Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.OPINION: Sex or Snake Oil?
Russian-born Pitirim Alexandrovitch Sorokin, professor of sociology at Harvard since 1930, has long viewed with distress the moral laxity of the U.S., his adopted country. He is especially concerned with the national preoccupation with sex, as evidenced by the success of Mickey Spillane's detective stories ("calculated to enthrall the most brutal sex sadist") and of Dr. Alfred Kinsey's reports on sexual behavior. As a nation, Sorokin warned this week, the U.S. is in danger of going sex-crazy.
"A consuming interest in sex has so penetrated our national culture that it has been estimated we encounter some kind of sexual lure...
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