Trouble at the sex factory

I should perhaps declare, not an interest quite, or at least not only an interest, but an expertise. Ten years ago I spent seven months in Bloomington, Indiana researching a biography of Alfred C. Kinsey, the pioneer entomologist and sex researcher. The book appeared in 1998. T. C. Boyle has had the bright idea of writing a novel based on ‘Prok’, as Kinsey was called, and his ‘inner circle’: ‘Mac’ his wife, and his three assistants and their wives.

A bright idea fortuitously, since his novel is able to coincide with the film Kinsey starring Liam Neeson and just out. But bright also because it is in fact a dramatic and extraordinary story and there is of course a good deal of sex — handled by Boyle expertly and graphically enough, though, if I were Prok, I’d guess he isn’t all that keen on gay sex.

He follows the history quite closely. The young, good-looking protagonist John Milk, who tells the story, mild as his name (odd to British ears, but in America you can be called anything), is spotted by Prok and comes to work for him. Quite soon Prok, who is discovering his own bisexuality, seduces Milk (the film has it the other way round. No one knows, or is telling, but I suspect Boyle is right); after a while Milk asks if he can sleep with Mac who, after 15 years of marriage, is delighted. Milk learns Prok’s complex but hugely effective interviewing technique and sets out across America gathering sex histories — at first continually astonished. For example an extremely attractive young woman confesses to experiencing ‘maybe 10 or 12 orgasms’ on average. ‘A week?’ asks Milk. ‘Or is that a monthly approximation?’ Blushing she says, ‘That would be daily.’