Photos by Chris Meyer Heiman The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction is housed in Morrison Hall on the IU Bloomington campus.

The last line Alfred Kinsey says to his wife Clara (played by Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, respectively) in the film Kinsey could easily be attributed to Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at IU Bloomington.

Heiman took the helm at the Kinsey Institute in June as its sixth director, succeeding Dr. John Bancroft, who retired in April after serving as director since 1995.

The position was attractive to Heiman for a multitude of reasons, but primarily because it promised new opportunities for interdisciplinary research. “When I talked to people here and got a feel for the place and was able to negotiate about the things we might get done, it was very interesting. I thought, ‘Why not try to do something in this difficult period, try to contribute to the solution of the problem?’ It seemed distinctly possible to stimulate sex research as a serious field of study. I really do believe that—not everyone does,” she said.

Recognized as a leader in the field of sexuality scholarship, Heiman came to IU from the University of Washington, where she was a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the School of Medicine and co-director of UW’s Reproductive and Sexual Medicine Clinic, a position she held since 1987. Her recent research involves studying the benefit of short-term psychological therapy for women who have been treated for cervical or endometrial cancer.

“Often, no additional treatment is provided to cancer patients once their lives are saved. This study attempts to determine the value of combining brief psychological sex therapies with medication for women recovering from cancer treatment,” said Heiman. She and her researchers are also completing a Viagra study which looks at the effects of the drug on the partners as well as the persons taking the drug.

When asked if Kinsey’s methodology is used in sexual research today, Heiman replied: “The face-to-face method is falling out of favor because of the expense and the time it takes to train interviewers. However, his principles still stand—the importance of being nonjudgmental, not presuming to know what someone has done, respect for the ways in which people are different from one another and, of course, confidentiality.”

Although last month’s film premiere was a benefit for the Kinsey Institute, the institute will not receive any profits from the film. However, Heiman hopes the renewed interest in Kinsey’s work generated by the film will help the institute’s fundraising efforts.

“The collections are important. The films and tapes can deteriorate, and we need to find ways to preserve them—it would great if we could digitalize some of the collections. Raising money is formidable, because not everyone wants to support the kind of materials these are,” she said.

According to Heiman, funding sex research also continues to be a challenge.

“I think that some people will always wonder if sex is a serious topic, but the more it borrows from medicine, history and psychology, the more defensible it is that this is science and contributes to understanding sexuality,” she said. “Financial support has increased for HIV/AIDS and rape and sexual molestation research, although I wouldn’t go so far as to say those are well funded. When you look at understanding sex and its serious problems, there’s a lot of work to do.”

To learn more about the Kinsey Institute’s history, collections and research:

http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/about/index.html

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