Archive for Sexology

June, 1998: Acquisition of Sexual Diaries

      The Archive for Sexology has decided to share the following excerpts from two sexual diaries with a wider audience in the hope that they might be useful to various practitioners in the field of sexual health. Especially andrologists, but also psychiatrists, sex therapists, family counselors and others who, in order to provide effective help, need to take detailed sex histories of their patients or clients, might profit from being reminded once more that they should never act on mere assumptions and take nothing for granted. In this sense, our excerpts add a necessary dose of realism to the "accepted wisdom" of academic teaching.

The two highly educated men who have allowed us to use their diaries took the trouble of keeping them because, as young men, they met Alfred C. Kinsey and were impressed with his integrity and dedication as a scientist. They also became convinced that their efforts could indeed make a contribution to sex research. However, because of a series of unforeseen circumstances, they never made their complete diaries available to the Kinsey Institute. Both men are personally inconspicuous and wholly conventional in lifestyle, appearance and manner. Both had successful careers and are well respected in their communities.

1. Documents provided by Dr. X.

The Archive for Sexology has recently acquired the bulk of the papers of Dr. X., who, for many years, traveled all over the world and now lives in retirement in a large European city.

In 1948, the then 35-year old Dr. X. began, at the suggestion of Alfred C. Kinsey, to keep extensive records of his sexual contacts, and he has continued this record keeping without interruption to this day, thus producing a unique collection of documents spanning half a century (he is now 85). The documents include not only various annotated daily, monthly, and annual statistics, but also an extensive correspondence of many hundreds of pages fleshing out the bare numbers with significant details and explaining the sexual customs and attitudes in the various countries he visited. The summary chart presented here is remarkable for the high number of sexual partners each year as well as over the various decades. (For 30 years, from 1955-1985, the annual numbers lay between 500 and 1000, and in some years even between 1000 and 1500.)

In cooperation with Dr. X., the Archive for Sexology would like make his papers available to science and is eager to start an appropriate project together with those scholars who have come to know him over the years, who respect his anonymity, and who have worked with him before. (They also understand this particular message.) For additional details, see the following report in German:
Erwin J. Haeberle: Ein Besuch bei Dr. X

2. Document provided by Dr. Y.

The Archive for Sexology has, for some time, also been in the possession of another chart provided by another of Alfred C. Kinsey's informants. The newly married Dr. Y. was, at the age of 30, encouraged by Kinsey to keep track of his various sexual outlets (masturbation, marital coitus, extramarital coitus, homosexual contact) by briefly noting the sources of his orgasms in a small pocket diary, a suggestion that was scrupulously followed for thirty-five years. Dr. Y. was never divorced and is still married to his first and only wife.

Some years ago, Dr. Y. had his diary numbers converted into a chart which he turned over to Prof. Haeberle for use in his lectures on AIDS prevention. It did indeed prove very useful for that purpose, because it shows, for eight consecutive years, regular homosexual contacts in an otherwise predominantly heterosexual life. The chart thus calls into question conventional assumptions about sexual orientation and demonstrates quite clearly that homosexual behavior is by no means restricted to "homosexuals". The chart further shows that, especially in younger years, and contrary to widely held beliefs, homosexual contacts and masturbation do not necessarily have to interfere with or detract from marital and extramarital coitus; at least they did not in Dr. Y's case. Quite apart from these issues, however, the chart (in its red-colored summary curve) also very well illustrates the typical decline of male sexual capacities after the age of 50, something that is not so apparent in the chart of the "atypical" Dr. X.. However, Dr. Y. is, in this respect, representative of the majority of men.

We present the two charts here in honor of the often unjustly maligned great scientist Alfred C. Kinsey. Their comparison demonstrates once again the wide spectrum of variation in human sexual behavior that Kinsey documented and described and that is all too often ignored or forgotten.

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