Sexuality and Gender 407some people falling at either extreme and some falling closer to the middle.
The idea that there were many people who fit into that middle range of
sexual orientation was shocking and, for many at that time, unbelievable.
Kinsey used highly trained interviewers who conducted face-to-face
interviews with the participants, who were all male in the original study.
A later survey was published in 1953 that dealt exclusively with females
(Kinsey et al., 1953). The participants were volunteers supposedly from
both rural and urban areas and from different socioeconomic, religious,
and educational backgrounds. In reality, a large portion of the participants
were well-educated, urban, young Protestants. In Kinsey’s survey results,
nearly half of the men but less than 20 percent of the women reported hav-
ing bisexual experiences. More than three times as many men as women
had intercourse by age 16 (21 percent versus 6 percent). Men were also
more likely to report engaging in premarital sex, extramarital sex, and mas-
turbation than were women. Ten percent of the men and 2 to 6 percent of
the women answering the survey identified themselves as predominantly
homosexual (Gebhard & Johnson, 1979/1998).
Although Kinsey’s data are still quoted in many discussions of sexual
behavior, his original surveys were far from perfect. As stated earlier, the
participants were almost exclusively white, middle class, and college edu-
cated. Older people, those who lived in rural regions, and less educated
people were not well represented. Some critics claimed that Kinsey gave
far more attention to sexual behavior that was considered unusual or abnormal than he
did to “normal” sexual behavior (Geddes, 1954). Also, Kinsey’s surveys were no less sus-
ceptible to the exaggerations, falsifications, and errors of any method using self-report
techniques. Finally, a face-to-face interview might cause some people being interviewed
to be inhibited about admitting to certain kinds of sexual behavior, or others might exag-
gerate wildly, increasing the likelihood of inaccurate data.
THE JANUS REPORT In 1993, Dr. Samuel S. Janus and Dr. Cynthia L. Janus published
the results of the first large-scale study of human sexual behavior since those of Kinsey
and colleagues (1948) and Masters and Johnson (1966). This national survey, begun in
1983, sampled 3,000 people from all 48 mainland states. Survey respondents ranged
in age from 18 to over 65 years old from all levels of marital status, educational back-
grounds, and geographical regions in the United States.
Findings from the Janus Report (Janus & Janus, 1993) differed from Kinsey’s find-
ings, but not extremely so. For example, fewer men reported masturbating in the Janus
Report than did in Kinsey’s study (80 percent versus 92 percent), but the percentage of
women reporting increased from 62 percent in Kinsey’s survey to 70 percent in the Janus
survey. Rates of premarital sex were about the same as in Kinsey’s survey, but men in
the Janus survey reported less extramarital sex than men in the Kinsey survey, while
women’s reporting of extramarital sex was the same in the two surveys. Percentages of
both men and women in the Janus survey reporting as predominantly homosexual were
also very similar to the earlier Kinsey study.
THE NATIONAL SURVEY OF SEXUAL HEALTH AND BEHAVIOR In 2010, researchers from
the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University produced the National
Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (NSSHB). Based on a nationally representative
sample of 5,865 United States adolescents and adults ages 14 to 94, their research
resulted in an extensive and comprehensive overview of sexual experiences and
condom-use behaviors (Herbenick et al., 2010).
Of the males participating in the NSSHB and their sexual behaviors in the past
month, 27.9 to 68.6 percent engaged in solo masturbation. Across age groups, the majority
of males reported masturbating in the last year, with only 14- to 15-year-olds and 70+ age
groups being the exception. For females, 20 percent engaged in solo masturbation during
Alfred Kinsey conducted many of his interviews face to face, as
seen here. How might having to answer questions about one’s
sexual behavior be affected by Kinsey’s presence?