RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Women Kinsley's studies hold up to the day.

Alfred Kinsey could not have foreseen such dramatic changes in U.S. life since his 1940s research on sexual behavior. But sex experts today are amazed at how much Kinsey did reveal and say some of his insights remain highly influential in the 21st century. ( (related catching up to do.)

The release of the movie Kinsey on Friday is expected to spark new interest in the pioneering sex researcher. The Fox Searchlight film, a sympathetic portrait, stars Liam Neeson as Kinsey and Laura Linney as his wife, Clara.

"He broke the taboo of silence. He was a visionary," says psychologist Julia Heiman, who in June was named director of the 57-year-old Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Ind.

Kinsey, a zoologist, worked with his staff at Indiana University to collect more than 18,000 interviews about Americans' sexual experiences. His findings became public in 1948 and 1953.

It was a time when people rarely talked about sex, women were often thought of as asexual, oral sex, even within marriage, was illegal in many states, and schools taught that masturbation was harmful.

No wonder the public reeled when Kinsey reported:

• Half of women had premarital sex; 2 out of 3 said they'd had orgasms before marriage.

• Nine out of 10 men masturbated; so did 3 in 5 women.

Kinsey's critics note that he didn't have a random sample: Participants were disproportionately college-educated and from Indiana. He also included male prisoners, which may have inflated his findings on homosexuality.

And his "measurement" unit for sexual behavior was the orgasm, not satisfaction. "We now know people can experience orgasm and not necessarily feel satisfied sexually, or they say they're satisfied though they don't have orgasms," says Patricia Koch, a professor at Pennsylvania State University and president-elect of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality.

Kinsey was basically a "counter" of sexual acts. Scientists today are focusing more on how emotions and the brain affect sexual function. Heiman specializes in the mind-body link and will take the Kinsey Institute, based at Indiana University, into new, high-tech directions.

She has studied physical changes during arousal, such as blood flow and heart rate. MRIs that show brain and pelvic changes in aroused, healthy adults may help in the development and testing of treatments for those with sexual problems, Heiman says.

Steps forward, steps back

People are more open about sex than in Kinsey's time, experts agree. And the Internet has had a "myth-busting" quality, says Joy Davidson, a Seattle sex therapist. The Net offers "reams of good information" for enriching and improving sex lives, she says.

Still, some signs suggest we've not become all that "liberated" in the past five decades. Most 3-D models of women's genitals in sex education classes don't even have a clitoris, says Judith Seifer, a sex therapist for 29 years and faculty member at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco.

In the '90s, "a rebound effect, a backlash" started against the sexual liberation of the '60s and '70s, adds Barnaby Barratt, a Detroit psychologist and president of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists. In the late '80s, 90% of U.S. medical schools taught human sexuality and there were 25 clinics for sexual problems; now 15% of medical schools teach sexuality, and there are about five clinics, Barratt says.

Funds for sex research are drying up, scientists say. And federal grants requiring "abstinence only" sex education for teenagers are making it harder to teach "safe sex" to the majority of kids who are sexually active, Barratt says.

'We still don't get it'

Meanwhile, the rate of sexually transmitted diseases in the USA is five times higher than Europe's, where sex ed is often compulsory, Barratt says. Most heterosexual women with HIV are infected by their male, bisexual partners. Kinsey pioneered a 7-point scale for sexual orientation, from 100% gay to 100% straight, with many falling in between. "We still don't get it, and that's hurting us," Barratt says.

Kinsey also was far ahead of his time in emphasizing how different people were in their sexual behavior, a reality that aging baby boomers are trying (unsuccessfully) to deny, many sex experts say.

"Everyone thinks they should want sex three times a week till they're 70 or they must be abnormal. We all have to be alike, or we're just not 'normal,' " laments Leonore Tiefer, a New York sex therapist. Many older people don't crave a sex life like they had at 18, or they may enjoy going slower, with greater appreciation, Tiefer says.

Even 56 years after Kinsey, sex generates plenty of guilt and secrecy, she adds. "As a therapist, you hear it 10 times a day — 'I've never told this to anybody before.' It's because there's so much shame."

Kinsey had more than his share. His parents were "fire and brimstone" evangelicals, and he was not allowed to date. Ignorance was not bliss. He and his bride were virgins who could not have sex on their honeymoon because she had an anatomical problem that a physician needed to fix.

"It was a hard voyage for him. He wanted something better for the world," says James H. Jones, author ofAlfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life. A determined bulldozer of a man, "he wanted people to feel happy about their sex lives," Jones says. "We have a long way to go."

"Kinsey would be just so disheartened at how little we still know about sex and how much fear there still is," says Jennifer Bass, head of information services at the Kinsey Institute. (related story: Kinsley as timely as ever)

For starters, with adults living so much longer, we need a lot more research on what leads to sexual satisfaction in marriage, sex therapist Judith Seifer says. "Some couples manage to keep the flame going. How?" she asks.

As 77 million baby boomers head into old age and take more medications, scientists also need to learn more about how drugs, and taking several of them, affect sexual function. Some studies have been done in men, "but we're about 15 or 20 years behind in our studies with women," she says.

Adult-onset diabetes is more common with age, and women with the disease are vulnerable to pelvic nerve damage that can hinder sexual pleasure. "Much more needs to be done to develop treatments for this," Seifer says.

Researchers also need to figure out how to stop the rising incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. The Kinsey Institute has studies underway on how mood and emotions affect sexual risk-taking, and has developed a questionnaire that may identify young adults prone to risky behavior. The goal: prevention.

"A key question is, what do we need to do to persuade people to have safe sex — how are we going to get their attention?" Seifer says.

And we don't know much about the psychology of libido. "What turns people on? That's pretty basic, but we just don't know," says Leonore Tiefer, a sex therapist and adjunct professor at New York University.

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
i feel as if ive done some good.

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Son of Mxy said:
You've done sneaky bunny?

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the G-man said:

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
i feel as if ive done some good.

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Son of Mxy said:
You've done sneaky bunny?

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He said "good", not "good and worn out"

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PrincessElisa said:
Kinsleys psycho.....the guy encuraged fathers to have sex with their children....freaky! And everybody on his team slept together...thats just nasty: having sex with the people you work with...gross!!!!!!

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PrincessElisa said:
And everybody on his team slept together...thats just nasty: having sex with the people you work with...gross!!!!!!

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PrincessElisa said:
Oh please Pj....the guy was an evil, wicked, sex addict that had serious issues.

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Son of Mxy said:
WHY AM I THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD WHO HASN'T BANGED SNEAKY YET, DAMNIT!

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TK-069 said:
One can fuck in High Definition?!

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klinton said:
There's nothing perverted in being honest with yourself and your partner. The perversion is pretending to be something you're not.

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