How Gay Are You?
LGBTQ+ lego lined up on a rainbow displaying the LGBTQ+ spectrum.
One day, I was scrolling through Tumblr or one of those places when I stumbled upon a very queer post. Now, I don’t remember all the details. I just remember that they were discussing queer identities and where they stood on the Kinsey scale. Then, they posted a picture of said scale so people could reference it.
I looked at it, picked an in-between option, and wondered, “Who the hell is Kinsey, and why did they feel a need to make a scale?” The scale was limited, but it seemed popular within the LGBTQ+ community. The post had many likes, so maybe there was something to it. So, I finally decided to ask my junior editor to help me do some digging, and we found some information on Kinsey and his scale.
Black and white photo of Alfred Kinsey. Credit: Getty Images
First off, Alfred Charles Kinsey was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on June 23, 1894. He was raised by his parents, Sarah Ann Charles and Alfred Seguine Kinsey. His father was extremely religious and intimidating, and he strongly insisted that Kinsey major in engineering. However, Kinsey did not listen to his father and instead chose to take biology at Bowdoin College, which made his father so angry that he didn’t even attend his son’s college graduation. It’s also reported that they never reconciled either.
After Bowdoin College, he attended Harvard, where he conducted a meticulous case study of the gall wasp. Once he graduated in 1919 and took a position at Indiana University, he published his case study. Lots of his peers praised his work, but he did not receive a professorship at a more prestigious college, and it’s speculated that because of this, he took a new position to lead a course on marriage and family.
Now, it sounds like he was feeling salty about not getting something he thought he deserved. Maybe he was too big for his britches. We’ll never know, though. Anyways….
Kinsey’s course was very popular among the students, and the lectures focused on the biology of sexual stimulation, the mechanics of intercourse, and the techniques of contraception. He even required that each student meet with him privately so he could record their sexual histories. The course was extremely popular, and enrollment grew to 400.
Eventually, Kinsey founded the Institute of Sex Research at Indiana University in 1947, and about a year later, he published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. He received mixed reviews, but he didn’t let the criticism get him down.
The Kinsey Scale
Included in his first book was the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale, a seven-point scale that Kinsey and his colleagues developed, which is now commonly known as the Kinsey Scale. It measures sexuality on a spectrum, with 0 indicating exclusively heterosexual and 6 indicating exclusively homosexual. 1 through 5 indicate various levels of attraction to either sex, and interestingly enough, there’s also an additional category: X. X indicates no socio-sexual contacts or reactions.
Several years later, he published Sexual Behavior in the Human Female and received the same praise and criticism. However, this time he lost funding for his research and was under federal investigation. (These FBI documents have been released, FYI.) Due to the public attacks and the uncertainty of the institute, his health suffered, and he died a few years later on August 25, 1956.
I confess, Kinsey’s life was a little more interesting than I thought it would be, and I’m glad I looked into him. Once I figured out who he was and why he made the scale, I thought about the scale a little more. It’s definitely geared toward men and women who either identify as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. The scale only measures attraction between two genders, limiting it to the typical gender binary. Also, it doesn’t account for asexuality or other sexual orientations.
Quite frankly, I don’t think it really suits me because I’m attracted to more than two genders. When I was a teenager, I was bisexual, so this would have come in handy. However, I’ve evolved since then and have embraced myself and learned so much. I can see how it helps some people better pinpoint their sexuality, though. It’s a good start. I’m sure this led to other researchers making their own scales, like the Storms Scale and the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid, which are now used alongside the Kinsey Scale.2 In a way, Kinsey paved the way for others in his field.
I’m curious to know where you fall on the Kinsey Scale if you use it? If you’re comfy, comment below. Also, if this was informative and you want more information, let me know that, too. Until next time … peace, love, and happiness.
Sources:
1. “The Kinsey Scale”, Kinsey Institute, https://kinseyinstitute.org/research/publications/kinsey-scale.php
2. “Alfred C. Kinsey: A Pioneer of Sex Research”, American Journal of Public Health, https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.93.6.896
