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Kinsey Reports

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The 1948 first edition of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, the first of the two Kinsey reports.

The Kinsey Reports are two books on human sexual behavior: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male[1] (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female[2] (1953), written by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy and others and published by Saunders. Kinsey was a zoologist at Indiana University and the founder of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction (more widely known as the Kinsey Institute).

Sexual Behavior in the Human Female was based on personal interviews with approximately 6,000 women. 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 in all aspects of sexual life but that they were still more sexual than they were considered at that time.[citation needed] By the time the book on female sexuality was published, it appeared[who?] that Kinsey felt that women and men are more alike in the biology of their sexuality than he had previously thought, and that both men's and women's sexuality seemed shaped, not merely repressed, by social and cultural forces.

The publications were immediately controversial among the general public. The findings caused shock and outrage, both because they challenged conventional beliefs about sexuality and because they discussed subjects that had previously been taboo.

Critics[who?] have raised concerns about the methodology used to collect data, including concerns that data in the reports could not have been obtained without collaborations with child molesters.[3] 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.[4][5] Additionally, concerns over the sample populations used were later addressed[citation needed] by the Kinsey Institute. The conclusion of the Kinsey Institute was that none of Kinsey's original estimates were significantly affected by these data sources.[6][better source needed]

Findings

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation
Sexual orientations
Related terms
Research
Animals
Related topics

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. However, the findings are not as absolute, and Kinsey himself avoided and disapproved of using terms like homosexual or heterosexual to describe individuals, asserting that sexuality is prone to change over time, and that sexual behavior can be understood both as physical contact as well as purely psychological phenomena (desire, sexual attraction, fantasy).[citation needed] Instead of three categories (heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual), a seven-category Kinsey Scale system was used (an 8th category for asexuals was added by Kinsey's associates).

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.[7] 11.6% of white males (ages 20–35) were given a rating of 3 (about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response) throughout their adult lives.[8] 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" (in the 5 to 6 range).[9]

7% of single females (ages 20–35) and 4% of previously married females (ages 20–35) were given a rating of 3 (about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response) on Kinsey Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale for this period of their lives.[10] 2 to 6% of females, aged 20–35, were more or less exclusively homosexual in experience/response,[11] and 1 to 3% of unmarried females aged 20–35 were exclusively homosexual in experience/response.[12]

Criticism

Academic criticisms were made pertaining to sample selection and sample bias in the reports' methodology. 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 suffer from the problem of self-selection. 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."[13][14] Criticism principally revolved around the over-representation of some groups in the sample: 25% were, or had been, prison inmates, and 5% were male prostitutes.[citation needed] Psychologist Abraham Maslow asserted 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.[15] In 1954, leading statisticians, including William Gemmell Cochran, Frederick Mosteller, John W. 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 [Kinsey 1948] 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 [Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin] 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.”[16]

In response, Paul Gebhard, Kinsey's successor as director of the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, cleaned the Kinsey data of purported contaminants[citation needed], removing, for example, all material derived from prison populations in the basic sample. In 1979, Gebhard (with Alan B. Johnson) 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% (men who had at least one homosexual experience), Gebhard and Johnson came up with 36.4%; the 10% figure (men who were "more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55"), with prison inmates excluded, came to 9.9% for white, college-educated males and 12.7% for those with less education.[6]

Kinsey scale

The Kinsey scale attempts to describe a person's sexual history or episodes of their sexual activity at a given time. The scale ranked sexual behavior from 0 to 6, with 0 being completely heterosexual and 6 completely homosexual. An additional category, X, was mentioned to describe asexuals, those who experienced no sexual desire.[17] It was first published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy and others, and was also prominent in the complementary work Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). Introducing the scale, Kinsey wrote:

Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories [...] The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.

While emphasising the continuity of the gradations between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual histories, it has seemed desirable to develop some sort of classification which could be based on the relative amounts of heterosexual and homosexual experience or response in each history... An individual may be assigned a position on this scale, for each period in his life. [...] A seven-point scale comes nearer to showing the many gradations that actually exist.[18]

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 (bisexual)
4 Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5 Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual
6 Exclusively homosexual
X Asexual
  • Men: 11.6% of white males aged 20–35 were given a rating of 3 for this period of their lives.[19]
  • 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.[20] 2 to 6% of females, aged 20–35, were given a rating of 5[21] and 1 to 3% of unmarried females aged 20–35 were rated as 6.[22]

