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Saving Sexual Science: Kinsey and American Religious-Conservative Politics

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Histories of Sexology

Part of the book series: Global Queer Politics ((GQP))

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Abstract

Sexual science has often been mobilized to advance progressive sexual rights agendas against conservative, religiously driven political agendas. This chapter explores a different dynamic, where religious-conservative activists used sexual science to advance their ‘anti-homosexual’ campaign. We focus on the attacks on Kinsey in the United States. While the historiography on religious conservatism has highlighted the centrality of religious/moralistic discourses, our analysis of textual sources (from archives of evangelical-political organizations and recently declassified FBI documents) shows that evangelical activists often foregrounded scientific arguments. Women activists played a particularly important role in this discursive battleground, as our political history of the attacks on Kinsey demonstrates.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jesus College, Cambridge, the Institut des Sciences Sociales de l’Université de Lausanne, and the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 100011_153080), Grant Holders Cynthia Kraus (PI), Vincent Barras and Véronique Mottier for institutional and financial support of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

    Alexandre Paturel

  2. HSPS, Jesus College, Cambridge, UK

    Véronique Mottier

  3. Institut des Sciences Sociales, Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Véronique Mottier & Cynthia Kraus

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  1. Alexandre Paturel
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  2. Véronique Mottier
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  3. Cynthia Kraus
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Correspondence to Véronique Mottier .

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  1. Inserm, Paris, France

    Alain Giami

  2. Université d’Angers, Angers, France

    Sharman Levinson

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Paturel, A., Mottier, V., Kraus, C. (2021). Saving Sexual Science: Kinsey and American Religious-Conservative Politics. In: Giami, A., Levinson, S. (eds) Histories of Sexology. Global Queer Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65813-7_5

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