Earlier this semester, Indiana University announced the unveiling of a bronze statue of Dr. Alfred Charles Kinsey, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Kinsey Institute on campus. The life-size bronze statue was sculpted and created by Melanie Cooper Pennington, a lecturer at IU’s Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design. The statue was funded through a crowdfunding campaign dating back to May 15, 2021. Over 78 donors contributed $5,500 for the statue.
These actions by the university may seem unoffensive and benign on the surface but after a brief exploration of Kinsey’s work and its impact, their insidiousness and corruption become clear. Kinsey was an American biologist, a professor of entomology, zoology, and, most notably, sexology whose research aided in the founding of the Institute for Sex Research, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at IU.
Kinsey was most renowned for his studies on human sexuality, specifically those involving children and young adults. Kinsey believed that all human beings, including young children, are inherently sexual beings, from womb to tomb. Kinsey desired to alter societal standards regarding sex by upheaving Judeo-Christian values embedded in 1940s America. In discordance with these values, Kinsey believed that true happiness was primarily found through perverse and bizarre sexual experimentation
To prove his thesis, Kinsey disproportionately surveyed convicted rapists, pedophiles, prostitutes, and homosexuals. He then applied his findings and passed them off as representative of the average American family. His data was thus severely biased, unscientific, and fraudulent. He presented his evidentiary findings as portraying the “status quo” when, in reality, they portrayed societal and sexual perversion masked as science.
In his book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Kinsey details the bizarre ways in which he studied sexual theory. The book has an infamous chart titled “Table 34” which tracks stimulation times in male children between 5 months old and 15 years old. The American Board of Pediatrics questioned his methods and was skeptical of his findings.
Kinsey also used pedophiles to gauge the “orgasms” of his child subjects. When asked how he knew the children had an orgasm, Kinsey stated that he could tell by the child’s crying. Child subjects were tested from months to even years at a time. Children were often held still or even strapped down during testing. “Table 4” was another chart that lists the frequency of masturbation of subjects as young as 8 years old, based upon the test subject’s own testimony. In other words, Kinsey asked 8-year-old children how often they engaged in self-sexual experimentation; something a child would likely never think about unless coerced or groomed to do so.
in a YouTube video published by IU Bloomington giving a look behind the scenes of making the statue, Melanie Pennington stated, “I have much respect for Dr. Kinsey, and he was just interested in an objective knowledge of experience. “My hope is that it is gonna spark curiosity about who Kinsey was,” Pennington concluded.
In a press release, the university praised Kinsey and his research, writing, “Dr. Kinsey left us with the extraordinary legacy of his endless scientific curiosity, his unwavering commitments to academic freedom and his passion for understanding humanity’s sexual diversity, said Justin Garcia, executive director of the Kinsey Institute.”
“This spectacular sculpture honors Kinsey’s international, scholarly, and public impact, reminding us of the importance of the ongoing research, education and historical preservation occurring daily at today’s vibrant Kinsey Institute,” the university added.
IU Bloomington faculty and administrators have not disowned or even disavowed Alfred Kinsey’s heinous and disgusting acts, but instead, they have embraced Kinsey as a scholar of great intellect and a man to aspire to. Sculptor Melanie Pennington said herself that she had great respect for Kinsey. Though, to many, it would seem impossible to respect someone who actively abused children and misrepresented their research.
Political commentator and conservative author Matt Walsh tweeted about the statue, stating, “The University of Indiana has unveiled a statue honoring Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey was a degenerate pedophile lunatic who conducted ‘research’ on the orgasms of children and babies. One of the most prolific groomers of the 20th century. No wonder the Left honors him.”
Despite the glorification and adoration of Kinsey bestowed upon him by IU Bloomington and its faculty, there is no denying or masking the horrific means by which Kinsey obtained his “scientific results.” Kinsey was, in truth, a perverted and cruel scientist whose career was founded on the sexual abuse of children. Erecting a statue commemorating his achievements only serves one purpose: to dignify child predators and further undermine victims of sexual abuse to further IU’s political agenda.