The Kinsey Institute - [Publications]

In 2003, The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University marked 50 years since the publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Female with an art exhibition, Feminine Persuasion. The catalog, Feminine Persuasion: Art and Essays on Sexuality, celebrates the diverse and multifaceted expressions of women's sexuality since Kinsey's study heralded a new era. This beautifully illustrated book showcases five centuries of diverse visual interpretations of female sexuality collected by The Kinsey Institute, and includes work by the contemporary artists Mariette Pathy Allen, Ghada Amer, Patty Chang, Judy Chicago, Renee Cox, Judy Dater, Nancy Davidson, Nicole Eisenman, Laura Letinsky, and Frank Yamrus. In addition to more than 45 color and halftone plates, Feminine Persuasion features two scholarly essays that place this wide-ranging work in context. Assessing what the ideal body image of the original Kinsey subjects might have been, June M. Reinisch discusses the ever-changing standards of female beauty, while Jean Robertson, in a survey of the history of feminist art over the past half century, explores the complex dimensions that constitute this work.

Betsy Stirratt is an artist and has been the Director of the School of Fine Arts Gallery at Indiana University since 1987. Catherine Johnson is Curator of Art, Artifacts, and Photography at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.

Sex and Humor: Selections from The Kinsey Institute is illustrated with more than 45 halftone reproductions of selected pieces from the exhibition, held in 2002.
The book contains four scholarly essays, including one by former Kinsey Institute Director John Bancroft that provides an overview of recent literature and research on the topic of sex and humor, as well as his personal views on the subject. Leonore Tiefer, professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and author of Sex is Not a Natural Act and Other Essays, addresses the topic of feminist humor. Mikita Brottman, professor of liberal arts at Maryland Institute College of Art, has contributed an essay on Gershon Legman, a world-renowned authority on the dirty joke. Folklorist Frank Hoffmann discusses the popularity of the mid-20th century erotic comic books known as "eight-pagers" or "Tijuana Bibles".