Understandably, upon its release, the Kinsey investigation ran into a lot of controversy. As such, Kinsey sought to normalize the idea that sexual orientation looks more like a spectrum than a strict binary. Instead, he saw that many people exhibited all kinds of sexual behavior, even if it contradicted the labels with which they identified. In short, Kinsey believed that sexual orientation was not as rigid as most people believed at the time. The sooner we learn this about sexual behavior, the sooner we will gain a solid understanding of the realities of sex. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.
“Not all things are black and not all things white… only the human mind invents categories to force facts into separate boxes. “The world must not be divided into sheep and goats,” Kinsey wrote in the report. X – No contacts or socio-sexual reactions
As the Kinsey Institute explained, the reports showed that “sexual behavior, thoughts, and feelings toward the same or opposite sex were not always consistent over time.”Īs such, the Kinsey scale broke free from what was the traditional categorization of sexual orientation at the time (heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual) and instead featured the following broader seven-point rating system:ġ – Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexualĢ – Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexualĤ – Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexualĥ – Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual Considered some of the most influential scientific books of the century, the Kinsey Reports sold nearly 1 million copies and were translated into 13 languages.Īccording to Discover MagazineKinsey’s research found that 37 percent of men had had a same-sex experience by the age of 45, while 13 percent of women had had a same-sex encounter. Along with Sexual Behavior of the Human Female (1953), the two books became collectively known as the Kinsey Reports. The Kinsey scale is a visual representation of the research findings that Kinsey and company published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948). Kinsey (white shirt) working with his staff on the final phases of his book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Behavior (Getty) What is the Kinsey scale? Armed with financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation, Kinsey and his team studied hundreds and thousands of sex stories to study sexual relationships and sexual behavior in the human world. In 1947, Kinsey established the Institute for Sex Research (now known as the Kinsey Institute). At this point, she began teaching sex ed classes to graduate, senior, and married students, where she also handed out questionnaires for her research on sex stories.
It was not until the early 1930s that Kinsey became interested in the study of sexuality.
Prior to his work on human sexual behavior, Kinsey spent 20 years as an entomologist, collecting and identifying dozens of species of gill wasps. Alfred Charles Kinsey was an American biologist and professor at Indiana University. Kinsey’s highly controversial work ushered in a new era of sexuality studies, earning him the title of “father of sexology.” But more than 70 years later, does Kinsey’s job hold up? Is the Kinsey scale still a reliable representation of the spectrum of sexual orientation? Or has it become a relic of the past? Who was Dr. Also known as the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale, the seven-point scale was created to represent the team’s findings from years of research: that human sexuality was not as black and white as originally thought. Kinsey and his associates Wardell Pomeroy and Clyde Martin developed the Kinsey scale. If you’re like most people, you’ve probably heard the phrase “sexuality is a spectrum.” In a way, we have Dr.