Judith Reisman, Noted Whackjob

Read this New Yorker article, and hear the story of Judith Reisman, a PhD convinced that, among other things, Alfred Kinsey died from too much jerking off.

No, seriously.

You may remember Kinsey, the subject of the new Bill Condon film, Kinsey. Please read my review of the film here, if you so desire. He was the 1940's sex researcher whose work explored the sexual behavior of American men and women with a degree of clarity, nuance and accuracy never previously imagined.

Obviously, some rigid, uptight, probably religious social conservatives would have a problem with a scientist associated with a public university (Indiana) publishing "embarrassing" information about how almost every male on Earth masturbates, or about how most men cheat on their wives, or about how everyone likes porno. But this Reisman lady takes it to a whole new level.

She thinks that Kinsey was attempting to force Americans to accept his bizarre, and ungodly, sexual standards. For example, the idea that homosexuality is okay. Bear in mind that Kinsey never endorsed any sexual practice in his work; he merely reported what people were doing behind closed doors in an academic text.

But this doesn't stop Reisman from throwing around loony accusations about him. Take the following:

In her research on gays, for instance, [Reisman] has written that the “recruitment techniques” of homosexuals rival those of the Marine Corps. The Kinsey paradigm, she holds, created the moral framework that makes such recruitment possible. Reisman also endorses a book called “The Pink Swastika,” which challenges the “myths” that gays were victimized in Nazi Germany. The Nazi Party and the Holocaust itself, she writes, were largely the creation of “the German homosexual movement.” Thanks to Alfred Kinsey, she warns, the American homosexual movement is poised to repeat those crimes. “Idealistic ‘gay youth’ groups are being formed and staffed in classrooms nationwide by recruiters too similar to those who formed the original ‘Hitler youth.’”

Meh? "The German homosexual movement"? Is that anything like the Heimlich Maneuver?

So, yeah, she's batshit insane. It's kind of amusing, actually, until you realize that just about every important person in power in our government right now totally agrees with all this crap.

Reisman is active in lobbying for abstinance-only education, the unproven and, let's face it, utterly ridiculous theory that if children are taught that sex is wrong and dirty from a young age, they won't have it until they are married. And, even then, they'll have to close their eyes and think of George W. until it's over.

And that's not all! Reisman actually testified before Congress just last week about the dangers of pornography, "saying that police should be required to collect evidence of pornography consumption at any crime scene."

Wow, what a great idea! Who needs fucking clues anyway?