Seeking information: Archive & Library of Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality

B. M. Watson Discussion
First, I apologize for the length of this request, but it is a truly baffling and perplexing one.
 
I am interested in any information pertaining to the library or archive of "Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality." The existence of the archive has been reported in a number of different sources.
 
In an essay in Libraries, Erotica & Pornography  (1991) Gwendolyn Pershing cites Elaini Garnder, a librarian at the Institute who claims that the Institute has a "large collection" of materials including a book in Italian written in the 1400s (Boccaccio? Pietro Aretino?), original de Sade, art, pulp, My Secret Life, and contains 107,000 items and 300,000 slides and photographs. Pershing reports that this is from a telephone call and that anyone is welcome to use the collection with proper excuse.
 
The 2006 Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature comments that:
 
Second in potential are the erotica collections of the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, which has followed an admirable policy of gathering chiefly modern ephemeral publications before they could be lost. The success of the strategy, however, has resulted in prolonged storage of thousands of uncatalogued materials literally in warehouses in widely dispersed locations. Eventually, students at the Institute, which grants graduate degrees in sexology, will get around to identifying and indexing these large, far-flung archives
 
But it lists Clifford J. Scheiner of Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality as an advisor to the publication -- that name leads to a former Brooklyn MD who was reported to have a massive collection of pornography by the NY Daily News in 2011, but nothing further.
 
Peter Alilunas also mentions them in Smutty Little Movies (2016) but seems to be linking back to Linda Williams (2004) in Porn Studies. She credits them with help on "the films and much-needed historical information on producers, venues, and collateral industries such as magazine publishing and sex toy manufacturing" and links to another defunct website and an email address of iashs@ihot.com -- which doesn't seem to go much of anywhere. The description says
the institute is not open to the public, but scholars or students with research needs may send requests and view some works on the premises. Audiovisual material ranges from 8 mm and 16 mm features to recent videos. Unfortunately, the institute has been slow to catalogue materials.
 
Finally, Tim Dean, David Squires and Steven Ruszczycky include it in their Porn Archives (2014) index, but it more or less matches the above.
 
Search results and the Wikipedia page for the IASS is all sorts of astroturfed and seems to have been edited by people belonging to the institution. The Wikipedia page links to humansexualityeducation.com but the link is dead.
 
A yelp page has reviews reporting that this is a diploma mill in one comment and then a second one is someone from the institute linking to iashs.edu/over.html which goes to the above URL and then 404's as well. There's also this blog post recommending that if someone finds out their therapist is from the IASS that they should run the other way.
 
As the Wikipedia page notes,
The Institute was not accredited. The Institute's FAQ page, in response to the question "Is the Institute an accredited academic institution?", stated that the Institute was approved by the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE). However, the BPPE is not an accrediting agency; the agency's main focus is on identifying diploma mills.In July 2014, the BPPE sent a Notice to Comply to IASHS regarding several violations. In early 2016, the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education sent a Citation: Assessment of Fine and Order of Abatement to IASHS, for seven violations. As of September 2014, IASHS was required by CA SB1247 to seek and obtain accreditation. Quackwatch identifies the Institute as a "Questionable Organization". Students at unaccredited institutions are never eligible for financial aid, including student loans, through any government agency. In some states, it can be illegal to use a degree from an unaccredited institution, unless approved by the state licensing agency.
 
So there is definitely something shady going on there. A facebook page is in existence but links to (again) dead websites and also seems to be maintained by someone associated with the institution.
 
The Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality, which was supposedly published by the IASS is still up at: http://www.ejhs.org/ but apparently received no submissions in 2015 and so was shut down because "their mission was complete". The founder of that publication was  David S. Hall, PhD, and his site links to a defunct university, a bare-bones resume that puts him on the faculty of the IASS.
 
Emails and phone calls to the IASS by me have ended in dead ends.
 
So my final question is--surely this collection must exist somewhere, right? It couldn't be present in all of these texts and books and contain hundreds of thousands of items and not be real. Or if it is not real... then that would mean some weird decades-long fraud was passed off on academics?
 
Am I going a bit crazy here or is there something deeply suspicious about this massive collection, which is supposedly only second to the Kinsey Institutes?
 
Would appreciate any insight, leads, or information on these "warehouses of material" scattered around San Francisco. You may contact me on the list or off--on list is preferred on H-HISTSEX

7 Replies

Post Reply

hi--
* the institute (IASHS) had a staggeringly large collection. most of it was still uncatalogued when the institute closed. i don't know what happened to the collection. a lot of it is probably warehoused. some of it may have been sent to the chinese group who bought the institute name.
* the founder and president, ted mcilvenna, died in august 2018--in california, i believe. he was a charismatic, dedicated figure whose eccentricities both kept the institute going and limited its accomplishments. his widow is winnie mcilvenna, probably still in northern california.
* it was not a diploma mill. rather, it accepted a wide range of students, some of whom are internationally-known sexologists, while others never developed what we might think of as doctoral-level academic or research skills. over the years, its faculty included many highly accomplished sexologists such as wardell pomeroy, loretta haroian, charles moser, and erwin haberle.
* it was--and remains--the only american institution to award a phd in sexology. that, plus its extensive collection of erotica, guaranteed that it would attract the scrutiny and disdain of the american academic bureaucracy, including accrediting agencies. oh, and the fbi, i believe.
--marty klein

The librarians at the Kinsey Institute might have some information (https://kinseyinstitute.org/) about where the collection ended up. It looks like Kinsey Library has a few items related to the institute you're investigating, but not the collection itself. Kinsey is associated with Indiana University, and you can access their holdings through the university catalog, iucat.iu.edu.

Susan Ferentinos

Hello All ~

I inherited this vast library upon Ted’s death. All of what Marty stated above is accurate. It is as remarkable, unique and large as all the rumors state. I’m currently in the process of organizing and cataloging it all. When done I’ll be deciding where the best home is for it all.

Thank you all for the inquiry.

~ Laurie Bennett-Cook

Hello
I am currently working on a project for establishing a french speaking sexological archive center in Geneva and I am survey potential donors to know their opinions about the subject.
I am not looking to acquire Te's archives but I would be happy to have a conversation with about issues issues you met and gave in this process. This would be very helpful for me and for my task.
I can set up a Zoom meeting at a time which would be convenient for you.
Best +++
Alain Giami
alain.giami@inserm.fr