Talk:Kinsey scale

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2021 and 8 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Keithh5678.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

sexual orientation confirmation

I'm slightly confused. I always believed the Kinsey Scale was a measure of sexual orientation. I looked on several websites and it said that the Kinsey Scale is a measure of sexual orientation. I'm not sure if this is correct so I did not want to edit the article, I was wondering if anyone could submit any feedback to me.--Mjp797 22:37, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've changed the meaning. After reading as much as I can without being able to read the kinsey report itself, I'm convinced that "experience or response" includes "sexual orientation". If anyone changes this, please cite references! JohnFlux 23:40, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

NPOV?

Kinsey's work is controversial, but there's still confusion about orientation/preference/experience/gender being used seemingly interchangeably. Can someone add/cleanup? Iamvered 17:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

This is article is very clear and adheres strongly to the NPOV policy. It explicity mentions the difference between history and orientation. If you have a problem with Kinsey's quote, then you're going to have to dig the man up and talk to him yourself. I vote to immediately remove the NPOV warning. The page may be a stub, but in my opinion it's a good start.—Kbolino 21:03, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Kbolino's statement. Kinsey himself may be controversial, but Wikipedia doesn't avoid controversial or even bigoted people -- nor should it. This article is in need of some cleanup, but it's perfectly in compliance with NPOV. -Sean Hayford O'Leary 05:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Table

This is unrelated to the complaint above but still, does it bother anyone else that heterossexual ranks are in blue and homossexual ranks are in red? Some people might argue that I might be looking to deep into the neutrality of colored depictions and it is precious paranoia, but bear with me here, red is used in many signs with negative conotation. Star Ghost 20:03, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Does anyone feel like changing the red to a colour with no connotation attatched? Green, perhaps? Monkeyfinger 15:17, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Or just put it all in grey. Does this look bad?

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

-- Steel 15:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that green is better. -- Steel 15:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice job. Star Ghost 04:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I gave 0 and 6, 1 and 5, and 2 ve 4 the same colors. They represent the same thing in different orientations. And they still have their numbers, so there won't be any confusions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.186.196.139 (talk) 19:20, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone feel that 0 has negative connotations and that some exclusively heterosexuals are going to feel alienated by this type of restrictive linear hierarchical rating system, that puts them into the void??? maybe instead of a '0' we could use a rainbow smiley face, and replace each number with a happy and all-inclusive icon, like lucky charms. We could next erase the article, so as to not exclude those who can't read. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.83.154 (talk) 20:09, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

lol @ unsigned! But I think the new colors are good. 67.124.148.55 (talk) 20:14, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I am proud of being a zero! Color me zeroTomandzeke (talk) 20:42, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Table

Take a look at the table, I believe someone is playing silly buggers.

Yes, I noticed that too, have deleted the line in question ", --Wren-3^talk 22:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Asexualism?

I noticed that asexualism isn't covered by the Kinsey scale. Perhaps it would be good if someone with more knowledge about Kinsey could explain in the article why it isn't covered and Kinsey's views on the subject. Thank you.--Jersey Devil 04:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why Kinsey doesn't cover asexuality, but there is another system, similar to his, that does, called the Storms Sexuality Axis. Oddly, I can't find a Wikipedia article on this, however.--Anonymous

I don't think asexualism should be seventh, this would mean that hetrosexual people always think about sex and homosexual people never think about sex, if anything it should be 3rd as this is an average Fwed66 19:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't seek to imply that at the 'homosexual' end of the scale tends towards the asexual. It was given the non-numerary designator of 'X' so that persons would not construe that very thing! --Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.45.228 (talk) 06:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed the X as part of scale for asexual and inserted reference to paper showing that Kinsey did NOT rate asexual as part of his rating. Having an X on this page or any number associated with asexual would be inaccurate. I have already begun to see people state they are an X on the Kinsey scale. This topic looks like one where people can come in and change things at whim so I am including the link for people to see that asexual was not part of the scale and this aspect of sexuality was not considered until the advent of the scale created by Michael Storm See — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbmaise (talk • contribs) 00:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I changed your addition and removed the words "bisexuality" and "asexuality" that were added by others,[1][2] since Kinsey's scale did not even come close to using those. And as this source[3] I added to the article[4] shows, Kinsey didn't like using the word "bisexual" in his research. Anyway, what I came here to state is that it's wrong to say that Kinsey didn't include asexuality on the Kinsey scale. For one, it's sourced in the intro -- to Male volume, Table 141; Female volume, page 472. Secondly, the Asexuality#Research section says: In the mid-twentieth century, Alfred Kinsey rated individuals from 0 to 6 according to their sexual orientation from heterosexual to homosexual, known as the Kinsey scale. He also included a category he called "X" for individuals with "no socio-sexual contacts or reactions". He labeled 1.5% of the adult male population as X. In Kinsey's second book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, he reported this breakdown of individuals who are X: unmarried females = 14–19%, married females = 1–3%, previously married females = 5–8%, unmarried males = 3–4%, married males = 0%, and previously married males = 1–2%.

