Kinsey scale

Kinsey scale, visual model used to describe one’s sexual orientation at a given time, based on responses to statements and questions. The scale ranges from zero to six, zero signifying exclusive heterosexuality and six signifying exclusive homosexuality. One through five indicate increasing levels of homosexuality, with the number three indicating equal amounts of heterosexuality and homosexuality. The scale was first published by Alfred Kinsey in his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948). Its suggestions of sexual fluidity were radical and came at a time when public discussion of sex was shamed and homosexuality was criminalized.

Background

Kinsey’s career did not begin in the field of human sexuality. He arrived at Indiana University, Bloomington, in 1920 as an assistant professor in zoology and entomology. However, after his numerous entomology publications failed to reach wider audiences, Kinsey shifted his focus to human sexual behaviour. At the time, the field was taboo and largely under-researched. In 1938 Kinsey was appointed chair of the university’s new marriage course. In the country at that time, premarital sex was largely condemned, and abstinence was presented as sex education. Kinsey, however, tailored his lectures toward the type of sex education he thought students needed most. By approaching the subject from a place of scientific truth—showing anatomical slides depicting sexual intercourse, discussing contraception, masturbation, homosexuality, and more—Kinsey worked to dissolve the public shame about sexuality. Though these lessons were met with enthusiasm by most students, Kinsey’s approach sparked controversy among the university’s faculty, and in 1940 he was asked to leave the course.

Creating the scale

It was while teaching the marriage course that Kinsey began his own studies on sexual behaviour. In optional private conferences, he interviewed students one-on-one about their sexual histories. After he left the course, Kinsey continued his research, which included collecting more sexual histories. Kinsey used these interviews to devise his scale, which was both a visualization of his findings as well as a measurement tool that he continued to use in his research. In 1940 Kinsey proposed the scale to Glenn V. Ramsey, a graduate student who, along with a small team of associates, was helping Kinsey conduct interviews.

In the end, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was based on the sex histories of more than 5,000 interviewees, including married men, single men, institutionalized men, men who identified as homosexual, and men who identified as heterosexual. Of Kinsey’s male sample, he found that 37 percent had some homosexual experience “to orgasm,” which led Kinsey to believe that sexuality was more fluid than was largely accepted by society at the time. Thus, the Kinsey scale allows sexual orientation to be understood on a spectrum instead of as a binary. The scale is based on “overt sexual experience” as well as “psychosexual reactions.” It was important to Kinsey to separate sexual behaviour from sexual identity in his research and writing, as he thought labels of sexual identity lacked nuance and were potentially harmful. Today the Kinsey scale is perhaps most prevalent online, where hundreds of quizzes based on the scale are available for the purpose of self-assessment.

Criticism

Kinsey’s sample size was extensive, though in the years following publication his research was criticized for a lack of diversity. In reanalyzing Kinsey’s data, it was found that the samples best represented white college-educated populations. Many people believe that the Kinsey scale does not allow for the nuance that the increasingly complex discussion of sexuality requires. Some argue that homosexuality and heterosexuality are not perfect opposites; that is, as homosexual behaviour increases, heterosexual behaviour does not necessarily decrease (and vice versa), as the Kinsey scale suggests. Further, the scale does little to address asexuality—which could live on an entire spectrum of its own—besides offering an optional “X” to indicate a lack of sexual behaviour or reaction.