Film kicks off Sex+++ documentary series

ARTICLE BY – CHICAGO FLAME.COM

Kicking off their Sex+++ documentary film series, the Jane Addams Hull-House showed “Kinsey,” a film about the life of pioneering sexologist Alfred Kinsey. In promoting “sex-positive” values, the series is a continuation on Jane Addams’s devotion to practical sexual education.

Sex-positive ideology is the idea that all forms of consensual sex should be embraced. Sex positive puts sexual identities of gay, straight, transexual, lesbian, non-monogamous and BDSM lifestyles into a mutual community of acceptance.

The sexual awareness being promoted in the Sex+++ series is a continuation on the work of Alfred Kinsey. In fact, it is widely believed that the female, gay and sexual liberation movements of the 1960s could not have been possible without Kinsey’s contribution to the field of sexual science.

Kinsey lived in a time when sexuality was considered acceptable only between one husband and one wife. Through the course of his extensive scientific research, Kinsey came to believe in the possibility of a sexual utopia, allowing people to remove emotion from sex and allowing people to experiment freely with a wide variety of sexual experiences, even in the context of marriage.

Alfred Kinsey was the golden boy of a Methodist Preacher, turned straight-laced, bow-tie wearing professor of zoology at Indiana University. After his first, unsuccessful sexual experiences with his wife, Kinsey found that there was almost no scientific data on the topic of human sexuality.

Kinsey began teaching a marriage course at the university, founded on the idea that sexual ignorance leads to suffering, and a healthy sexual education leads to happy marriages. Kinsey’s course was an enormous hit and he began recording the sexual histories of his students and faculty members.

Drawing on his scientific understanding that nature is infinitely diverse, he set out across the country to prove that human sexuality was equally varied. His hypothesis proved correct.

In the process, he came across homosexual and non-monogamous sub-cultures that had been previously undiscovered or misunderstood. He later experimented with these and other varied sexual experiences, fueling his own passion for the work.

In 1948, Kinsey published his first book on the topic, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. The book drew wide acclaim, becoming the best-selling book of the year and creating a pop-culture phenomenon.

As he continued his research, Kinsey came under fire from groups of conservatives, Christian communities, and others. The scientific community also came down on Kinsey for possible personal biases, statistical inaccuracies, poor methodology and unethical practices.

Nonetheless, Kinsey worked on and published Sexual Behavior in the Human Female in 1953. The book received even greater media coverage than before, but the higher sensitivity of the subject matter and surrounding circumstances made Kinsey’s work more controversial than ever.

The outcry over the book and a scientific evaluation of Kinsey’s work caused him to lose funding for his project. He died in 1956 of a heart attack, feeling that his life had been a failure.

It’s difficult to tell exactly how Kinsey’s work has affected our culture today. Though without it, it’s possible to conceive that we may not have sex education classes, pre-marital sex may still be considered a deadly sin, homosexuality and promiscuity may still be punishable by jail time, and masturbation may still be called the work of the Devil.

During his life, Kinsey said that the only types of sexual dysfunction are abstinence, celibacy and delayed marriage, clearly laying the basis for the sex-positive movement today. But, as one anonymous participant at the screening said, “The process is slow when you talk about sexual liberation and sex research. We’ve learned a lot, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

The Sex+++ documentary film series will be playing every second and fourth Tuesday of the month at the Jane Addams Hull-House. The series continues on Feb. 10 with “Sex Positive,” a film about gay rights and AIDS activist Richard Berkowitz.