Sexual Behavior in the Human Female

Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin, Paul H. Gebhard

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 1998
• ISBN:
  9780253019240
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The groundbreaking Kinsey Report study on female sexuality from "one of the most influential figures in American intellectual history" ( The New York Times ). Originally published in 1953, the material presented in Sexual Behavior in the Human Female was derived from personal interviews with nearly 6, 000 women; from studies in sexual anatomy, physiology, psychology, and endocrinology. The study revealed the incidence and frequency with which women participate in various types of sexual activity and how such factors as age, decade of birth, and religious adherence are reflected in patterns of sexual behavior. The authors make comparisons of female and male sexual activities and investigate the factors which account for the similarities and differences between female and male patterns of behavior and provide some measure of the social significance of the various types of sexual behavior. "[It] shocked the world in 1953 with its explicit revelations. Countries banned it. Churches berated it. Some scholars scoffed... but it was an instant success, selling 270, 000 copies in less than a month... [Kinsey] made headlines around the globe with his findings on such things as masturbation, sex before marriage and adultery."—CBSNews.com

Part I

HISTORY AND METHOD

CHAPTER 1. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

CHAPTER 2. THE SAMPLE AND ITS STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

CHAPTER 3. SOURCES OF DATA

Chapter 1

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The present volume constitutes the second progress report from the study of human sex behavior which we have had under way here at Indiana University for some fifteen years. It has been a fact-finding survey in which an attempt has been made to discover what people do sexually, what factors may account for their patterns of sexual behavior, how their sexual experiences have affected their lives, and what social significance there may be in each type of behavior.

Our first report was based upon 5300 white males whose case histories provided most of the data which were statistically analyzed in our volume, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.¹ The case histories of 5940 white females have similarly provided most of the statistical data in the present volume, but this volume also rests on a considerable body of material which has come from sources other than case histories (see Chapter 2).

Throughout the fifteen years involved in this research, it has had the support of Indiana University, and during the past twelve years it has been supported in part by grants from the National Research Council’s Committee for Research on Problems of Sex. This Committee has been responsible for the administration of funds provided by the Medical Division of the Rockefeller Foundation. The present project is incorporated as the Institute for Sex Research. The Institute is the legal entity which holds title to the case histories, the library, and the other materials accumulated in connection with the research, receives all royalties from its publications, incomes from private contributions and other sources, and is responsible for the planning and administration of the research program. The staff of the Institute has included persons trained in biology, clinical psychology, anthropology, law, statistics, various language fields, and still other specialties. Sixteen persons have served on the staff of the Institute during the preparation of the present volume, and each of these has had a specific part in the making of this report.

We have also had the cooperation of a considerable group of specialists in various fields of medicine, biology, physiology, psychology, psychiatry, statistics, animal behavior, neurophysiology, the social sciences, penology, marriage counseling, literature, the fine arts, and still other areas (see Chapter 2). Some of these consultants have contributed specific data which are included in the present volume, and a number of them have critically guided the interpretations of our findings in areas related to their specialties.

Our accumulation of female histories began with the inception of the research in July, 1938. Throughout the years, female histories have been added at approximately the same rate as the histories of males. It was possible, therefore, to utilize some female data in the preparation of our report on the male, and in the present volume we are now able to compare female and male data. In addition to the 5940 histories of the white females which are summarized in the present volume, we have the histories of 1849 additional females who, because they belong to special groups which we are not yet ready to analyze (pp. 22, 43), have not been included in the statistical analyses presented here. The records from these other females have, on the other hand, considerably extended our thinking, and provided bases for some of the more general statements in the present volume.

This is a study of sexual behavior in (within) certain groups of the human species, Homo sapiens.² It is obviously not a study of the sexual behavior of all cultures and of all races of man. At its best, the present volume can pretend to report behavior which may be typical of no more than a portion, although probably not an inconsiderable portion, of the white females living within the boundaries of the United States. Neither the title of our first volume on the male, nor the title of this volume on the female, should be taken to imply that the authors are unaware of the diversity which exists in patterns of sexual behavior in other parts of the world.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The present study was undertaken because the senior author’s students were bringing him, as a college teacher of biology, questions on matters of sex. They came to him because they hoped that he as a scientist would provide factual information which they might consider in working out their patterns of sexual behavior. Advice on the desirability or undesirability of particular patterns of sexual behavior was available to them from a great many sources; they had found it more difficult to obtain strictly factual information which was not biased by moral, philosophic, or social interpretations.

