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The film's Kinsey is absolutely right about one thing: human beings are animals, and society as a whole and Christians in particular have often ignored this fact. But we are not only animals; as C.S. Lewis said, humans are "amphibious" creatures, both animal and spiritual, and sexuality is one of the places where our two natures intersect most strongly. On one level, sure, humans exchange genetic matter and bodily fluids just as all other creatures do, but on another, deeper level, sex between two humans makes them "one flesh"; as Lewis says in The Screwtape Letters, it creates a spiritual bond that must be either forever enjoyed or forever endured.

Kinsey (Neeson) and Clara (Linney)

My parents have told me about the reticence of their own parents to talk about sex with their children—and the misinformation that flourished among their classmates. So it's probably no exaggeration to say that families in Kinsey's day could have benefited from a greater frankness about sexual matters—though not to the degree that Kinsey does, giving clinical tips to his daughters on how to enjoy intercourse with their boyfriends. But Kinsey is absolutely wrong to treat human sexuality as just another "animal activity," and he is equally wrong when he implies that everything which happens in our world is "natural" and therefore good.

There are moments in the film that hint at the failings and limitations of Kinsey's worldview, but they are typically contextualized or attenuated in a way that absolves the man of any serious blame. Kinsey and his wife reportedly had many lovers, but the film limits their affairs to a single, short-lived triangle with the relatively well-adjusted Clyde. Kinsey may have had a masochistic streak, but the film's one instance of self-mutilation on his part makes it look like the result of stress caused by having to deal with the backlash from such a sexually repressed and censorious society. Kinsey's studies also included some shocking assertions about the sexual behavior of very young children, all of them supposedly gleaned not from direct tests but from the memoirs of a single pansexual man, but the film's Kinsey makes it clear, even as he dutifully takes notes, that he disapproves of forcing sexual behavior on anyone. (At best, one might wonder how scientifically valid a single stranger's testimony on such matters might be, and at worst, Kinsey's willingness to use this man's information raises the same concerns we might raise with regard to other kinds of data that have come to us through criminal and immoral methods, such as the scientific tests performed at Nazi concentration camps—but the film never asks those questions.)

Dr. Kinsey shares his controversial views on sex

Kinsey constantly talks about "science" as though it were some sort of divine imperative, and the possibility that there may be some things that transcend or supersede science is all but ignored—at least until a point near the end of the film, where Kinsey remarks that love cannot be measured, so he didn't bother to include it in his studies; the film would have us believe Kinsey did not have a big blind spot, but rather, he simply knew his limits. But Condon is so determined to portray Kinsey as a crusader for sexual liberation that he ends the film on an immeasurable, emotional note anyway, in which a lesbian (Lynn Redgrave, whose father Michael was famously bisexual) tearfully tells Kinsey that his book let her know that there were others like her out there, and therefore it saved her life.

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