Kinsey

Saw this film tonight and wow was it ever dull (inane editing choices, threadbare acting, the most obvious of choices on plot and foreshadowing. And wonder of wonders- it managed to make sex boring.) I studied Kinsey when I was- what?- sixteen, I guess, or seventeen, working on my psych major. (Ok, the first run at my psych major. After completing my literature major, I dropped psychology and college a total of three times before I finally wrapped the whole thing up nine years later. So much for the boy wonder I was supposed to be.)

And Kinsey, he's still a fascinating fella. Mistaken and right at the same time. While this movie didn't shy away from the contributions made to his research by note-taking pedophiles or from the confusion and hurt that loads of casual sex create, it did in the end insist on making the man a missionary (which is an ironic position for him to find himself in- smack my paw. Harder!) Or a preacher. Or a hero, saving us all from our prudish selves.

The biggest moment of truth onscreen, though, was when one of his research assistants told him off for trying to reduce sex to simple statistics and neutral science. As if it could ever really be less than a whole lot of everything between human beings who can't help but communicate much more than desire or disease when they touch each other.

Complete freedom can put so many holes in your heart that it can become difficult to carry even a dream of love. And sometimes, the restrictions we place on ourselves in terms of "social obligations" exist to protect the greatest freedom of all. Who gets it right, though? Or more to the point, human beings are almost always incapable of balance on any of our big issues of sex, money, power, the infinite and where to spend Christmas this year.

I have such faith in us. Five times today already and it's not even noon.