Kinsey Movie Review

I found the movie Kinsey to be both true to his work and to the essence of this dedicated man. Besides being highly entertaining, it was very relevant today to an audience which had no idea who Alfred Kinsey was or how his work had impacted their lives. Anyone who sees this movie will get to experience first hand how ignorant and misinformed people were about sex when Kinsey began studying human sexuality. Examples of this were the stated belief that performance of oral sex would reduce a woman's fertility, as well as most of the clichés about masturbation. These seem ridiculous to us now, but before Kinsey, they were considered common knowledge. When I saw the film, I laughed at such misleading ideas, while becoming aware of just how much pain, suffering, and loss of intimacy this misinformation caused.

The film accurately portrayed how much people love to talk about and want to know about sex, if they feel free enough to ask and explore. The film made a meaningful contribution in bringing out the natural joy about sex that people can experience, even in an age of severely repressed and misleading sexual knowledge.

Towards the end of the movie two superb scenes had significant emotional impact on me. Kinsey's final interviewee demonstrated how Kinsey, even after he was emotionally beaten down from scornful criticism, had made a significant difference in people's lives. The interviewee, in giving her sex history to Dr. Kinsey, showed just how far people had come in Kinsey's time in understanding that they were not alone in their sexual feelings and preferences and that they could be free of the shame and guilt that often preoccupied them because of the overall sexual ignorance of society about sex. Additionally, the scene with Kinsey's father, in which Kinsey takes his father's sex history, shows again how much suffering can be caused by cruel and unnecessary ignorance.

These two powerful scenes capture the vitally important contribution that Professor Kinsey made in their lives as representative of his potent gift to all of our lives. These scenes also served to give the audience an emotional response to the mostly intellectual aspect of Kinsey's work.

Sadly, the struggle for sex research and education has fallen on difficult times in recent years. We are still in the relative dark ages in terms of knowledge in this most essential area of people's lives. Kinsey, the movie, emphasizes how important comprehensive sexual education is for the future and survival of humankind. Ultimately, this is the meaning and legacy of Kinsey - the person and the movie.