Alfred Kinsey & The Kinsey Scale

Alfred Kinsey was a sexologist who founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and

Reproduction, now known as the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University. The institute is meant "to advance sexual health and knowledge worldwide." Kinsey and the Institute itself were very controversial in the 1940s and 50s when Kinsey was the director, due to the open discussion of sex and sexuality that Dr. Kinsey and the Institute itself were encouraging.
Alfred Kinsey also developed the Kinsey Scale, which is a scale used in research to describe a person's sexuality at a specific time. The scale ranges from 0, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to 6, meaning exclusively homosexual. Kinsey also included an “X” range, which would indicate, "no socio-sexual contacts or reactions". The Kinsey Scale was first published in Alfred Kinsey's 1948 report, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”, then later in the 1953 report, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female”.

The Kinsey Scale was created to show that human sexuality was not meant to be dichotomous, and was

instead flexible, and subject to change over time. Dr. Kinsey explained, while introducing the scale, “The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.” Kinsey recognized that the seven categories of the scale could not fully capture every individual's sexuality; he explained that the reality is that there are sexualities outside of this scale, as well as in-between each marker on the scale, although some sociologist argue that people who rank 1-5 on the scale could all be described as bisexual. Additionally, the “X” grade on the scale could be compared to what is today called asexuality, however the modern definition of asexuality is defined as lack of sexual attraction, where Kinsey’s “X” grade is described as lack of sexual behavior.

At the time that the Kinsey Scale was being published, most studies of human sexuality were being done by medical professionals who had been sought out by people who wanted to change their sexuality. Kinsey’s work including his sexuality scale included thousands of men and women with varying grades on the scale. As part of his research, Dr. Kinsey also included observations of sexual activity as well as participation in sexual activity. He stated that this part of research was necessary to understand his subjects and their responses, and to gain the trust of the research subjects.

Dr. Kinsey was featured on Time Magazine
in 1953; an issue which also featured two
articles about human sexuality. 

The research that Dr. Kinsey collected suggests that approximately 10% of male subjects are more or less exclusively homosexual, and about 6% of female subjects are more or less exclusively homosexual. During the research, Kinsey also looked at marital and extra-marital sex, as well as masturbation, orgasms, sadomasochism, and biting.
Throughout the research that Dr. Kinsey accumulated, we can conclude that sexuality is not stagnant, nor is it binary. Kinsey himself was bisexual and some believe that his research stemmed from the need to understand himself, as well as to understand  others and their homosexual desires. Dr. Kinsey played a role in the erasure of the taboo of talking about sex, by offering public lectures, and publishing his two reports about male and female sexuality in 1948 and 1953, respectively; he also helped to usher in the open sexual attitudes of the 1960s with his work. Alfred Kinsey was a pioneer in sex research, and in homosexual and bisexual research, and paved the way for a deeper understanding of human sexuality as a whole.