Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.

KINSEY, Alfred C..

$850.00

Item Number: 21049

Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company, 1953.

First edition of the author’s classic work. Octavo, original maroon cloth. Boldly signed by Alfred C. Kinsey and Wardell B. Pomeroy on the front free endpaper. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket.

Sexual Behavior in the Human Female was originally published in 1953, five years after the male volume. The material presented in this book was derived from personal interviews with nearly 6,000 women; from studies in sexual anatomy, physiology, psychology, and endocrinology. The book presents data on the incidence and frequency with which women participate in various types of sexual activity. The authors show how such factors as age, decade of birth, and religious adherence are reflected in patterns of sexual behavior. Some measure of the social significance of the various types of sexual behavior is provided. The authors make comparisons of female and male sexual activities, and investigate the factors which account for the similarities and differences between female and male patterns of behavior. As before, Kinsey documented an enormous gap between social attitudes and actual practices. Also as before, the book was a media sensation, but this time the counterattack was so ferocious, including a congressional investigation of his financial support that the Rockefeller Foundation terminated its funding. Kinsey’s health deteriorated under the strain of public attack and uncertainty about the future of his institute. He suffered from heart disease and, after a brief hospitalization for pneumonia, died in Bloomington on August 25, 1956. In his own mind, his principal legacy was to have brought scientific rigor to the study of human sexuality. But as his biographer James H. Jones points out, Kinsey was not only a scientist; he was a reformer who sought to rid himself of his personal sexual demons, while at the same time revolutionizing the repressive society in which he had grown up.