Kinsey's beatnik.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills

The recent revelations about Alfred Kinsey's sex life have raised some questions about the reliability of the research upon which Kinsey's landmark books were based. I know nothing about Kinsey's sex life, but I do know a bit about his research.

One of my friends during my college days at Columbia was Allen Ginsberg. He introduced me to a friend of his named Herbert Huncke, who had been a source and a recruiter for Kinsey. Herbert was a junkie who supported himself and his habit by petty larceny. Kinsey gave him $10 for the interview and $2 a head for each recruit. I've always thought that the word "beat" was first used by Allen to describe Herbert. He looked defeated--terribly thin, almost ghostly in appearance. He moved with stealth--"like an Arab," Jack Kerouac wrote. I saw him fairly frequently for a couple of years, but usually only when he was trying to sell me something that I was confident he had not acquired by legal means. Athough he later developed genuine talent as a writer...