And third, there are sources on Google Books[5] and Google Scholar[6] saying that Kinsey acknowledged asexuality on the Kinsey scale, like the source I noted that I added above.

P.S. The Michael Storm you were linking to above is an actor (mainly a soap opera actor), so I removed the link. 78.159.120.236 (talk) 19:59, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The meaning of this article is marred by the language

I read the entire article and had no idea how the Kinsey scale was formulated, only that it measures hetero/homosexuality. There should be a section elaborating on the process of how these results are obtained, rather than just saying "11% of men are a 3." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.198.102.148 (talk) 08:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The Kinsey scale is so ingrained into modern culture, but this article is remarkably short. The process of determining sexuality based on this scale should be outlined. I also wonder if there are professionals who disagree with the scale's linear model, not unlike those who disagree with the Wechsler scale of determining IQ, in that things originating in the human mind are too complex to designate in one dimension. This goes along with the argument of asexuality, as pointed out somewhere on this page. I am in no way drawing a correlation between sexuality and IQ (there seems to have been a few easily confused people on this discussion page. Does the color of the numbers really matter?). Xaphon (talk) 17:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally?

What does that even mean? OrangeAipom (talk) 05:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

LIke, for example, somebody who usually likes only women, but may like men in certain cases. Zazaban2 (talk) 06:17, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Cane the definition of 'incidentally' be placed onto the main article? --Havvy, November 4th, 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.170.63 (talk) 06:25, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

(i have no particular idea here but an alternate meaning occurs to me) perhaps it means that there may have been some past incidents for various reasons but no more planned for the future, as in "apart from some events of an incidental nature". Anyway, I agree this aspect needs cleanup along with the rest of the article. 68.174.97.122 (talk) 23:22, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

The Kinsey scale measures "experience or response", so "incidentally homosexual" means occasionally having experienced or responded sexually to the same sex, the latter accounting for cases where someone can be sexually attracted to members of the same sex whilst having no to minimal sexual activity with them. --Xagg (talk) 08:50, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't you mean "occasionally having experienced or responded sexually to the same sex"? For example, #1 on the Kinsey scale is "Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual." The word "incidentally" is definitely used to mean "occasionally." Flyer22 (talk) 20:26, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction, that's what I meant. Fixed above and in the article. --Xagg (talk) 08:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Never mind, idiot on board. *eyeroll* It finally sank in after I reread the article.

Excuse me for being a little stupid, but I (MissTeek, computer's having login problems already) need a little clarification on what "occasionally" homosexual means. To use myself as an example, would "occasionally" count for the fact that, even though I'd never enter into a sexual nor romantic relationship with another woman and identify as a 0 in that respect, lesbian erotica doesn't bother me and I can consume it without psychological repercussions (IOW, feeling like I must be bisexual and not known it)?

I guess what I'm asking is, does "occasionally hetero/homosexual" mean that there must be a direct physical or emotional encounter, or does it include purely psychological encounters (erotica, for instance) as well? If that's relevant to the article, I think it should be added. (If it helps answer my question any, I've been identifying as 1 because of what I just told you, although in a person-to-person context, it is absolutely 100% 0. Or maybe I'm a 0.5? ;D)

I hope that made sense. 98.71.131.126 (talk) 22:47, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello, MissTeek. I certainly don't feel that you were being an idiot. Some sources seem to suggest that Kinsey meant incidentally, as in occasionally, to mean "incidental physical sexual contact." And in that case, physical sexual contact obviously applies to his use of the terms exclusively and predominantly. But as can be seen from this article, such as in the Overview section, Kinsey states "experience or response." So he wasn't only going by physical sexual contact, but psychologically being sexually attracted to a sex as well. And, of course, people use the Kinsey scale for measuring both -- physical sexual contact and psychological sexual attraction. Flyer22 (talk) 23:24, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Colors

Now, we have Gay=>Yellow and Straight=>Blue and Bisexual=>Green. I cannot emphasise enough that all of these colors are positive colors.

