Corsets, threesomes and fleshy French thighs

Did Kinsey have to worry that the authorities would consider this stuff as pornography, instead of scientific research?

That was a problem in the 1950s especially. When he started collecting the material, he kept it fairly quiet because people tend to jump to conclusions when they hear about dirty pictures. Today we actually have exhibits of this material, but in his day they certainly did not plan to exhibit it.

In the '50s, the U.S. Customs in Cincinnati decided that the art coming through the mails to the Kinsey Institute was obscene. This led to a court case that in 1957 was decided in our favor saying that even though this material was considered obscene, it was allowed to come to Indiana University to the institute through the mail because it was used for research purposes. The sad thing was Kinsey was very worried that this case might go against the institute and make it impossible to acquire this material. He died in '56. He died before the case was settled so he never knew the outcome. [Pause] Have you heard about the film that's being made?

No. What film is being made?

They're making a feature film about Alfred Kinsey that will be released next fall.

Who's playing him?

Liam Neeson.

Who's playing his wife?

Laura Linney. We're all quite curious to see how that will come out.

So now, talking to you as an art historian, what is the difference between erotic art created by men and erotic art created by women?

That's a good question. We have much more imagery created by men than by women. There were some women in the early part of the 20th century who were working as erotic illustrators -- a couple are featured in the book. One is a really interesting woman named Clare Tice. I think you can tell from that image that she was an artist. [This etching reveals a naked blond man with an uncircumcised penis who is flanked by two naked women of color, kissing the breast of the woman to his left.]

Tice was Caucasian, wasn't she?

As far as I know she was. She lived in Greenwich Village and was one of those eccentric artists who lived there in the teens and '20s. One thing that is interesting about her is that the Society for the Suppression of Vice actually tried to confiscate her material, and the event got her more notoriety and helped her career rather than damage her in any way.

Her women aren't all African-Americans, are they?

This may be the only one. Most of our images in the book feature Caucasian models. Where we could, we tried to bring examples of non-Caucasian women.

One image that has gone mainstream is the Judy Dater photo of a naked man nuzzling the breast of a naked pregnant woman -- the idea of pregnancy being erotic.

I always credit that to Demi Moore's famous Vanity Fair cover.

But Judy Dater took her photograph more than a quarter-century before.

I was thrilled that we have this one because our complete name is the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. By far, 99 percent of our artwork deals with sexuality but does not deal with reproduction.

Do you have any children?

I do not.

Can you tell me, ballpark, how old you are?

I'm 46, to be specific.

Guess what, so am I. Do you know the pinnacle of the baby boom? It's wasn't just after World War II. It was 1957 and 1958 when more babies were born than ever before or after. You and I are quintessential baby boomers. [Pause] Eroticism is sort of the antithesis of what reproduction is for -- reproduction.

When you see a lot of these images you don't really think about making babies.

Well, the first plate in the book is of a baby being born, the point of all this activity.

That's why we included it. All during 2003 the Institute celebrated women's sexuality in honor of the 50th anniversary of "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female." For many women, sexuality includes childbirth. A lot of the work by male artists focuses on genitalia more so than the works by women. I think things are changing. We have a lot of gay and lesbian images in our collection. The images of men with men, much of that was produced by men who were gay. Much lesbian imagery was produced by men for other men.

I should have said this earlier, I don't have kids. This is a deliberate decision between me and my wife. So babies have never been part of my sexuality. [Pause] Is your sexuality important to mention?

I don't really think so. I am with a woman, but I don't think that makes a difference of my being a curator here.

One of the interesting laments of being my age is that in the late 1970s, girls were sexuality very active, but they were liberated. There was this real sense that eroticism was sexist.

In the 1970s, women's studies became very popular. It was something you took classes in, and argued about. And pornography was seen as very, very bad. [Chuckles] Anti-woman, and all that. Especially before AIDS arrived and put a damper on things, there was a lot of sexual freedom, but in a way some closed-mindedness in how you viewed sexuality and imagery. I think if you told me at 19 I would end up being a curator for an erotic art collection I would have been quite surprised. As you know, having lived a few decades since then, you do mellow with age.

