Book Review: Kinsey by Jonathan Gathorne-Harding

Alfred C. Kinsey is known as the grandfather of sex research in the twentieth century.

He was an amazing man who carried out the largest studies ever done on sexual behaviour of men and women in America in the 1950s.


These studies were seen as extremely controversial, most especially his findings about the high numbers of men and women having pre-marital sex and those who had homosexual experiences.


This man is a legend among sex researchers and having now read this book I feel like I have a much better knowledge of what went into these famous studies and the man behind them. Although this book was quite long (454 pages) it was an easy read and kept me interested throughout. There were interesting stories about Kinsey's childhood and his sexual development, his relationships and loves throughout his life, his family, his own sexual experimentation, and his obsessive dedication to his research. 

Gathorne-Harding also delved into a critique of earlier biographers, claiming that they misunderstood Kinsey and portrayed him in a bad light. Where previous books criticised Kinsey's own sexual behaviour and portrayed him negatively as a sado-masochist, this book tried to paint the full picture from Kinsey's point of view. Kinsey never considered himself to be a sado-masochist (in spite of encorporating pain into his sexual practices), and his sexual experiments were happily participated in by all consenting adults involved.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in sex research because it will shed a whole new light on the history of sex research and the man behind it.

This book was also the basis for the movie Kinsey (2004) starring Liam Neeson and winner of several movie awards.