Kinsey Reports
The Kinsey Reports are two scholarly books on human sexual behavior, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, written by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, Clyde Martin, and Paul Gebhard and published by W.B. Saunders. The two best-selling books were immediately controversial, both within the scientific community and the general public, because they challenged conventional beliefs about sexuality and discussed subjects that had previously been taboo. The validity of Kinsey’s methods were also called into question. Kinsey was a zoologist at Indiana University and the founder of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.
The sociological data underlying the analysis and conclusions found in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was collected from approximately 5,300 males over a fifteen year period. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female was based on personal interviews with approximately 6,000 women. In the latter, Kinsey analyzed data for the frequency with which women participate in various types of sexual activity and looked at how factors such as age, social-economic status and religious adherence influence sexual behavior. Comparisons are made of female and male sexual activities. Kinsey's evidence suggested that women were less sexually active than men.
Kinsey's methodology used to collect data has received criticism. It has been suggested that some data in the reports could not have been obtained without collaborations with child molesters. The Kinsey Institute denies this charge, though it acknowledges that men who have had sexual experiences with children were interviewed, with Kinsey balancing what he saw as the need for their anonymity to solicit "honest answers on such taboo subjects" against the likelihood that their crimes would continue. Additionally, concerns over the sample populations used were later addressed by the Kinsey Institute. The conclusion of the Kinsey Institute was that none of Kinsey's original estimates was significantly affected by these data sources.
More recent researchers believe that Kinsey overestimated the rate of same-sex attraction because of flaws in his sampling methods. Nonetheless, his work is considered pioneering and some of the most well known sex research of all time.
Findings
Sexual orientation
Parts of the Kinsey Reports regarding diversity in sexual orientations are frequently used to support the common estimate of 10% for homosexuality in the general population. Instead of three categories, a seven-point Kinsey scale system was used.The reports also state that nearly 46% of the male subjects had "reacted" sexually to persons of both sexes in the course of their adult lives, and 37% had at least one homosexual experience. 11.6% of white males were given a rating of 3 throughout their adult lives. The study also reported that 10% of American males surveyed were "more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55".
Seven percent of single females and four percent of previously married females were given a rating of 3 on Kinsey Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale for this period of their lives. 2 to 6% of females, aged 20–35, were more or less exclusively homosexual in experience/response, and 1 to 3% of unmarried females aged 20–35 were exclusively homosexual in experience/response.
Criticism
Academic criticisms were made pertaining to sample selection and sample bias in the reports' methodology. This was despite the fact that Kinsey sought to work on a more 'complete' report that would have involved 100,000 interviews and that the initial 1948 publication was merely considered by him to be a sample progress report. Two main problems cited were that significant portions of the samples come from prison populations and male prostitutes, and that people who volunteer to be interviewed about taboo subject are likely to create a self-selection bias. Both undermine the usefulness of the sample in terms of determining the tendencies of the overall population. In 1948, the same year as the original publication, a committee of the American Statistical Association, including notable statisticians such as John Tukey, condemned the sampling procedure. Tukey was perhaps the most vocal critic, saying, "A random selection of three people would have been better than a group of 300 chosen by Mr. Kinsey." Psychologist Abraham Maslow stated that Kinsey did not consider "volunteer bias". The data represented only those volunteering to participate in discussion of taboo topics. Most Americans were reluctant to discuss the intimate details of their sex lives even with their spouses and close friends. Before the publication of Kinsey's reports, Maslow tested Kinsey's volunteers for bias. He concluded that Kinsey's sample was unrepresentative of the general population. In 1954, leading statisticians, including William Gemmell Cochran, Frederick Mosteller, John Tukey, and W. O. Jenkins issued for the American Statistical Association a critique of Kinsey's 1948 report on the human male, stating:“Critics are justified in their objections that many of the most interesting and provocative statements in the book are not based on the data presented therein, and it is not made clear to the reader on what evidence the statements are based. Further, the conclusions drawn from data presented in the book are often stated by KPM in much too bold and confident a manner. Taken cumulatively, these objections amount to saying that much of the writing in the book falls below the level of good scientific writing.”
In response, Paul Gebhard, Kinsey's close colleague, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" co-author, and successor as director of the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, cleaned the Kinsey data of purported contaminants, removing, for example, all material derived from prison populations in the basic sample. In 1979, Gebhard published The Kinsey Data: Marginal Tabulations of the 1938–1963 Interviews Conducted by the Institute for Sex Research. Their conclusion, to Gebhard's surprise he claimed, was that none of Kinsey's original estimates were significantly affected by this bias: that is, the prison population and male prostitutes had the same statistical tendency as those who willingly participated in discussion of previously taboo sexual topics. The results were summarized by historian, playwright, and gay-rights activist Martin Duberman, "Instead of Kinsey's 37%, Gebhard and Johnson came up with 36.4%; the 10% figure, with prison inmates excluded, came to 9.9% for white, college-educated males and 12.7% for those with less education.
More recent researchers have criticized Kinsey's sampling methods and believe that he overestimated the frequency of nonheterosexual behaviors and attractions.
Historian Peter Gay described Sexual Behavior in the Human Male as "methodologically far from persuasive".
Sociologist Edward Laumann stated that the Kinsey Reports were limited to the biology of sex and lacked psychological and clinical information and analysis and that this "meant that sex research did not move into the mainstream of academic credibility. People took their reputations in their hands if they attempted to pursue it." Laumann also acknowledged that "The Kinsey report was a cultural event of enormous consequence."
Kinsey scale
The Kinsey scale is used to measure a person's overall balance of heterosexuality and homosexuality, and takes into account both sexual experience and psychosexual reactions. The scale ranges from 0 to 6, with 0 being completely heterosexual and 6 completely homosexual. An additional category, X, was mentioned to describe those who had "no socio-sexual contacts or reactions," which has been cited by scholars to mean asexuality. The scale was first published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy and others, and was also prominent in the complementary work Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Introducing the scale, Kinsey wrote:The scale is as follows:
| Rating | Description |
| 0 | Exclusively heterosexual |
| 1 | Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual |
| 2 | Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual |
| 3 | Equally heterosexual and homosexual |
| 4 | Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual |
| 5 | Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual |
| 6 | Exclusively homosexual |
| X | No socio-sexual contacts or reactions |
- Men: 11.6% of white males aged 20–35 were given a rating of 3 for this period of their lives.
- Women: 7% of single females aged 20–35 and 4% of previously married females aged 20–35 were given a rating of 3 for this period of their lives. 2 to 6% of females, aged 20–35, were given a rating of 5 and 1 to 3% of unmarried females aged 20–35 were rated as 6.
Marital coitus
Sadomasochism
12% of females and 22% of males reported having an erotic response to a sadomasochistic story.Biting
Responses to being bitten:| Erotic Responses | By Females | By Males |
| Definite and/or frequent | 26% | 26% |
| Some response | 29% | 24% |
| Never | 45% | 50% |
| Number of cases | 2200 | 567 |