Kinsey Scale Information
The Kinsey scale attempts to describe a person's sexual history or episodes of their sexual activity at a given time. It uses a scale from 0, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to 6, meaning exclusively homosexual. In both the Male and Female volumes of the Kinsey Reports, an additional grade, listed as "X", was used for asexuality.[1] 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).
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Overview
| This section requires expansion with: Professional analysis of the scale. |
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 emphasizing 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. |
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—Kinsey, et al. (1948). pp. 639, 656) |
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Today, many sexologists see the Kinsey scale as relevant to sexual orientation but not comprehensive enough to cover all sexual identity issues. They suggest that sexual identity involves at least three different spectrums, sexual orientation being only one of them (two others being biological sex and gender identity).[2]
There have been similar studies where the scale is from 0 to 10. In such studies, the person would be asked a question such as "If 0 is completely gay and 10 is completely straight, what is your orientation number?".[3]
Table of the scale
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 | Asexual, Non-Sexual |
Findings
Kinsey reports
Main article: Kinsey Reports- Men: 11.6% of white males aged 20–35 were given a rating of 3 for this period of their lives.[4] 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).[5]
- 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.[6] 2 to 6% of females, aged 20–35, were given a rating of 5[7] and 1 to 3% of unmarried females aged 20–35 were rated as 6.[8]
See also
| LGBT portal |
- Bisexual erasure
- Gender binary
- Klein Sexual Orientation Grid
- Hybrid Sexuality Scale
- Taxonomy of Uranismus
References
| Constructs such as ibid. and loc. cit. are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes, as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (), or an abbreviated title. |
- ^ (Male volume, Table 141; Female volume, page 472)
- ^ Planned Parenthood: Sexual Orientation & Gender, LGBTQ ... The Labels and Their Meaning
- ^ Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity (2006) - Janbell L Caroll
- ^ Kinsey, et al. 1948. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Table 147, p. 651
- ^ Ibid, p. 651
- ^ Kinsey, et al. 1953. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Table 142, p. 499
- ^ Ibid., p. 488
- ^ Ibid, Table 142, p. 499, and p. 474
External links
- Kinsey Institute home page
- Kinsey's Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale
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Categories: Sexual orientation | Sexology | Scales | Bisexuality
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