Dealing with sensitive issues:

1
Dealing with sensitive issues

• Kinsey Report (1948, 1953) on sexuality

2
Outline

• Alfred Kinsey
• Context
• Kinsey Report
• Evaluation
• After Kinsey
• Other approaches to research on sexuality

3
Alfred Kinsey (1894- 1956)

• Born in New Jersey, USA
• Conservative Christian upbringing
• Studied biology, psychology
• Doctoral thesis on insects, gall wasps
• Taught a course on marriage at Indiana University
• Initiated the study of human sexuality
• 1933, received a grant from the Rockefeller
  Foundation

4
Research in context

• Historical and cultural context
• Religion
• Law
• Private and intimate topic

5
Kinsey Report

• Motivation for the study
• Absence of any reliable scientific data on this
  topic
• Scientifically more has been known about the
  sexual behavior of some of the farm and
  laboratory animals. In our Western
  European-American culture, sexual responses, more
  than any other physiologic activities, have been
  subject to religious evaluation, social taboo,
  and formal legislation (Kinsey, Sexual behaviour
  in the human male, p.3)

6
Kinsey Report

• Approach
• Objective and scientific
• Thorough and rigorous
• Interdisciplinary
• Non-judgmental

7
Kinsey Report

• No preconception of what is rare or what is
  common, what is moral or socially significant, or
  what is normal and what is abnormal has entered
  into the choice of the histories or into the
  selection of the items recorded on them.
  Nothing has done more to block the free
  investigation of sexual behavior than the almost
  universal acceptance, even among scientists, of
  certain aspects of that behaviour as normal, and
  of other aspects of that behavior as abnormal.
  This is the story of the sexual behavior of
  the American male, as we find him. (p.7)

8
Kinsey Report

• Interviews
• 300 521 items, depending on individual case
  history
• Precise questions, avoiding ambiguous terms
• Direct questions, asked without hesitation or
  embarrasment
• When rather than whether- to make denial more
  difficult
• Phrasing and vocabulary adapted to the
  intellectual level of respondents
• Empathy and understanding
• Confidentiality assured from the start (coding)

9
Kinsey Report

• Participants
• To twelve thousand persons who have contributed
  to these data and to the eighty-eight thousand
  more who, someday, will help complete this study
• Between 1938 and 1956, 17,000 interviews were
  conducted.
• The first volume is based on interviews with 5300
  males, aged 3-90.
• Samples from every state in the US, mostly from
  north-east.
• Diversified sample including single and married
  men, at various educational, occupational and
  social levels, from urban as well as rural
  backgrounds, various religious groups, various
  geographic origins etc.

10
Kinsey Report

• Main findings
• Great individual variation
• Many outcomes differ from previous estimates
• Challenging the socially established notions of
  normality and abnormality
• Homosexuality
• In the total male population, 6.3 of the total
  number of orgasms is derived from homosexual
  contacts
• 37 of males had at least one homosexual
  experience
• 4 males have been exclusively homosexual
  throughout

11
Kinsey Report

• Kinsey Homosexual-Heterosexual Scale
• 0- Exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual
• 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

12
Kinsey Report
Heterosexual-homosexual ratings in total male
population (single and married) in any single year
13
Kinsey Report

• Homosexuality
• Heterosexuality or homosexuality of many
  individuals is not an all-or-none proposition
  (p.638).
• In view of the above data, , it is
  difficult to maintain the view that psychosexual
  reactions between individuals of the same sex are
  rare and therefore abnormal or unnatural, or that
  they constitute within themselves evidence of
  neuroses or even psychoses (p.659)

14
Kinsey Report

• Extramarital sex
• Around 50 of all married males had some
  extramarital experience at some time during their
  married lives
• Masturbation
• Reported by 92 males
• Premarital sex
• 67-98, depending on socioeconomic level.
• 68 by age 18 had experienced premarital coitus

15
Kinsey Report
16
Kinsey Report

• Comparison of the Male and Female data
• Age at first intercourse
• Extramarital sex
• 50 of males and 26 of females had some
  extramarital experience
• Premarital sex
• Occurs in 67-98 males and about 50 females

17
Kinsey Report

• Implications
• Stirred great controversy
• Bestseller
• Regarded as an enabler of sexual revolution of
  1960s
• Changes in law
• 1973- APA removed homosexuality from a list of
  mental illnesses

18
Evaluation

• Strengths
• Pioneering and groundbreaking
• Huge implications well beyond science
• Enormous scale
• Very large sample, carefully diversified

19
Evaluation

• Weaknesses
• Underreporting ?
• cheating on your spouse, sex before marraige, sex
  with prostitutes, masturbation, homosexuality
• Overreporting ?
• number of partners among men
• Focus on frequencies and statistics, rather than
  psychological experiences and motivations
• When dealing with such a socially sensitiev and
  significant issue, can scientists really escape
  moral evaluations?

20
Evaluation- underreporting and overreporting in
sex surveys
Mosher et al. 2005
21
Evaluation- underreporting and overreporting in
sex surveys

• Do you seek to enter the United States to engage
  in export control violations, subversive or
  terrorist activities, or any other unlawful
  purpose? Are you a member or representative of a
  terrorist organization as currently designated by
  the U.S. Secretary of State? Have you ever
  participated in persecutions directed by the Nazi
  government of Germany or have you ever
  participated in genocide?
• Yes___ No ___

22
After Kinsey
23
After Kinsey

• Growing governmental interest in national sex
  research
• Mosher et al. 2005
• 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, US
• Over 12,000 men and women, face-to-face
  interviews
• 6.5 of men and 11 of women aged 25-44 reported
  having homosexual experience

24
After Kinsey
25
Kinsey Report
26
Other research on sexuality

• Adult sexuality vs early sexual development
• Biological vs environmental determinants of
  gender identity
• Evolutionary perspective
• Relationships (e.g. similarities attract, social
  exchange theory)
• Gender (biological vs environmental determinants)
• Direct research on Intimate relationships
• Surveys
• Interviews
• Observation (Watson)

27
Readings

• Key reading
• Kinsey, A.C., Pomeroy, W.B. Martin, C.E.
  (1948). Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.
  Bloomington Indiana University Press.
• Additional readings
• Mosher, W.D. Chandra, A. Jones, J. (2005).
  Sexual behavior and selected health measures men
  and women 15-44 years of age, United States 2002.
  Advance data fromVital and Health Statistics,
  362,
• See also http//www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/nation
  al/16sex.html
• Another New York Times article, illustrating the
  public response to the publication of Vol 1 of
  Kinsey Report http//www.time.com/time/magazine/a
  rticle/0,9171,794270,00.html
• Dr Judith Reissmanns webpage, where you will
  find ample criticisms of Kinseys research
  http//www.drjudithreisman.com/
• Kinsey Intitutes reply to her allegations
  http//www.indiana.edu/kinsey/about/contro-03.htm
  l
• An example of an evolutionary approach to
  sexuality (attractiveness)
• Singh, Devendra Young, Robert K. (2001-Jun-27).
  Body Weight, waist-to-hip ration, breasts and
  hips role in judgments of female attractiveness
  and desirability for relationships. Ethology and
  Sociobiology, 16, 483-507. http//web.missouri.ed
  u/rouderj/3010/readings/Singh.pdf