For those currently not available on video, patrons may pay for a film to video transfer when copyright restrictions do not apply. Video access copies are available for many of these titles. In most cases, original prints are not available for viewing. A two-week notice is required for viewing appointments.
The film archive is available for qualified researchers for on-site viewing only. In addition to the Kinsey Institute's general collections use policy, please note the following additional policies that apply to the film archive. Animal Sex Behavior collection by the Kinsey Instituteĩ1 films made during the 1940s and 50s filmed by Kinsey Institute photographer William Dellenback on various trips made to document animals mating.ġ700 8mm and super 8 short commercially produced films for the home collector from such distributors as Swedish Erotica, Danish Films International, Burning Films, Diamond Collection and more.ģ23 art, exploitation, and pornographic feature films.Historical Stag collection , 1913-1960sġ697 historical 8mm and 16mm black and white stag films including some rare early examples of the typical stag film.ģ42 Sex education and other high school age guidance films made by production companies such as Churchill Films, Alfred Higgins Production and Perennial Education.The Kinsey Institute film archive includes: The collections are grouped into the following categories: Historical Stag films Peepshow Sex Education Animal Sex Behavior Swedish Erotica and Art, Exploitation, and Pornographic feature films. The collections contain a variety of formats including super 8, 8mm, 16mm and 35mm. It’s wonderful how all our gay activists over the years have fought the good fight and won so much for all of us and future generations of gays.The Kinsey Institute film archive consists of approximately 8000 film titles ranging in date from 1915 through the 1970s. I knew a guy who once told me that he only could feel alive in summer on fire Islan, the rest of the year in upstate New York where he was a teacher, he had no social life, no outwardly gay experiences or appearances. So as you smugly criticize these guys in the film, I urge other viewers to try to place yourselves in their shoes, and imagine what gay life was in 1976. mere suspicion of being gay, or even unmarried beyond a certain undefined age, could be grounds for loosing government jobs, and of course, no security clearances for gays. These Fire Island frolicers were all born during the gay bashing and gay witch hunts of the lavender scare, under Sen Joe McCarthy and NY asshole closet case lawyer Roy Cohen. The military was weeding out gays left and right. Gay marriage was not even on the radar screen yet. If a pair did become known in the non-gay world, your partner was known as your “friend” or your “roommate”. It was the era of “couples” always having separate apartments, not talking about the other at work or school, or among straight friends.
Society didn’t like it, families raised eyebrows. In those days, many guys wee gay on weekends, straight acting Monday through Friday. Society was very anti-gay, the gay community had lots of internalized homophobia, and whenever and wherever pockets of freedom existed, of course there were excesses that cover compensated for what most of their lives were previously, and for the majority, off of Fire Island. They did not get to have boy friends in junior high (now called middle school), high school, any many even in college. Aren’t you prissy and sanctimonious? In 1976, most visitors to Fire Island had never known the freedom and self-acceptance of living “openly gay”, “Out”, in their daily lives wherever they originally came from.