In attempting to answer some of the questions which these students brought, we drew upon our general understanding of animal biology; but for a larger number of the answers we had to turn to the medical, psychologic, psychiatric, sociologic, and other literatures where one might have expected to find the desired data. In the course of this search, however, we discovered that scientific understanding of human sexual behavior was more poorly established than the understanding of almost any other function of the human body.

There seemed to be no sufficient studies of the basic anatomy or the physiology of sexual response and of orgasm. Both the biologists and the philosophers had confused reproductive function with sexual behavior, and had taken it for granted that the reproductive organs, and particularly the external reproductive organs (the genitalia), were the only parts of the anatomy that were involved with either of these functions. This was little better than the ancient belief which some persons still hold that sexual responses originate in the heart. There are others who locate the function “in the head,” and believe that one may control his sexual responses if he sufficiently “puts his mind to the matter.” In actuality, we now know (Chapters 14–17) that none of these structures—not even the external genitalia—are the organs which are chiefly concerned. Heretofore, in attempting to interpret sexual behavior, we have been as handicapped as one might be if he attempted to understand the processes of digestion before he knew anything of the anatomy of the digestive organs, or attempted to understand respiratory functions without realizing that the lungs and the circulatory system were involved.

Because of the limitations which are usually imposed on any consideration of sex, the scientist has been hesitant to investigate in this area. The average individual’s understanding of these matters has had to be drawn largely from his or her own experience, from the desultory bits of information that could be obtained from a limited number of acquaintances, or from the increasing but still limited amount of information available in medical manuals. Even the clinician’s understanding of the nature of human sexual behavior has had to depend primarily upon his own clinical experience, and no one has been certain how far the behavior of clinical patients may represent the behavior of the population as a whole. Psychologic and psychiatric interpretations have been based on specialized types of patients, and clinicians have usually been more concerned with alleviating their patients’ immediate difficulties, or with redirecting their behavior, than they have with the systematic accumulation of complete sexual histories. The monumental work of Havelock Ellis and of Freud and of still others among the European pioneers did not involve a general survey of persons who did not have sexual problems which would lead them to professional sources for help.

There had been attempts to survey the behavior of non-clinical groups, beginning with Russian studies in the first decade of the present century, and with the studies made in this country prior to 1920 (see pp. 94–96). Case history studies of samples more typical of the general population had been undertaken by Katharine Davis, by Hamilton, by Dickinson, by Terman, and by Landis in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Some of these were excellent studies to which we shall always be indebted because they demonstrated the possibility as well as the desirability of securing sexual data by case history and interviewing techniques. But fifteen years ago the total number of individuals on which our knowledge of human sexual behavior was based was considerably less than the biologist would have considered necessary for an understanding of variation in any other species of animal. The published human material and our own initial exploration made it apparent that variation in human sexual behavior was greater than the variation which was to be observed in human anatomy or physiology; and it seemed apparent that any ultimate appreciation of sexual variation, and an understanding of the factors responsible for that variation, would have to come from extensive series of case histories drawn from diverse segments of the population.

During the past twenty years, there has been a considerable development of sampling theory and of statistical methods of analyzing population data. In consequence, studies in various fields of biology, medicine, economics, and the psychologic and social sciences have increasingly utilized statistical approaches. Persons interested in public health, public opinion, and market surveys have developed practical methods of obtaining extensive human samples (see the footnotes in Chapter 2). We have been able to utilize some of their experience. On the other hand, on the present project we have faced problems which are unique to a sex study (Chapter 2).

Because of the limited opportunities to observe sexual behavior, and because of our need to secure records of events which have taken place over long periods of years, we have had to depend primarily upon case history material for our data. But the information which we have tried to secure has concerned aspects of human behavior which most persons consider confidential and ordinarily do not discuss with any except their most intimate friends. More than that, our openly expressed mores and the statute law (the overt culture) are so remote from the actual behavior (the covert culture) of the average citizen that there are few persons who can openly discuss their histories without risking social or legal difficulties. We have not, therefore, been able to utilize the statistically ideal techniques or the same procedures which have proved applicable in surveys dealing with material less intimate and less complex than human sexual behavior (see pp. 25–31, 58–64 for a discussion of the interviewing and sampling techniques which we have used).

But by guaranteein...