Free (1961) The Chapman Report by Irving Wallace Page B

cut-out in a drawer, under her clothes, some male Olympic swimmer in abbreviated trunks. Whenever she took it out and looked at it, she would follow with masturbation. But besides that. and the statue, no other photograph or art work ever aroused her. It makes it difficult to obtain a decisive-“
    “I would have classified her in the ‘strongly aroused’ group.”
    “Yes, I did. But it’s often difficult-“
    “Naturally,” said Dr. Chapman. “We’re dealing as much with grays as blacks and whites. Human emotions don’t seem to measure out mathematically’-but they can, with experience and intelligence applied by the interviewer.” He tugged at his right ear lobe thoughtfully. “We’re not infallible. The critic and layman want us to be, but we’re not. Some error has to creep in as long as women will distort because of defensive exaggeration, involuntary emotional blocks, or prudish deceit. However, Horace, I believe our system of repeated double-check questions, especially the psychological ones-those, as well as consideration of the subject’s entire attitude and response, are safeguards enough. In grave doubt, you still have recourse to the Double Poll. After all, in the Double Poll, we have the benefit of the forty years Dr. Julian Gleed devoted to analyzing married couples separately and setting up for us a statistical basis for discrepancy or percentage of probable error. His papers are a gold mine. Too often, we neglect them. Anyway, by now, Horace, I’m sure you know when an interview is utterly hopeless and must be discarded.”
    “Certainly,” said Horace quickly.
    “Then, that’s enough. Occasional indecision about recording a reply will not affect the whole.”
    Paul observed that whenever any one of them questioned the method, as they had more frequently done in recent months than earlier, Dr. Chapman would make his reassuring little speech. Curiously, it was always effective. There was about Dr. Chapman an air, a quality, a Messianic authority that made what they were doing seem right and important. Paul supposed that Mohammed must have projected this in defending the Koran, and Joseph Smith in presenting the Book of Mormon. For all their trials and problems, Paul knew that his own faith in their mission, in Dr. Chapman’s method, stood unshaken. He knew that Horace felt that way, too; Cass, alone, was possibly the only potential apostate. Possibly. One could never be sure of the true feelings that pulsated in Cass’s complex nervous system.
    Dr. Chapman had resumed the proofing. Paul focused his attention on the paper in his hand. Dr. Chapman’s head was low over the manuscript as he droned the questions, answers, percentages. Does observation of those three still photographs of romantic scenes from recent movies and legitimate plays excite you or fire your imagination? Yes, strongly, six per cent. Only somewhat, twenty-four per cent. Not at all, seventy per cent. Does examination of the male physical-culture magazine you have just been leafing through make you wish your husband was another type of man? Yes, definitely, fifteen per cent. In some ways, thirty-two per cent. Not at all, fifty-three per cent. For those of you who replied that you wished your husband was in some ways a different type, please define in what ways you would like him different? Taller, more athletic, forty-seven per cent. More intelligent and understanding, twenty-four per cent. Gentler, fifteen per cent. More authoritative or masculine, thirteen per cent. Does the sex scene you have just read from the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence, the scene among “the dense fir-trees,” erotically stimulate you in any way? Yes, strongly, thirty per cent. Only somewhat, twenty-one per cent. Not at all, forty-nine per cent.
    Although his hand continued to move his pencil down the page,
    Paul’s mind was inattentive, and it wandered. He stared at the top of Dr. Chapman’s head. Casually he