In 1953 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female by Alfred Kinsey, the first major study of American women's sexual practices, was published. Although the Kinsey report, as it was known, was a serious scientific study, it created a sensation uncommon to the scientific community.

The scientific method involved interviews with 5,940 female volunteers. Kinsey found that half of the women were no longer virgins when they married. Among married women, about one fourth had committed adultery by age forty. About half the adulterous wives had only one partner outside the marriage, and a third had committed adultery only once or a few times. Women were generally found to have a much lower sex drive than men. While an earlier report found that men were frequently preoccupied with sexual thoughts, women were found to daydream seldom about sex.

Shattering to males were the findings related to...