Comments on: Today in History: Kinsey’s “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”

By: Jim Burroway

Jim Burroway — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:35:21 +0000

Ron,

I’ve dug around, and it looks like you’re correct. I’ve updated the post accordingly.

Thanks.

By: Ron Suresha

Ron Suresha — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:56:32 +0000

Re “According to the Kinsey Reports…”
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/Articles/000,024.htm

Glad to see that you have taken note of Kinsey’s Male Report anniversary.

I’m the editor of an anthology commemorating the 60th anniversary of Kinsey’s Male Report, planned for publication as a double issue of the Journal of Bisexuality this October and a possible trade edition.

I regret to inform you that the date in your article is incorrect. SBHM was released on January 5, 1948, according to the Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, James Jones, and Wardell Pomeroy biographies of Kinsey.

In any case, thanks for noticing the significance of the date, and please keep up the good work.

By: Suricou Raven

Suricou Raven — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 01:10:43 +0000

Emily: Thats easy. The claim is incorrect. And Kinsey never made it. Its commonly attributed to him, but he never said it, and none of his research claims it.

More modern surveys put the figure at various lower points, ranging from 3% to 6%.

Speaking of survey flaws, I saw a good one today… a website poll on ONN asking people how much of their income they give to charity. Response optional. Anyone else see the bias in this one?

By: a. mcewen

a. mcewen — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 00:04:20 +0000

if i can throw something out here -

isn’t it contradictory for anti-gay industry groups to accuse Alfred Kinsey of faulty research but then use books produced by the Kinsey Institute to demonize gays.

The Family Research Council has a “study” that lists the Kinsey Institute’s book Homosexualities as one of its sources.

By: Randi Schimnosky

Randi Schimnosky — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:25:45 +0000

Jim, surely with 12000 interviews one can select 1000 or so to have a statistically significant and representative sample for use in drawing generalizations – it should be relatively easy to exclude prison interviews and so on that skew the all inclusive data set.

By: Jim Burroway

Jim Burroway — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:24:45 +0000

I don’t know if you read According to the Kinsey Report, but I detail some of the Kinsey Reports flaws there. In fact, most social conservatives are correct when they say the Kinsey Reports are flawed from a statistical representative standpoint. They are not statistically representative of the US population.

As for the 10% figure, I don’t have anything online that rebuts or supports that figure. That will have to wait for a future report.

By: Emily K

Emily K — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 07:04:12 +0000

Jim, do you have any rebuttal to the social conservatives’ declaration that Kinsey’s studies are flawed, and that his “10% gay” result is incorrect?