Not being computer literate enough to work a link, I’ll just spell out Kinsey’s sexuality scale:
0 = exclusively heterosexual
1 = mostly hetero-, incidentally homosexual
2 = " " more than incidentally homosexual
3 = equally hetero- and homosexual
4 = mostly homo-, more than incidentally heterosexual
5 = " " incidentally heterosexual
6 = exclusively homosexual
What on earth does “incidentally” mean? I have never seen an adequate explanation for what Kinsey was trying to convey with this (okay, I have never seen any explanation for what he was trying to convey). What makes it “incidentally” and not, say, “genuinely”? And where do you cross over from “incidentally” to “more than incidentally”?
I mean, Id like to know which number I should put on my business cards.
I’ve pondered that, too, and come to the conclusion that it means that the person might have taken advantage of an occasion or so to have that kind particular kind of sex, but didn’t ordinarily seek it out or think of themselves that way.
my guess is that the person interviewed admitted to having an “incident” of contact (in sexual terms) with the opposite of the gender they identified as their usual partner-type, but by-and-large identified themselves as normally being hetero- or homosexual. probably on the order of admitting to your school-age experimentations, before you finally decided that was not what you actually preferred.
So where do people who have had no sexual contact fall? Can’t someone consider himself/herself straight/bi/gay without having done anything sexual with another person? Sexuality isn’t just about fucking.
A person is incidently heterosexual if they are “open minded”, they have had only heterosexual experiences but no opportunity has yet arisen for trying things out. E.g., “bi-curious” but no experience.
Note where the “incidentals” are on the scale, right next to the exclusives, not the other way.
Let’s try changing the terms and see if the pattern becomes more obvious.
0 = exclusively diurnal
1 = mostly diurnal-, incidentally nocturnal
2 = mostly diurnal-, more than incidentally nocturnal
3 = equally diurnal- and nocturnal
4 = mostly nocturnal-, more than incidentally diurnal
5 = mostly nocturnal-, incidentally diurnal
6 = exclusively nocturnal
ftg It’s been a while since I read Kinsey, but he wasn’t particularly interested in bi-curious.
Look at these findings (which can be seen in context at the Kinsey Institute site):
37% of males and 13% of females had at least some overt homosexual experience to orgasm;
10% of males were more or less exclusively homosexual and 8% of males were exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55. For females, Kinsey reported a range of 2-6% for more or less exclusively homosexual experience/response.
4% of males and 1-3% of females had been exclusively homosexual after the onset of adolescence up to the time of the interview.
“Overt homosexual experience to orgasm” is not bi-curious and while “experience/response” give some room for lusting rather than acting, merely thinking about it doesn’t seem to be a large part of the equation.
j.c. So does that mean it does refer to “that one time at band camp”? Is it strictly based on behaviour? Well, that does make the scale clearer.
But if that is what Kinsey originally meant, it seems that the queer community has appropriated the scale to refer to desires and thoughts as well. Like ErinPuff said, sexual identity is more complex than just what you’ve done. For instance, strictly based on my history, Id be a 2, but that’s only because my sex life was more active before I came out. “Mostly heterosexual” is the last thing Id call myself.
So from that point of view, where does “incidentally” become “more than incidentally”?
Note that Dr. Kinsey was not studying “sexuality”, but specifically “sexual behavior”. (The title of his major books were “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male/Female”.)
So, yes, for his studies fucking (and other sexual activities) were all that counted. Terms like “open-minded”, “curious”, 'identified themselves", etc. didn’t matter to him – he was studying actual behavior only.
Part of the big fuss when his studies were published was that his evidence showed a very big difference between what people said about sex and what they actually did. Both individually, and in the 1950’s American society’s view of what their society did.
There have been a lot of problems with people trying to use Dr. Kinsey’s data on sexual behavior to reach or support conclusions about “sexuality”. But then, it’s one of the very few good, scientific, statistical studies we have in this area.
Personally, I’d say when there are enough “incidents” that you can no longer remember and name each one, it’s moving away from the “incidental” part of the scale.