• 1st: Yellow is the color of wealth, of opulence, of luxury. It is also a color of the natural world, and it brings to mind long patches of flowers. It is a sweet color, and a calming color.

• 2nd: Blue is the color of water. It is also a natural color. It is a relaxing one, a meditating one. It brings to mind the many blue based flags that countries have.

• 3rd: Green is the color of grass and plant-life. You can't get any natural than that. It is also meditating. It has an intense symmetry to it, which the yellows and blues flowing into each other to give an endless ying and yang that cannot be unbound. It is also sweet, in a way.

Together, the natural colors symbolize the wonderful unity and intertwined feelings between all peoples of different orientations, since we are still all one human family.

Is this enough? Or are you all still going to be paranoid? The Squicks (talk) 03:04, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I like the colours you've used. It helps clarify the scale and does so in a neutral way. Jozal (talk) 16:28, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, no matter what colors are picked as long as there is a difference between the colors it may be viewed in the negative. Further, Kinsey didn't have colors as part of his scale. Therefore, I have changed the colors to more pastel and made them all the same. There is one exception. The line * for Asexual has a different color to help make it clear that this sexuality was not considered by Kinsey. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbmaise (talk • contribs) 00:14, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Kinsey Himself

I know that a "score" may not be constant, but where did Kinsey himself fall on the spectrum of his design? This would be interesting to add to the article. 98.221.137.91 (talk) 11:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Kinsey himself was a 3 and was bisexual but even if he'd been a 1, 2, 4, or 5 he still would have been bisexual. Either way this is old information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.70.85 (talk) 21:26, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Early versions of Kinsey Scale different from modern ones?

It's my impression (and I could be mistaken) that the original Kinsey Scale that would've been used a half-century ago was significantly different from more recent versions, in that the old Kinsey Scale only reflected actual, real-life, "consummated" activity with another person of the same sex. In other words, there was NO attempt to quantify fantasies that had homosexual themes, let alone to measure something as abstract and intangible as "feelings of attraction."

So, by the original scale, if a man engaged in real-life mutual masturbation with another man in a hot tub (as described by noted sexologist Trey Parker on South Park), that counted as a homosexual act, and thus his Kinsey Number would go up a bit. However, if the same man engaged in solo masturbation while THINKING about how nice it would be to jerk off with another man, that "didn't count," and had no effect on his overall score!

Later versions of the Kinsey Scale used a significantly revised questionnaire that did attempt to take fantasy life and emotional attractions into account.

So, if someone with more expertise than I have can confirm all this, it should probably be added to the article that the Kinsey Scale methodology evolved over time, and thus if you see someone described as a "Kinsey 3" in a 1960 publication, it doesn't necessarily have the exact same significance as a "Kinsey 3" in a 2005 publication, because the ranking method and questionnaires have changed. Throbert McGee (talk) 22:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually Throbert they mean the same thing no matter what the decade or year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.70.85 (talk) 21:31, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

original research that wound up with a name

If I created the Kinsey Scale and put it into wikipedia, it would be called original research and deleted. That's what should have been done with the original too, it's obvious looking at it that it's just made up. It might have some statistical usefulness (see "rank order statistics" which I am not an expert on) but it would need the statistical analysis on a sample to show that, and in any case could be invented on the spot for the purpose of the statistics and it wouldn't need a name. The problem with it is that it's just a linear graph to represent an underlying process that there is every reason to believe is not linear. If there are enough underlying independent variables and processes involved we might expect the curve to be some form of a gamma function, but again, it's the actual statistics or actual underlying processes that are interesting, not this chart. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.76.5 (talk) 16:31, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Not to be completely rude, but did you actually read anything on this? Or did you just look at the pretty picture and decide that it couldn't possibly be real because you say so? The Kinsey Institute is real and so is this scale. Please do some research before making grandiose claims. TheNewKarl (talk) 08:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Which end of the scale is which?

I haven't done the research to determine the correct meaning of the scale, but, on the page, this bit suggests zero is completely gay:

In such studies, the person would be asked a question such as "If 0 is completely gay and 10 is completely hetero, what is your orientation number?"

whereas the "Table of the Scale" suggests zero is completely straight.

Which is it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.246.167.146 (talk) 23:14, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The sentence you quoted is an example of a similar study, where the numbers are defined in whatever way that specific researcher prefers. The sentence before the one quoted says:

There have been similar studies where the scale is from 0 to 10.

