William Simon; Sociologist, Author

William Simon, 70, a sociologist, academic and author who championed a more expansive and tolerant view of human sexuality. Born in New York to Russian immigrants, Simon spent his first 10 years in the Bronx. The family then moved to Detroit, where young William gained a reputation in the city’s schools for questioning authority. He dropped out in the eighth grade and, using false identity papers, got a job as an assembly line worker. Simon went on to earn a doctorate from the University of Chicago without benefit of a high school diploma or undergraduate or master’s degrees. He taught at Southern Illinois University, Indiana University and the University of Houston. He also worked at the Kinsey Institute while in Bloomington, Ind. Among his better known books is “Sexual Conduct,” published in 1969. The work, written with his longtime collaborator John H. Cagnon, was one of the first to take a sociological rather than biological or psychological look at human sexuality. An early advocate of gay rights who was often called as an expert witness in obscenity trials, Simon believed that sexuality has more to do with history than with biology. “The affluence of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s gave us courage to experiment with our lives,” he told Time magazine in 1984. “With the present economy, there is a sense of cautiousness. There is more commitment to careers and coupling because we are hedging our bets for social and economic security.” In his last book, “Postmodern Sexualities,” published in 1996, he wrote that “the most important thing about sexuality is that there may be no important truths about sexuality that are permanent.” On July 21 in Houston of cancer.