# Check — The History and Methods of Sexual Research (Science and Culture, lecture 1 of 2)

Checked 2026-10-19. 48 claims checked; 20 corrected; 4 softened or removed.

Length 2315 → 2240 narrated words (wc -w after marker removal; budget 2200, target ≤ 2250). Cuts were connective tissue only (a transition sentence, two writer's glosses, one deck aside about "many resources"); no slide and no fact was dropped except the three unverifiable items listed under "Could not verify". Markup intact after edits: 16 `##` slides (one per beat, in order), two `? ` paragraphs, three `> ` paragraphs (13, 22 and 18 words), no lists, no parentheses, no `[+]`/`[fixed]` markers left, lecturer not named anywhere. Spelling converted to American throughout (humour, favour, behaviour, labour, centre, colour, honour → humor, favor, behavior, labor, center, color, honor), in the script and in `beats.json`.

## Corrections (script changed)
- Slide 2 (Ain Sakhri): writer's `[fixed]` confirmed — the deck's "Jordanian site" is wrong. The figurine was found by a Bedouin in Wadi Khareitoun near Bethlehem, identified in 1933 by René Neuville, who attributed it to the Ain Sakhri caves; calcite cobble, Natufian, c. 9000 BCE (~11,000 years), British Museum 1958,1007.1. Wording tightened to "a small carved pebble from the Ain Sakhri caves near Bethlehem". Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain_Sakhri_figurine ; https://www.timesofisrael.com/first-artistic-depiction-of-sex-found-near-bethlehem-to-join-uk-lgbtq-exhibit/
- Slide 3 (Turin papyrus, writer's `[+]`): "dates from between 1292 and 1075 BCE" → "dates from the Ramesside period, between 1292 and 1075 BCE". The range is the Ramesside period, not the papyrus's own date (c. 1150 BCE, 20th Dynasty, from Deir el-Medina). Museo Egizio, Turin (Cat. 2031 / Papyrus 55001) confirmed. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turin_Erotic_Papyrus ; https://collezioni.museoegizio.it/en-GB/material/Cat_2031
- Slide 3 (content, writer's `[+]`): "a sequence of scenes of partnered sex, drawn with a satirical hand" → "a dozen scenes of partnered sex, beside a section of animals parodying human life, which the museum reads as comedy". The scroll has two sections (animal satire + twelve erotic vignettes); the museum's catalogue calls it a comical composition, not an Egyptian Kamasutra. Fragmentary: confirmed. Sources: https://collezioni.museoegizio.it/en-GB/material/Cat_2031 ; https://collezionepapiri.museoegizio.it/en-GB/section/Papyrus-Collection/History-and-content/Highlights-Erotical-Satirical-Papyrus/
- Slide 4 (Kama Sutra date): "written between 400 and 200 BCE" → "composed ... most likely in the third century CE; the deck dates it to 400 to 200 BCE, earlier than most scholars place it". Scholarly range 400 BCE–300 CE; Doniger places it in the second half of the 3rd century CE; OUP's own blurb says "sometime in the third century CE". Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_Sutra ; https://www.oupjapan.co.jp/en/node/5810
- Slide 4 (translation, writer's `[+]`): "A new translation was released in 2009, correcting many errors from the first English translation of 1883" → "The first English translation, Richard Burton's of 1883 ... until Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar's 2002 translation corrected many of its errors." Burton/Arbuthnot 1883 confirmed. The Doniger–Kakar Oxford World's Classics translation is 2002; 2009 is the OWC paperback reissue ("New edition", ISBN 9780199539161), so the deck's year is the reprint, not the translation. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_Sutra ; https://library.usi.edu/record/336730 ; https://www.powells.com/book/kamasutra-9780199539161
- Slide 4: "additional partners, including concubines" → "including courtesans". Book 6 is on courtesans (ganikas); the deck's "concubines" is loose. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_Sutra
- Slide 6 (Churchill): "a line attributed to Winston Churchill" → "attributed to Winston Churchill, probably apocryphally". He never said it in that form; the 1948 Commons remark was "...leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself." Sources: https://origin.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/mike_duggan_transition_team_quotes_winston_churchill_gets_quote_wrong ; https://www.shmoop.com/quotes/history-will-be-kind-to-me.html
- Slide 7 (Onania, writer's `[+]`): "In 1712" → "Around 1712". First printing is dated c. 1712–1716; the earliest surviving imprint is 1716 (P. Varenne, London); author anonymous. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onania:_or,_the_heinous_sin_of_self-pollution ; https://collections.soane.org/b6727
