Charles Winick

Winick married to Mariann Pezzella (d. 2006), with whom he authored a number of books and articles. They had two children, Raphael and Laura Winick. Winick died in New York City on July 4, 2015, at the age of 92.

His 1971 book The Lively Commerce, co-authored by Paul M. Kinsie, a study of prostitution based on interviews with 2,000 prostitutes over a ten-year period, found that three-quarters of a sampling of call girls had attempted suicide. The authors found that 15% of all suicides brought to public hospitals in the U.S. were prostitutes. The book also tracked the growth of homosexual and transvestite prostitution. It found that brothels and "madams" (female brothel owners) had largely become a thing of the past, and that though prostitution was a $1 billion-a-year industry, prostitutes were paid little more than clerical workers, earning $5,000 to $6,000 in 1971 dollars as annual net income for a six-day workweek.

Winick's book The New People: Desexualization in American Life, published in 1969, contended that American society was "following the path of Ancient Greece and Rome" by gradually becoming a "neutered society". He wrote that "equality does not mean equivalence, and a difference is not deficiency". Winick maintained that America was becoming a "beige-colored" society, and that distinctions between the genders were becoming blurred. His writings also highlighted the sexualization and gender roles presented to children in advertising and popular culture, including criticizing Barbie dolls in a 1964 article, which was an unpopular observation at the time.

After the war he earned a doctorate from New York University and served in the army reserves, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. In addition to his academic work, he was research director of the Anti-Defamation League, the New York State Narcotics Commission, and the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. In 1959 he wrote Taste and the Censor in Television for the Fund for the Republic. In 1962, while on the Columbia faculty, he was hired by NBC as a children's programming consultant.

His views on drug addiction were controversial. He developed the theory of "maturing out", arguing that many heroin addicts do outgrow their addictions, but those who do not "should be treated as victims of a chronic disease". At the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, he organized one of the first public forums to discuss drug use among jazz musicians, chaired by Nat Hentoff and including Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington as panelists. This forum led to the creation with John Hammond (record producer) of the Musicians Clinic to provide treatment. Dr. Winick and Hentoff's survey of 409 jazz musicians at the 1957 Festival found that 53% had tried heroin, 24% were occasional users, and 16% were regular users of heroin, while 82% had tried marijuana, 54% were occasional users, and 24% were regular users of marijuana

He also authored Dictionary of Anthropology (1956).

Charles Winick (August 4, 1922 – July 4, 2015) was an American author, psychologist, professor of anthropology and sociology, and academician, noted for his work in the fields of gender, drug addiction, and prostitution.