Wednesday, December 08, 2004
The Ghost of Alfred Kinsey and Osama bin Laden
Vying for a place in history
An article in a recent issue of a well-known magazine mentioned that according to an organization of abstinence-education group called Why Know, the impact from publication of The Kinsey Report in 1948 was in a way equal to what the terrorists did on 9/11. Well, slay me with a dragon.
Fast forward to a cave somewhere in South Asia.
Aides busily preparing for a meeting. A tall, benign looking bearded man arrives and is greeted with bowed heads and murmured salutations: great leader, the wise one, mastermind of attacks against America,etc.,etc. The meeting comes to order. The tall, bearded man begins without preamble by slapping down a glossy magazine on the table and demanding to know who was Dr. Kinsey and how dare an organization in America claim that Dr. Kinsey caused as much damage as his carefully planned attacks on 9/11. He wanted a fatwa declared on the head of Kinsey.
The aides had done their homework or thought they did. They tried to explain that the whole thing was blown grossly out of proportion and the great leader had nothing to worry. There was no one who came close to what he and his martyrs achieved on 9/11. Dr. Kinsey was no longer alive and the findings of his research about sexual habits and practices of American males appeared in print more than 50 years ago. The tall man with flowing beard was incredulous. He thundered “Are you trying to deceive me, you imbeciles? How could a book about sinful habits of the infidels be compared to my jihad? I observe fast and abstinence on holy days; keep myself pure, carry a weapon and am prepared to give my life for the cause of the all powerful. Get the facts,the real facts about this Kinsey and his book. Report back to me in a week. If you fail in your task then you can forget about the virgins in paradise. Instead, your punishment will be 10 lashes every day. I have spoken. Praise be to the almighty.” He walks away.
The chief of staff was feverishly working the keys of his laptop. He announced that he had a strategy. He said that “We are going to do what the Brits did”. Everyone looked puzzled. He elaborated, “You know, they sexed up the dossier to justify the war in Iraq; we are going to prepare a sexed down dossier to convince our great leader that Dr. Kinsey was not successful in helping the Americans get rid of their sexual hang ups. Claims about the influence of his book were greatly exaggerated by a few puritanical ladies. Get to work. The first draft must be on my desk in 48 hours." The meeting concludes.
Dr. Kinsey’s ghost shook its head and thought that if only the tall, bearded man had paid attention to his treatise he would have been a sexually fulfilled and happier person, and the same applied to members of the abstinence-education group. The world would have been so much better off. He sighed, turned around and went back to sleep.
************************
"Some things are better than sex, and some are worse, but there's nothing exactly like it."
----W. C. Fields (1880-1946)
An article in a recent issue of a well-known magazine mentioned that according to an organization of abstinence-education group called Why Know, the impact from publication of The Kinsey Report in 1948 was in a way equal to what the terrorists did on 9/11. Well, slay me with a dragon.
Fast forward to a cave somewhere in South Asia.
Aides busily preparing for a meeting. A tall, benign looking bearded man arrives and is greeted with bowed heads and murmured salutations: great leader, the wise one, mastermind of attacks against America,etc.,etc. The meeting comes to order. The tall, bearded man begins without preamble by slapping down a glossy magazine on the table and demanding to know who was Dr. Kinsey and how dare an organization in America claim that Dr. Kinsey caused as much damage as his carefully planned attacks on 9/11. He wanted a fatwa declared on the head of Kinsey.
The aides had done their homework or thought they did. They tried to explain that the whole thing was blown grossly out of proportion and the great leader had nothing to worry. There was no one who came close to what he and his martyrs achieved on 9/11. Dr. Kinsey was no longer alive and the findings of his research about sexual habits and practices of American males appeared in print more than 50 years ago. The tall man with flowing beard was incredulous. He thundered “Are you trying to deceive me, you imbeciles? How could a book about sinful habits of the infidels be compared to my jihad? I observe fast and abstinence on holy days; keep myself pure, carry a weapon and am prepared to give my life for the cause of the all powerful. Get the facts,the real facts about this Kinsey and his book. Report back to me in a week. If you fail in your task then you can forget about the virgins in paradise. Instead, your punishment will be 10 lashes every day. I have spoken. Praise be to the almighty.” He walks away.
The chief of staff was feverishly working the keys of his laptop. He announced that he had a strategy. He said that “We are going to do what the Brits did”. Everyone looked puzzled. He elaborated, “You know, they sexed up the dossier to justify the war in Iraq; we are going to prepare a sexed down dossier to convince our great leader that Dr. Kinsey was not successful in helping the Americans get rid of their sexual hang ups. Claims about the influence of his book were greatly exaggerated by a few puritanical ladies. Get to work. The first draft must be on my desk in 48 hours." The meeting concludes.
Dr. Kinsey’s ghost shook its head and thought that if only the tall, bearded man had paid attention to his treatise he would have been a sexually fulfilled and happier person, and the same applied to members of the abstinence-education group. The world would have been so much better off. He sighed, turned around and went back to sleep.
************************
"Some things are better than sex, and some are worse, but there's nothing exactly like it."
----W. C. Fields (1880-1946)
