Kinsey Scale Official Test

Kinsey Scale Official Test

About
Research
Collections
Education + outreach
News + Events
Sex FAQs
Support Kinsey

Home
Research
The Kinsey Scale

The Kinsey Scale
Drs. Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and Clyde Martin developed the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale—more commonly known as “The Kinsey Scale.” First published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948), the scale accounted for research findings that showed people did not fit into exclusive heterosexual or homosexual categories.

Creating the scale
The Kinsey team interviewed thousands of people about their sexual histories. Research showed that sexual behavior, thoughts, and feelings towards the same or opposite sex were not always consistent across time. Instead of assigning people to three categories—heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual—the team used a seven-point scale. It ranges from 0 to 6 with an additional category of “X.”

Selected references about the Kinsey Scale

University of Illinois at Springfield, Student Affairs Office. (2009). Continuum of Human Sexuality . [A short non-technical discussion of sexual orientation and the Kinsey Scale.]
Diamond, Milton. (1993). Homosexuality and bisexuality in different populations. Archives of Sexual Behavior , 22(4), 291–310. [Uses Kinsey Scale to standardize and measure later studies’ findings.]
Hansen, Charles E., and Evans, A. (1985). Bisexuality reconsidered: An idea in pursuit of a definition. Journal of Homosexuality , 11(1–2), 1–6. [Provides critique of Kinsey Scale and calls for other measures for bisexuality.]
Kinsey, Alfred C. et al. (1948/1998). Sexual Behavior in the Human Male . Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders; Bloomington: Indiana U. Press. [First publication of Kinsey’s Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale. Discusses Kinsey Scale, pp. 636–659.]
Kinsey, Alfred C. et al. (1953/1998). Sexual Behavior in the Human Female . Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders; Bloomington: Indiana U. Press. [Discusses the Kinsey Scale and presents comparisons of male and female data, pp. 468–475.]
McWhirter, David P., et al. (1990). Homosexuality/Heterosexuality: Concepts of Sexual Orientation . New York: Oxford University Press. [Based on symposium at The Kinsey Institute. Discusses sexual orientation and the current usefulness of the Kinsey Scale. Includes other scales proposed by contributors to this work. One such scale is the Coleman Model of Clinical Assessment of Sexual Orientation.]
Ross, Michael W. (1983). Femininity, masculinity, and sexual orientation: Some cross-cultural comparisons. Journal of Homosexuality , 9(1), 27–35. [Combines the Bem Scale with Kinsey Scale across different nationalities.]
Sell, Randall L. (1997). Defining and measuring sexual orientation: A review. Archives of Sexual Behavior , 26(6), 643–658. [Outlines Kinsey Scale, Klein Scale, and Shively/DeCecco Scale.]
Van Wyk, Paul H., and Geist, Chrisann S. (1984). Psychosocial development of heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual behavior. Archives of Sexual Behavior , 13(6), 505–544. [Adds a family development model to the Kinsey Scale.]

Selected references on other measures of sexual orientation

Chung, Y. Barry, and Katayama, Motoni. (1996). Assessment of sexual orientation in lesbian/gay/bisexual studies. Journal of Homosexuality , 30(4), 49–62. [Critically reviews methods for assessing sexual orientation.]
Davis, Clive M., et al. (1997). Handbook of Sexuality-Related Measures . Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications. [Includes 14 measures of homosexualities, one for heterosexual preferences. There are also related measures for gender, masculinity, femininity, and transsexualism..]
Ellis, Lee, et al. (1987). Sexual orientation as a continuous variable: A comparison between the sexes. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 16(6), 523–529. [Measures sexual orientation in two facets: 1) experience measure; and 2) a fantasy measure.]
Gonsiorek, John C., and Weinrich, James D. (1995). Definition and measurement of sexual orientation. Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior , 25(Suppl), 40–51. [Critically examines how sexual orientation is measured and defined.]
Klein, Fritz, et al. (1985). Sexual orientation: A multi-variable dynamic process. Journal of Homosexuality , 11(1–2), 35–49. [Discusses the problem of lack of clear, widely accepted definitions of heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual].
Read more on the Klein Grid at The American Institute of Bisexuality
Sell, Randall L. (1996). The Sell Assessment of Sexual Orientation: Background and scoring. Journal of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identity , 1(4), 295–310. [Includes review of sexual orientation measures, which are characterized as dichotomous, bipolar, multidimensional, and/or orthogonal.]

