![]() Strub was taking part in a panel discussion called “Kinsey and the Politics of Sexuality.” His lecture, which talked about the role that this boom in sexual fiction played in postwar gay activism, was titled “Tales from the Kinsey Scale,” a reference to the zero-to-six scale devised by Kinsey which is meant to illustrate an individual’s sexuality: zero meaning a person is completely heterosexual and six indicating they’re 100 percent homosexual. Kinsey went on to author two ground-breaking studies into human sexuality: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948 and five years later, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. ![]() Strub was among the academics invited to speak at a two-day symposium in early May to discuss the legacy of Alfred Kinsey’s research on the centennial of his graduation from Bowdoin, where he majored in biology and psychology. “Kinsey’s work had a dramatic impact in setting the scene for this boost in lurid fiction,” he said, “because it legitimized social discussion of sexuality.” Until the advent of hardcore pornographic movies in the 1970s, this type of pulp fiction, books with names like Our Flesh Was Cheap, and Return to Lesbos, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, said Strub, satisfying a demand for both gay and straight literature. Strub is associate professor and director of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University. The link between the work of renowned sexologist and man of science Alfred Charles Kinsey, Class of 1916, and the raft of lurid and salacious literature that appeared in postwar America, may not be immediately obvious, said Whitney Strub, but there is one.
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