- Slide 7 (Mantegazza): "called the subject the science of embrace" → "the science of embraces" (his own phrase, "Wissenschaft der Umarmungen", since the field had no name); "professor of pathology and anthropology" → "professor of pathology and later of anthropology" (general pathology at Pavia, then the anthropology chair at Florence, 1870). 1831–1910 confirmed. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Mantegazza ; https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/54510
- Slide 7 (Krafft-Ebing): writer's `[fixed]` confirmed — died 22 Dec 1902 in Graz (deck: 1905). "in Austria" → "a psychiatrist working in Austria" (born Mannheim, Germany; chairs at Strasbourg, Graz, Vienna). "stated that homosexuality was not a psychopathology" → "late in life revised his view of homosexuality, concluding that it was not a disease": Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) treated it as hereditary degeneration; the reversal came in a 1901 Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen article and the final edition. Sources: https://www.whitecraneinstitute.org/tdih_event/1902-12-22 ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathia_Sexualis ; https://sk.sagepub.com/ency/edvol/embed/gender/chpt/krafftebing-richard-von-18401902
- Slide 8 (Hirschfeld): writer's `[fixed]` confirmed — born 14 May 1868, Kolberg (deck: 1869). "dedicated himself to justice through science" → "adopted the motto through science to justice" (Per scientiam ad justitiam). "Institute for Sexual Research" → "Institute for Sexual Science", the standard English name of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (opened 6 July 1919; ransacked 6 May 1933, library burned at the Opernplatz). Year 1895 added to the Wilde trial. Writer's `[fixed]` on the partner's name confirmed: Li Shiu Tong (Tao Li), not "Li Shui Tong"; died 5 Oct 1993, Vancouver. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissenschaft ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Shiu_Tong
- Slide 9 (Johnson): writer's `[fixed]` confirmed — Virginia Johnson 1925–2013 (deck: 1935). Masters 1915–2001. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_and_Johnson
- Slide 9 (method): the deck's "All three of these scientists collected data through observation of sexual activity" → "Kinsey's data came from more than 18,000 face-to-face interviews; Masters and Johnson went further and watched." Kinsey's method was the structured interview (18,000+ histories, about half taken by Kinsey himself); only Masters and Johnson observed in the laboratory. Sources: https://kinseyinstitute.org/about/history/alfred-kinsey.php ; https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/social-sciences-and-humanities/kinsey-report
- Slide 10 (penicillin): "In 1947 penicillin was shown to be an effective treatment" → "By 1947 penicillin had become the standard treatment for syphilis." Efficacy was shown in 1943 (Mahoney); 1947 is the year it is usually given as standard care. The bolded "25 years" (1947–1972) still holds. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study ; https://www.research.usf.edu/dric/hrpp/foundations-course/docs/Tuskegee-timeline.pdf
- Slide 10: "reporting by a major news outlet" → "reporting by the Associated Press" (Jean Heller, story published 25 July 1972; study formally ended November 1972). Sources: https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/about/timeline.html ; https://theroot.com/reporter-who-broke-the-news-of-the-tuskegee-experiment-1849329092
- Slide 10: "Dozens of the participants' wives and children were infected" → "Forty of the participants' wives were infected ... and nineteen children were born with congenital syphilis." Sources: https://eji.org/news/history-racial-injustice-tuskegee-syphilis-experiment/ ; https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-tuskegee-syphilis-experiment-a-fiasco-with-a-silver-lining/
- Slide 11 (Belmont): the deck lists "special protections for pregnant women, children and prisoners" under the Belmont Report's respect-for-persons principle. Belmont never mentions pregnant women; it speaks of persons with diminished autonomy (children as the example; prisoners only historically). The named categories are the federal regulations' subparts (45 CFR 46 Subpart B pregnant women, fetuses and neonates; C prisoners; D children). Reworded: "extra protection for those with diminished autonomy, which the federal regulations spell out for pregnant women, prisoners, and children." Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_Report ; https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/policy/ohrpregulations.pdf
- Slide 12: "a current review of active studies in sexuality shows" → "the course's review of active studies in sexuality shows". The four themes are the lecturer's reading of ClinicalTrials.gov and cannot be independently reproduced; now attributed.
