'Kinsey' Star Talks About Sex Researcher

Oct. 14, 2004 — -- More than 50 years ago, the nation saw its first comprehensive, scientific study on sex in America -- the Kinsey report.

The report's author, Alfred Kinsey, was a pioneer. His research, published in the late 1940s, startled a nation which didn't talk about sex. For example, it said that most men masturbate, that homosexuality is not statistically rare, and that women reach their sexual peak in their 30s.

Next week: "Primetime Live" will present its own landmark study on sex in America: who's doing what, how often, and where.

But it wasn't just Kinsey's message that made him controversial. It was also his methods. Some still consider him a degenerate.

"Kinsey," a new major motion picture about the researcher's life, is set to hit theaters next month. Academy Award winner Liam Neeson, who plays Kinsey in the movie, sat down with "Primetime Live" and for the first time talked about what he learned from his portrayal.

"We're all groping our way through life, hoping to be accepted and tolerated," Neeson said, referencing his upbringing in Northern Ireland, where relations between Protestants and Catholics were hostile for many long years.

"We all live in the same house. It's constantly in a state of disrepair. It's up to us to fix it. And God bless people like Kinsey that kind of shine a light into a murky area of our humanity."

There is no doubt that like Neeson, Kinsey was influenced by his life experiences.

Kinsey had a puritanical childhood, and grew up to become an awkward academic. He spent his early career studying a tiny insect -- the gall wasp -- and collected 4 million specimens over 20 years before turning his attention to human sexuality.

As a 28-year-old professor at Indiana University, he married a student, Clara McMillen. On their wedding night both were virgins. The film portrays the experience as "crude, painful and embarrassing for both of them," Neeson said.

Neeson believes Kinsey's research was an attempt to save people from that pain. "He didn't want people to suffer, especially young people," Neeson said.

After Kinsey moved his focus from the gall wasp, he and his team of researchers interviewed 18,000 Americans about their sex lives, forming the foundation of an organization that would become the world-famous Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction.