Contradictions in Kinsey’s life intrigue director

As students climb the steps of a converted dorm and head to class on the Indiana University campus, couples walk hand in hand, arms are wrapped around waists and flirtatious remarks are traded back and forth.

Meanwhile, a few stories above them continues the work of Dr. Alfred Kinsey who, beginning in the 1930s, set out to explain the more lascivious conclusion of their behavior: sex.

Researchers from all over the world continue to come here to study data Kinsey released to considerable controversy in the 1940s and 1950s. The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction has persisted in investigating sexual behavior and health.

A proliferation of new projects on Kinsey, however, are set to bring the onetime Time magazine cover subject back into a more public focus.

In addition to the biographical movie “Kinsey” – starring Liam Neeson and opening in theaters Nov. 12 – there’s a new book, a Valentine’s Day PBS documentary and a musical producers hope to debut off-Broadway by the spring.

And the creators of these works have varying reasons for bringing Kinsey to the screen, page or stage.

“He was a troublemaker, and I personally love troublemakers,” says Larry Bortniker, who wrote the music and lyrics and co-wrote the book for “Dr. Sex,” a musical about Kinsey that premiered in Chicago last year.

“What really struck me is this guy was living the kind of life and doing this kind of research at a time and place where nobody lived like or did what he was doing.”

The contradictions of Kinsey’s work and life were a source of fascination for “Kinsey” director Bill Condon.

“He tried to take people and put them into little boxes and categorize them in order to prove that everybody’s different,” he says.

When Kinsey, who died in 1956, began working at Indiana University it was as a specialist in plant and insect life. His transition from one of the world’s foremost authorities on the gall wasp to a name synonymous with sex began in 1938 when he became coordinator of a new marriage course at the school. It was then that he discovered that very little scientific data on sexual behavior existed.

He began collecting his own information and, along with research associates, eventually compiled more than 18,000 sexual histories based on in-depth, face-to-face interviews.

His studies were released as best-sellers “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” in 1948 and “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” in 1953. The books revealed, among other things, that almost all men masturbate, that married women under 30 had sex an average of more than twice a week, and that homosexuality wasn’t an anomaly.

Kinsey’s interviews were conducted at a time when many of the acts he discussed with interviewees were illegal, even behind the closed doors of private homes. Over the years, various critics have accused the scientist of, among other things, encouraging pedophilia.

Information about children’s sexual responses that were included in Kinsey’s studies mostly came from the memories of adults and the observations of teachers or parents, according to the Institute.

“If there’s criticism to be leveled against him, it’s that maybe he wasn’t sufficiently condemnatory of pedophilia,” says T.C. Boyle, author of the recently released “The Inner Circle” (Viking Books, $25.95) a fictionalized account of Kinsey and his research team which includes a scene where the scientist interviews children.

“His method as a scientist was to be nonjudgmental,” Boyle says. “A scientist is not supposed to make ethical judgments.”

The new projects include some titillating incidents from Kinsey’s own life that have been uncovered by biographers – including an affair with a man.

In the upcoming PBS documentary, tentatively titled “Kinsey” and set to air as part of “The American Experience” on Feb. 14, creators set out to mine Kinsey’s personal motivations for delving into sex research, producer John Maggio says.

“As he got deeper into the study, we think he started to learn about himself and … conflicts he’d been having all his life with his sexuality started to rise to the surface,” says Maggio, whose documentary includes interviews with some who provided sexual histories to the scientist.

“I believe the study itself started to heal some of the frustrations and guilt that he felt over his own conflicted sexuality.”

Condon, who won a screenwriting Oscar for “Gods and Monsters” and also wrote the script for “Kinsey,” said his choices of what to include in the movie reflected the larger thematic story he wanted to tell.

“Everybody’s sexuality is different. Everybody wants to be the same,” he says. “Exploring that idea is one of the things I wanted to do in the movie.”

As for the Institute, it has moved beyond the past, says Jennifer Bass, head of information services.

“We’re not busy with history,” says Bass. “That’s not really our focus.”