- Slide 15 (IIEF): the quotation is now verbatim — "Over the past four weeks, when you had erections with sexual stimulation, how often were your erections hard enough for penetration?" The deck dropped the recall frame. This is IIEF item 2 (not 4). Source: https://repository.niddk.nih.gov/media/studies/mapp_ep/Forms/MAPP_IIEF-Short_v1.0.20090801.pdf
- Slide 15 (MSHQ): writer's `[fixed]` confirmed — the instrument is the Male Sexual Health Questionnaire (Rosen et al., Urology 2004; four-item MSHQ-EjD, Urology 2007), not a "Male Sexual Health Scale". The ejaculation domain has a semen-volume item with an "in the last month" recall frame. Sources: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0090429504005527 ; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0090429507002683 ; https://www.nice.org.uk/consultations/2320/13/outcome-measures

## Verified (unchanged)
- Slide 1: carvings with exaggerated female genitals "as old as 35,000 years" — Venus of Hohle Fels, mammoth ivory, at least 35,000 (c. 35–40k) years, "deliberate exaggeration of the sexual features". Sources: https://www.world-archaeology.com/news/worlds-oldest-venus/ ; https://www.worldhistory.org/collection/240/paleolithic-art/13/
- Slide 1: proto-writing c. 3400 BCE — proto-cuneiform at Uruk, c. 3400–3300 BCE. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-cuneiform
- Slide 2: ~11,000 years old; British Museum; faceless, sex of the figures only presumed; Natufian, around the first domestication of plants and animals. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain_Sakhri_figurine
- Slide 4: author Vatsyayana Mallanaga; seven books, with one (Book 2) on sexual union; the rest on acquiring a wife, the wife's duties, other men's wives, courtesans, occult practices. "Unrelated to Tantra" is the deck's claim and Doniger's position; left as stated. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_Sutra
- Slide 5 (writer's `[+]`): shunga "roughly the 1300s to the 1900s ... most familiar today as the woodblock prints of the Edo period" — Muromachi-era (1336–1573) Chinese medical illustrations are the usually cited stimulus, the peak is Edo (1603–1868) ukiyo-e, decline in Meiji with photography; a few earlier handscrolls exist. Deck range kept with "roughly". Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunga ; https://nichibun.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/6023/files/mono_14_003.I.%20HISTORY%20OF%20SHUNGA.pdf
- Slide 5: partial clothing / bathing-culture reading — the deck's interpretive claim; left as the course's.
- Slide 7: Onania's title ("the heinous sin of self-pollution"), anonymous authorship, and its role in launching anti-masturbation medicine. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onania:_or,_the_heinous_sin_of_self-pollution
- Slide 7: Conrad Eckhard 1822–1905, Giessen physiologist; 1863 "Untersuchungen über die Erection des Penis" — electrical stimulation of the sacral roots in the dog, nervi erigentes. Reworded for length to "identified the pelvic nerves that drive erection". Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Eckhard ; https://www.elsevier.es/es-revista-revista-internacional-andrologia-262-pdf-download-S1698031X13000551
- Slide 7: Krafft-Ebing born 14 Aug 1840; Psychopathia Sexualis 1886. Sources as above.
- Slide 8: Hirschfeld Jewish and gay; Wilde trial influence ("deeply affected", often cited in his writing); Institute offered medical care including early gender-affirming surgery and feminizing hormones, plus counseling, contraception and public education; died Nice, 14 May 1935, heart attack (not stroke). Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissenschaft
- Slide 8: Oscar Wilde convicted of gross indecency 25 May 1895, two years' hard labour, the statutory maximum. Source: https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/oscar-wilde-triumph-tragedy-exile
- Slide 9: Alfred Kinsey 23 Jun 1894 – 25 Aug 1956. Source: https://catalog.afi.com/Film/54375-KINSEY
- Slide 9: Kinsey (film) 2004, dir. Bill Condon; Masters of Sex, Showtime, 29 Sep 2013 – 13 Nov 2016 (four seasons). Sources: https://catalog.afi.com/Film/54375-KINSEY ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Sex_season_4
- Slide 9: 382 women and 312 men, "more than 10,000 complete cycles of sexual response", 1957–1965, published 1966; older adults included; instruments included electrocardiography, electroencephalography and color motion-picture cameras. "Measured rather than reported" (writer's `[+]`) — the first comprehensive laboratory study of sexual physiology; confirmed. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_and_Johnson ; https://www.britannica.com/print/article/1403405 ; https://encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/masters-and-johnson
- Slide 10: study began 1932 (US PHS with the Tuskegee Institute, Macon County); 600 men (399 with latent syphilis, 201 controls); treatment withheld; ended 1972. Sources: https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/about/timeline.html ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study
- Slide 11: National Research Act signed 12 Jul 1974 (Pub. L. 93-348); created the National Commission and formalized IRB review; a direct response to Tuskegee. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Research_Act
- Slide 11: Belmont Report — released 30 Sep 1978, published in the Federal Register 18 Apr 1979; three principles: respect for persons, beneficence, justice; applications: informed consent, risk–benefit assessment, selection of subjects. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_Report
- Slide 11: IRBs "did not result in equitable representation" — the course's judgment; left attributed by context.
- Slide 12: clinical trials in the US "generally registered on ClinicalTrials.gov" — correct as a generality (FDAAA 801 requires registration of applicable trials).
- Slide 13: hierarchy-of-evidence pyramid as described (expert opinion/case reports → case series → case-control/cohort → RCT → systematic review/meta-analysis) is the standard teaching figure the deck reproduces from sciencemediacentre.co.nz; the critique of it is the course's.
- Slide 14: inclusion-criteria claims are the course's; consistent with the deck's slide 18.
- Slide 15: validation rationale and the "gay man / ejaculatory volume / anal intercourse rigidity" interpretation are the lecturer's clinical reasoning, presented as such; left attributed.
- Slide 16: the six biases match the deck's definitions verbatim in substance; standard textbook categories (the deck's "survivorship bias" is closer to attrition bias — see below).
- Slide 16: active/passive exclusion — the course's framing; left.

## Could not verify (softened or removed)
- Slide 9: "blood testing" as one of Masters and Johnson's measurement methods — no source found (Britannica lists electrocardiography, electroencephalography and intravaginal photography; the book blurb adds EKGs and color film). Removed from the bolded list; the three verified instruments remain.
- Slide 7: Mantegazza "wrote on ... children" — no source found for writing on children's sexuality (works on women: Fisiologia della Donna 1893; on masturbation: Igiene dell'amore). Removed; "women's sexuality and masturbation" kept.
- Slide 7: Krafft-Ebing "discussed female clitoral orgasm" — only one weak secondary source mentions the clitoral orgasm; softened to "female orgasm and pleasure".
- Slide 15: the exact MSHQ item text ("In the last month, how would you rate the amount or volume of semen when you ejaculate?") could not be retrieved verbatim online (the instrument is in the Urology papers). The item's content (semen volume) and recall frame ("in the last month") are confirmed, so the deck's wording is kept as the quotation.

## Beats changed
- Spelling only: "colours" → "colors" (slide 14), "unlabelled" → "unlabeled" (slide 7), "grey-blue" → "gray-blue" (slide 12), "blue-grey" → "blue-gray" (slide 16). No subjects changed.
- All 16 subjects checked against the envelope: no people anywhere (every beat is an object, room or anatomical plate), so no likeness of any real person (slide 8's Hirschfeld reading room explicitly has "no portraits on the walls"); the Turin papyrus (slide 3) is a blank, worn fragment with "no recognizable figures", and shunga (slide 5) is an empty printmaker's studio with blank paper — neither depicts content; Tuskegee (slide 10) is an empty clinic room, "no blood"; no text, labels or signage in any subject; anatomical plates (slides 1 eye, 7 sacral nerves) are structures, not symptoms. `beats.json` parses; 16 beats, slides 1–16 in order, matching the 16 `##` headings.

## For the editor's attention
- Kama Sutra: the deck's two claims are both off — "400–200 BCE" (scholarship: 400 BCE–300 CE, most often 3rd century CE) and "new translation 2009" (the Doniger–Kakar translation is 2002; 2009 is a reissue). The script now states the scholarly date and names the deck's; if that aside is unwanted, cut "the deck dates it to 400 to 200 BCE, earlier than most scholars place it" and the slide still stands.
- Slide 1: the deck says both "women with exaggerated vulva and males with exaggerated phallus as old as 35,000". The 35,000+-year figures are female (Hohle Fels); the known Paleolithic phallic objects are younger (c. 28,000 years for the Hohle Fels phallus, not re-verified here). The script's "some ... as old as 35,000 years" is defensible because of "some", but the deck overstates for the male objects.
- Tuskegee penicillin: the deck's "In 1947, penicillin was shown to be an effective intervention" is wrong on the verb (shown effective 1943; standard treatment by 1945–47). CDC's current timeline now says "by 1943 penicillin had become the preferred treatment". I kept 1947 as "standard treatment" so the bolded "25 years" survives; if the editor prefers 1943, the line becomes about 29 years.
- Belmont: the deck files "special protections for pregnant women, children and prisoners" under Belmont. Those are regulatory subparts (45 CFR 46 B/C/D), not Belmont text; now reattributed. The deck slide itself is still wrong.
- Krafft-Ebing: the deck's flat "stated that homosexuality was not a psychopathology" hides that the 1886 book pathologized it and the reversal came in 1901. Now stated fairly, at a cost of eight words. The deck's "Austria" is his working life, not his birth.
- Kinsey: the deck's "all three ... collected data through observation" is not how Kinsey worked (interviews). Corrected in the script; the deck note is still wrong. Some filming did happen at the Kinsey Institute but was not his data base.
- Hirschfeld: the deck's "Institute for Sexual Research" is a minority translation; "Institute for Sexual Science" is the standard one and is what the script now says. "Justice through Science" (deck) inverts the motto's order; the script uses "through science to justice".
- Churchill: the quotation is apocryphal in this form (it appears in no Churchill text; the 1948 Commons line is the real source). The script now flags it as "probably apocryphally"; the deck slide heading still asserts it.
- Shunga "1300s–1900s" (deck) is kept with "roughly". Specialists would date the surviving tradition from Heian/Muromachi handscrolls through Edo prints to Meiji suppression; the deck's start date is early but not indefensible.
- Masters of Sex: the deck's "TV 2016" is the end year of a 2013–2016 run; script says "which ended in 2016".
- IIEF: the deck omits "Over the past 4 weeks" from the item; restored in the quotation. The item is IIEF-15 question 2, not question 4, should anyone cite it by number.
- "Survivorship bias" as the deck defines it (people who did not complete data collection) is what methodologists call attrition bias; survivorship bias proper is about analyzing only those who passed a selection filter. Left as the course's definition.
- "25 years" and "600 men": the bolded line "Men were allowed to carry a treatable ... infection for 25 years" applies to the 399 infected men, not all 600 (201 were uninfected controls). The script does not break the 600 down, for length.
- MSHQ quotation: content and recall frame verified, exact wording not retrievable online. Low risk, but if the editor has the Rosen 2004 instrument, check "semen" vs. "semen or fluid".