is considered to be one of the largest of its kind in the world and contains one of the largest of its kind in the world and contains one of the three existing complete files of AMERICAN NUDIST LEADER in its variant editions.

President Herman Wells of Indiana University, which has long supported Dr. Kinsey, has called the Kinsey reports “pioneer studies of great significance... part of the scientific heritage of the entire world,” and added that Kinsey's work “will furnish a solid foundation for future investigators in this field.”

Our sympathies to the family and co-workers of Dr Alfred C. Kinsey. We hope that the work which bears his name, will be continued at the university.

Mervin Mounce

(The Nudist Newsletter, issue no. 57,
October, 1956)