Clarence Tripp
Clarence A. Tripp, Ph. D. (1919 - May 17, 2003) was a psychologist, photographer, therapist, writer, gay activist, and researcher for Dr. Alfred Kinsey. Born in 1919 in Denton, Texas, USA, Tripp studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and was a Naval Veteran.
After establishing himself as a photographer for Warner Bros, he went on to work in the same function with Alfred Kinsey at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in Bloomington, Indiana from 1948 to 1956. He earned a Ph.D. in Clinical psychology from New York University. In The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, C. A. Tripp contends that Abraham Lincoln had erotic attractions and attachments to men throughout his life, from his youth to his presidency.
In the later years of his life, Clarence Tripp was a valuable source to researchers of adult-minor sexual attractions and relations.
Interviewed in Yorkshire Television's unsympathetic "expose" of Kinsey's techniques, Tripp portrays quite frankly the realities of Kinsey's research and his subjects. It becomes clear that Tripp is untroubled by the sexual diversity uncovered in Kinsey et al.'s research.
In an obituary for Tripp (2004, below), William Percy and Lewis Gannett recall how Tripp tried to photograph 2,000 males ejaculating to settle a debate between Kinsey and other scholars:
The procurer “handed me on a silver platter” a teen-age male prostitute who not only served a select clientele, but also had “practically organized” the hustlers operating in Times Square and Bryant Park. Tripp remembers him as “the German boy” because of his strong accent. “He was surprisingly young to be hustling at that level, certainly not over seventeen, but respected, financially secure, the boss, so to speak. And while he wasn’t exceptionally beautiful, he carried himself with a pride and a poise that made him stand out.” After the German boy jerked off for a movie camera in Tripp’s apartment at One Sheridan Square, “I paid him, then made a proposition: I’d pay him a dollar per subject he rounded up, and pay each subject a dollar. He asked, ‘How quick do you want them?’ I said, ‘As soon as possible.' 'Good,' he replied, ‘I’ll have my people come.’ [...] The next afternoon, as the appointed time drew near, Tripp glanced out his window and saw something he hadn’t expected: a line of young men stretching from his building’s door clear around the block.
Tripp experienced positive age-gap sexual contact as a minor, with an older person/legal adult. His testimony and recollection of young gay desire was published by Bruce Rind in his appendix contribution to Censoring Sex Research (2013).
External links
- William Percy and Lewis Gannett. "In Memoriam: C. A. Tripp." in Journal of Homosexuality, 47 (Summer 2004).
- William Percy Bio for Tripp
- Kinsey's Paedophiles video (annotated)
- VIDEO: Talking with Judith Reisman
- VIDEO: Longer interview on Donahue
- VIDEO: Counselling a woman against believing in the trauma myth, on an early Oprah show.