Sexual Sabotage: How one mad scientist unleashed a plague of corruption and contagion on America by Judith A. Reisman (WND Books, 403 pages, $25.96)
Judith Reisman has devoted her life to exploring one of the most depressing and disturbing stories of the 20th century: the “scientific research” about human sexuality conducted by Alfred Kinsey that altered the mores, culture and legal system of Western societies, for the worse.
While this disgusting story may be familiar to Interim readers, let’s review: beginning in 1948, professor Alfred Kinsey (with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and Indiana University) released studies “proving” that, contrary to popular belief, most American men and women were engaged in immoral sexual behavior. Kinsey claimed that, based on interviews, most American women were virgins on their wedding nights; most men committed adultery; and large numbers of men and women engaged in bisexuality and even bestiality.
Decades after Kinsey’s findings were used as the “scientific” excuse required to carry out a vast cultural revolution – and destroyed millions of lives – it turned out that Kinsey’s “research” subjects had been known child molesters, prison convicts and prostitutes. Hardly a cross section of American life.
Author Judith Reisman
Even when writers like Reisman revealed the shocking truth about Kinsey’s own sexual pathologies and shabby research the impact was minimal. A couple of years ago, Kinsey was the subject of an award-winning Hollywood biopic; his fake statistics – “10 per cent of the population is homosexual” – are still parroted by activists, “experts” and the public.
As Reisman revealed in previous books (Kinsey: Crime & Consequences), media, entertainment, judicial, political and academic elites fell for Kinsey’s carefully cultivated “conservative” image, then imposed his bizarre junk science “findings” upon the population at large with breathtaking ease.
It’s troubling to think that if Adolph Hitler had thought to adopt Kinsey’s favored get-up – glasses, bow tie, crew cut and, most importantly, a white lab coat – he might have acquired more American admirers.
Normally I try not to violate “Godwin’s Law,” which condemns the promiscuous use of Nazi references in disquisitions unrelated specifically to the Second World War. However, Reisman’s new book, Sexual Sabotage, compares Kinsey’s widely propagated “research” to the “black propaganda” used by the Axis during WWII, so I’ll allow myself one reductio ad hitlerum.
The Second World War is, in fact, the connective tissue of Reisman’s thesis. She writes: “…416,800 soldiers died, sixteen million fought under arms, and millions of stateside Americans shouldered the burdens of war. Little did we know that, having survived the enemy forces in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean, our heroes would come home only to be sabotaged, betrayed by a cult of American draft dodgers lounging on the grassy slopes of Indiana University.
“There (…) Alfred. C. Kinsey, a zoologist, studied gall wasps, taught classes, conducted ‘sexual research,’ and, in 1948 and 1953, published reports that defamed our heroes, their families, and everything they fought and died for. With a cadre of devoted followers, this ‘scientist’ lied about our forebears and slandered the World War II generation as promiscuous, adulterous, homosexual, and even bestial. Abundant evidence proves that these sexual perversions reflected the activities and character of Indiana University professors [who’d been granted deferments from military service] – not of our accused World War II fighting men and women. Nonetheless, this false “statistical survey” of the morals of World War II Americans would be believed and relied upon for generations to come. Indeed, it continues to seduce our nation, even today.” (Italics in original.)
Reisman compares the Kinsey Reports (which were excerpted approvingly in nearly every major mainstream magazine, spoofed in New Yorker cartoons, and sold millions of copies) to the psychological warfare used by both sides in the Second World War.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, Kinsey’s reports resembled the powerful use of fake sexual statistics to undermine morale: “For example,” she writes, “a Nazi flyer that was dropped on English-speaking Allied soldiers” claimed that “84 per cent of the wives of men serving in the armed forces abroad” had a venereal disease. According to Reisman, exposure to such black propaganda primed American men to be more receptive to Kinsey’s equally unbelievable statistics when they got home. Combine that with the blind trust post-war Americans placed in “Science,” add the lessons of The Screwtape Letters, and it’s easier to understand how Kinsey’s transparently ridiculous, contradictory “findings” were eagerly adopted as the new secular gospel.
Speaking of gospels: especially relevant for Interim readers is Reisman’s explanation of how Kinsey’s findings were embraced uncritically by many members of the Catholic hierarchy, particularly those in the fields of health and education, and ultimately contributed to the priest abuse epidemic.
If you can stomach the details, Sexual Sabotage is an excellent introduction to Kinsey’s corrosive lies, and those of his many supporters, some of whom are still active and highly respected today.
Kathy Shaidle is co-author of Tyranny of Nice. She blogs at Five Feet of Fury.