The rest of the page is specifically about the Kinsey Scale, based on the Kinsey Reports, in which 0 is "exclusively heterosexual." Elihenderson (talk) 02:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Kinsey Scale is Bogus

Whereas Kinsey scale is used to support a myriad of scientific or pseudo-scientific works there is not scientific work that give grounds to Kinsey out of Kinsey himself. First of all is not regarded the TRANSITIONAL aspect of the sex act. In sex one individual DELIVERS and another RECEIVES. This determines which individual is ACTIVE and which is PASSIVE. Men that may have received oral sex from passive homosexuals can't be thrown in the same category, nor one category away from travesties. How can a study assure that 1 out of 10 mature age males will have been ENTIRELY HOMOSEXUAL during 3 years of his life when 90% of males are married to females? It is the same to say that the remaining 10% had exclusively homosexual intercourse during three years time. Kinsey takes a mere Home Office demographic statistic, dresses it up with his more POLITICAL THAN SCIENTIFIC VIEWS, and applies it back to the whole society. It is clear that Kinsey's statistics are bogus, these were ONCE used to enhance the myth of men who don't marry or who marry late as of abnormal sexuality. It is used TODAY to support the OBNOXIOUS AND FALSE PROMOTION OF HOMOSEXUALITY. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.191.20.220 (talk) 01:05, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a forum. Keep your personal opinions to yourself. Use research, not bigotry to support your claims otherwise they will be ignored.

chart and fractions

Can anyone confirm that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kinsey_Scale.svg is actually an accurate reproduction of a chart in the book? The labeling of this chart, which seems to be some mashup of a bar and a line chart, is very vague on non-integer ratings. If the book has a better chart, we should update this. If it doesn't, I'm not sure the appropriate course of action. Sparr (talk) 21:03, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Several citations use other wikipedia articles as source

As of this writing, citations 7 - 10 are citing other wikipedia articles as a source. Is this practice acceptable on Wikipedia? I've personally never seen it done before, and can't imagine it's encouraged, if not forbidden entirely. — B1naryatr0phy (talk) 10:44, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

B1naryatr0phy (talk · contribs), those references are not citing other Wikipedia articles as sources; they are citing Kinsey and simply linking to the Wikipedia articles about the books. References often include WP:Wikilinks, whether it's to the author's name and/or to the publication that the reference is talking about or was published in, or something else. But, yes, per WP:Verifiability and WP:Reliable sources, using Wikipedia as a source is not appropriate. Flyer22 (talk) 23:33, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Kinsey scale/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

There's virtually nothing here about it, really. It's almost a stub. The Squicks (talk) 19:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 19:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 21:16, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Kinsey scale. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131203001438/http://www.siue.edu/~cbwilso/203misc4.jpg to http://www.siue.edu/~cbwilso/203misc4.jpg

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 13:14, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Kinsey scale. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120715130712/http://www.uwlax.edu/PrideCenter/images/101/Eval%20of%20Models%20of%20Sexual%20Orientation.pdf to http://www.uwlax.edu/pridecenter/images/101/Eval%20of%20Models%20of%20Sexual%20Orientation.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:32, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Bias in reported findings

The "Kinsey reports" section is poorly written. For the men it only covers 11.6% of "white males 20-35" and 10% of "American males". For the woman there is slightly more written but still only accounting to 26% of all surveyed.

Furthermore, this "Kinsey reports" is filed under "Findings", which makes the entry incomplete at best.

What is one supposed to take away from reading this section? What are the findings here if you only talk about 11.6% of white males aged 20-35? (for example)?

I suggest this entire "Findings" section is axed or rewritten to present the findings in a way that covers all of the surveyed people.

Aethalides (talk) 17:18, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Kinsey Scale.svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:22, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Kinsey scale

I'd like to know how to better understand the scale and the data or information that were gathered to prove that the information is factual and not fake Ackeria Smith (talk) 01:17, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Counting?

The article says at least twice (as of this date) that there are seven categories. There are 8, because of the "X" that the article also describes. The inconsistency is jarring, at least to this reader. IAmNitpicking (talk) 14:24, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Surveys and other studies

Participants completed the Kinsey scale and then were asked to respond to the following question: "In what ways did this scale capture or fail to capture your sexuality?

This is a strongly leading question. It is inciting confirmation bias. Odd for a scientific survey. Wouldn't a neutral wording be: "Does this scale capture your sexuality? Are there things you would like to add?" 2001:A61:12AB:1C01:3CB2:1811:EF64:4693 (talk) 22:48, 6 July 2023 (UTC)