Marital coitus

The average frequency of marital sex reported by women was 2.8 times a week in the late teens, 2.2 times a week by age 30, and 1.0 times a week by age 50.[23] Kinsey estimated that approximately 50% of all married males had some extramarital experience at some time during their married lives.[24] Among the sample, 26% of females had extramarital sex by their forties. Between 1 in 6 and 1 in 10 females from age 26 to 50 were engaged in extramarital sex.[25] However, Kinsey classified couples who have lived together for at least a year as "married", inflating the statistics for extra-marital sex.[26][27]

Sadomasochism

12% of females and 22% of males reported having an erotic response to a sadomasochistic story.[28]

Methodology

Data was gathered primarily by means of subjective report interviews, conducted according to a structured questionnaire memorised by the experimenters (but not marked on the response sheet in any way).[29] The response sheets were encoded in this way to maintain the confidentiality of the respondents, being entered on a blank grid using response symbols defined in advance.[29] The data were later computerized for processing. All of this material, including the original researchers' notes, remains available from the Kinsey Institute to qualified researchers who demonstrate a need to view such materials. The institute also allows researchers to use statistical software (such as PSPP or SPSS) in order to analyze the data.

Context and significance

The Kinsey Reports, which together sold three-quarters of a million copies and were translated in thirteen languages, may be considered as part of the most successful and influential scientific books of the 20th century. The Kinsey Reports are associated with a change in public perception of sexuality. In the 1960s, following the introduction of the first oral contraceptive, this change was to be expressed in the sexual revolution.[citation needed] Also in the 1960s, Masters and Johnson published their investigations into the physiology of sex, breaking taboos and misapprehensions similar to those Kinsey had broken more than a decade earlier in a closely related field.

To what extent the Reports produced or promoted this change and to what extent they merely expressed it and reflected the conditions that were producing it is a matter of much debate and speculation.

See also

References

  1. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, ISBN 978-0-253-33412-1.
  2. ^ Kinsey, A.; Pomeroy, W.; Martin, C., & Gebhard, P. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Philadelphia: Saunders (1953), ISBN 978-0-253-33411-4.
  3. ^ Salter, Ph.D., Anna C. (1988). Treating Child Sex Offenders and Victims: A Practical Guide. Sage Publications Inc. pp. 22–24. ISBN 0-8039-3182-4.
  4. ^ Kinsey Institute statement denies child abuse in study
  5. ^ Welsh-Huggins, Andrews (1995). "Conservative group attacks Kinsey data on children". Herald-Times. Providing such absolute assurances of anonymity was the only way to guarantee honest answers on such taboo subjects, said Gebhard. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  6. ^ a b Martin Duberman on Gebhart's "cleaning" of data
  7. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 656
  8. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Table 147, p. 651
  9. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 651
  10. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Table 142, p. 499
  11. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p. 488
  12. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Table 142, p. 499, and p. 474
  13. ^ David Leonhardt (July 28, 2000). "John Tukey, 85, Statistician; Coined the Word 'Software'". The New York Times.
  14. ^ John Tukey criticizes sample procedure
  15. ^ Maslow, A. H., and Sakoda, J. (1952). Volunteer error in the Kinsey study, Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 1952 Apr;47(2):259-62.
  16. ^ Cochran, William Gemmell, W. O. Jenkins, Frederick Mosteller, and John Wilder Tukey. 1954. Statistical problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. American Statistical Association, National Research Council (U.S.). Committee for Research in Problems of Sex – Psychology
  17. ^ Kinsey Male volume, page 640, table 141.
  18. ^ Kinsey, et al. (1948). pp. 639, 656.
  19. ^ Kinsey, et al. 1948. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Table 147, p. 651
  20. ^ Kinsey, et al. 1953. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Table 142, p. 499
  21. ^ Kinsey, et al. 1953. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p. 488
  22. ^ Kinsey, et al. 1953. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Table 142, p. 499, and p. 474
  23. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p. 348-349, 351.
  24. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, pp. 585, 587
  25. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p. 416
  26. ^ Kinsey, Alfred. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p. 53.
  27. ^ Jones, James H. (1997). Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life. New York: Norton.
  28. ^ Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, pp. 677-678
  29. ^ a b Ericksen, J. (1998). "With Enough Cases, Why Do You Need Statistics? Revisiting Kinsey's Methodology". The Journal of Sex Research. 35 (2). Taylor & Francis: 132–140. doi:10.1080/00224499809551926. JSTOR 3813665. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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