User:SkylarSmith/sandbox

A heterosexual to homosexual rating scale produced by Alfred Kinsey along with his colleagues Wardell Pomeroy and Clyde Martin in 1948. The scale was developed as part of a theory that Americans experience diverse sexual practices that do not necessarily fit in an extreme view of the heterosexual or homosexual sexuality binary. The horizontal scale ranges on a 0-6 continuum from exclusively heterosexual (0) on the left-hand side to exclusively homosexual (6) on the right-hand side with five steps in between. A zero on the scale indicates an individual with exclusively heterosexual interests. A one on the scale indicates an unintentional homosexual experience encouraged by curiosity or alcohol. A one could also indicate a forced homosexual interaction. A two on the scale means that an individual has homosexual and heterosexual feelings, however, the heterosexual feelings outweigh those of the homosexual. A three indicated that the individual had no preference to heterosexual or homosexual feelings. A four, five, and six on the spectrum mirrored the respective zero, one, and two. An X-Category was established for those individuals that did not have any sexual feelings. The chart is a basic scale depicting sexuality solely based on answers received by male and female interviewees asked over five-hundred questions. Kinsey's model consisted of a male and female volume. He found that homosexual experiences among men were present in nearly half of the respondents.

The problem with the Kinsey scale is that it does not account for a lot of the sexualities that fall under the idea of queer nor does it account for gender identities. The scale is extremely linear with only a limited number of systematic steps and it only has two extremes. The scale, based on a self-evaluation, is indefinite and subject to change over time. Because of this, Kinsey believed that we should develop a way to assign a position on the scale at each point in the person’s life making a person closer to death having more justifiable scores. The human sexuality spectrum is more effective in how it depicts individuals as non-binary in terms of sexual feelings. The Kinsey scale provides measurable data which the human sexuality spectrum is not able to do.

This scale has been further defined by other researchers. One such example is that of Michael Storms who, in 1980, created a sexuality scale including an x and y axis. . Expanding scales and research allows for less one dimensional labeling.