And I realized the world is not as black and white as it seems when you're 18. People are still arguing, "What is pornography?" We don't go there here. We have images here that are certainly pornographic, but people can call Michelangelo's David pornographic because it's frontal male nudity. Everybody has very different ideas of what's pornographic; we just use the word "erotic."

I think one of the most interesting photographs is on Page 128. [A photo of a naked woman from the rear straddling a naked man, her tampon string seen dangling out of her vagina.]

I love that one. "The String." It's great because it shows a bit of real life. If you look at a Playboy, all these perfect bodies, and everything has been airbrushed so there is nothing that resembles what people really look like. This image is showing a couple in their real bedroom. Menstruation is part of everyday life. Laura Letinsky is a good photographer. She's out of Chicago. Her pieces were loaned to us.

That photo implies a narrative. Is she going to remove it so they can have intercourse? Or is this just a tender moment?

A morning kiss before she starts the day. The cup of coffee by the bed.

Or tea. You don't notice this at first, but they are in a canopy bed.

[Pause] Hmm.

I find canopy beds tacky. Bad taste.

[Laughs] I don't know what Martha Stewart says about canopy beds.

I'm sure Martha wouldn't dig this. The photo seems very late 1970s. Women were really upfront about menstruation, not trying to be some pretty girl or something.

That's what I like about Letinsky's photography -- the women aren't pretty girls. The one before that photograph is of parents. That's one we wanted to include because it showed the result of this couple being sexual. Here we show them looking rather exhausted with their kids. Like I say, we don't have many visual examples of actual procreation in our library. This is usually seen as a very separate area from eroticism. But our research goes into all those areas.

We've been doing research on birth control pills. There are quite a lot of women who take birth control pills -- which everyone sees as so convenient, and "what a wonderful invention" -- and yet stop taking them. It appears that some women find it affects their sex drive negatively to be on the pill.

Was there any political fallout from your art show?

None whatsoever. We're quite pleased that we've never had any complaints from our shows. We do put up signage outside stating that there is sexual material inside. "If you don't want to see this, don't come in." That's been sufficient.

There's this assumption that the right wing is about Mom and apple pie and sex belonging behind the locked door of the master bedroom. Have you seen any pressure against the Kinsey Institute?

Yes. There is actually going to be a TV program on our recent research projects. It's going to be on "PrimeTime" sometime next month. We told them our perspective, but you never know how it's going to end up when they air it. We had an ABC news crew here interviewing our researchers and director. The funding for "Mechanisms Influencing Sexual Risk Taking" [A study of how mood affects arousal. When some people are depressed they're more likely to engage in risky sex behavior while other don't want to have sex at all. It's a health issue.] was debated in Congress last summer. Ordinarily we would have had no problem with the funding going through. But because it deals with a sexual topic, they actually voted in Congress whether they should deny the funding. It didn't pass -- the funding went through and they weren't able to stop it. But it came within two votes of passing. Certainly since Kinsey's day there have been times when people haven't been happy with the institute. I'm interested to see what the results of the movie will be.

Certainly it will make people more aware that we're here. Younger people today have never heard of Kinsey. A lot of kids on campus don't know anything about his work or his books or anything. I grew up hearing his name. The "Kinsey Scale" was something that we knew about in college.

What's that?

The Kinsey Scale is a scale from zero to six that you can place yourself on. It goes from heterosexuality to homosexuality. If you're a zero, you are entirely heterosexual. If you're a six, you're entirely homosexual. Kinsey said that all people are not one or the other. They fall somewhere in between. If you're primarily heterosexual but you had an encounter in high school, maybe you're a 1. When I was coming out in '78 in college, that made such sense to us. Why should people be one or the other? There is an illustration on our Web site, if you want to take a look.

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