The most distressing violation of Kinsey's assumption are cases of rape and paedophilia. People are also sometimes coerced into sex while inebriated or under the influence of drugs that they might refuse while sober. A prostitute might have sex with someone for money whom they would not ordinarily pair up with. For instance, a lesbian might have an opposite-gender experience in order to procreate. In reality, we know that sexual experiences are undertaken for other reasons. If that person then goes on to primarily have relations with the gender opposite their first encounter, the initial designation would seem to be a misreading in retrospect.Īlso, Kinsey's assumption was that all sexual experiences are undertaken for pleasure and therefore have a direct bearing on sexual orientation. Also, a person with only one sexual experience would be automatically placed in the 0 or 6 column. A virgin would have no rating at all according to Kinsey because they have had no sexual experiences. And anyway, there should be at least a little wiggle room for everyone to try unusual experiences a time or two in their life.Īnother problem with Kinsey's use of his own scale was that his studies used past sexual behaviour as the only criteria. Again, this isn't particularly fair since it is entirely common to experiment in one's youth until one's orientation is entirely understood. There are even people who define most of humanity as bisexual, leaving only the perfect 6s and perfect 0s as straight or gay. Clearly, keeping up perfect gender symmetry over a lifetime would be taxing and would furthermore require an accountant's accuracy. Arguably, this fact may say more about a society's double standards than it does about gay or straight people.īisexuality is sometimes misunderstood as being a perfect 3 on the Kinsey scale, but very few people could then rightly be called bisexual. Is somebody who is a 5 on the scale homosexual or bisexual? What about a person who ranks a 1? Are they bisexual or heterosexual? Interestingly, many people harbour double standards for gay-leaning versus straight-leaning persons.
It's certainly interesting how people interpret the scale differently. These days, the Kinsey Scale is under fire for being accurate only in a broadly illusionary sense. 5 Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual.