Andrew Duggan played a character based on Dr. Alfred Kinsey; Efrem Zimbalist Jr played one of his researchers, who meets and interviews the four women depicted in the film. The leading ladies consist of Shelley Winters as an adulterous middle-aged housewife having an affair with artist Ray Danton; Jane Fonda as a young widow who believes she is frigid but who is in fact reacting to her husband's violence during sex; Glynis Johns as a trendy older woman infatuated with athletic young beach boy Ty Hardin; and Claire Bloom as a “nymphomaniac”.