About
Research
Collections
Education + outreach
News + Events
Sex FAQs
Support Kinsey

Close Menu

Connect with Kinsey

Twitter
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube

Contact us
Kinsey Institute

Phone: (812) 855-7686
Email: kinsey@indiana.edu
Lindley Hall 305, 150 S Woodlawn Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405

Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections

Phone: (812) 855-3058
Email: libknsy@indiana.edu

Rating | Description
0 | Exclusively heterosexual
1 | Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual
2 | Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3 | Equally heterosexual and homosexual
4 | Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5 | Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual
6 | Exclusively homosexual
X | No socio-sexual contacts or reactions
People at “0” report exclusively heterosexual / opposite sex behavior or attraction. Those at “6” report exclusively homosexual / same-sex behavior or attraction. Ratings 1–5 are for those who report varying levels of attraction or sexual activity with either sex. In the original Kinsey Report studies, the X category designated the group who reported no socio-sexual contacts or reactions in their interviews.
“The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.”
- Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948)
An official Kinsey “test” does not exist, which is contrary to popular belief and many tests across the web. The original Kinsey research team assigned a number based on a person’s sexual history.
Data gathered from the Kinsey interviews has been digitized. The Kinsey Institute makes all related material, including the original notes, available to qualified researchers who demonstrate a need to view them. The institute also allows researchers to use statistical software, such as PSPP or SPSS, for data analysis.
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior of the Human Female (1953) are known collectively as the Kinsey Reports. Together, they sold nearly a million copies and were translated in 13 languages. The Kinsey Reports are associated with a change in public perception of sexuality and considered part of the most successful and influential scientific books of the 20th century.
The Kinsey Scale does not address all possible sexual identities. The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid and the Storms Scale have stepped in to further define sexual expression.
The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid, developed by Fritz Klein, features seven variables and three situations in time: past, present, and ideal. The Storms Scale, developed by Michael D. Storms, plots eroticism on an X and Y axis. This allows for a much greater range of descriptions.
Kinsey, Storm, and Klein are three of more than 200 scales to measure and describe sexual orientation.
“Many persons do not want to believe that there are gradations in these matters from one to the other extreme.”
- Sexual Behavior of the Human Female (1953)
Copyright © 2020 The Trustees of Indiana University on behalf of the Kinsey Institute. All rights reserved. | Copyright Complaints | Privacy Notice | Accessibility Help

Health

Psychology

The Kinsey Scale Test is just option for trying to "measure" your sexuality on a spectrum rather than a binary.

Human sexuality spans too wide a scope to possibly be covered by a single test.

By
Sara Chodosh
|

Published Sep 17, 2021 3:00 PM

This post has been updated. It was originally published on June 25, 2018.
Alfred Kinsey’s spectrum of human sexuality shocked the world when he published it in 1948. His book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male , featured extensive interviews with 5300 people—almost exclusively white males along with a paltry number of racial and ethnic minorities about their sexual histories and fantasies. The second volume, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female , came out five years later and made equally shocking claims about the inner lives of 5940 women, also almost exclusively white.
Kinsey’s ethical standards were questionable, especially by today’s standards—much of his research involved sexual contact with his subjects—but he also introduced the world to an idea that previously had little publicity: Human sexuality isn’t confined to the binary hetero- and homosexual standards ; rather, it exists on a broad spectrum. Today, most people know that as the Kinsey Scale Test (though that’s just one way to measure sexuality). It runs from zero to six, with zero being exclusively heterosexual and six being exclusively homosexual. A seventh category, just called “X,” is often interpreted as representing asexuality.
It’s by far the best-known sexuality scale, both for its creator’s fame and for its simplicity, but it’s far from the most accurate or most helpful. In fact, it probably wasn’t ever intended to be a test for participants to take themselves.
Kinsey and his colleagues (among them, his wife) generally assigned their subjects a number based on the interview they conducted. This may be surprising. Many people, sex researchers included, mistakenly believe it was some kind of psychological test conducted exclusively to determine someone’s sexuality. But in a 2014 journal article James Weinrich, a sex researcher and psychobiologist at San Diego State University, dug back into the original Kinsey reports to investigate and found that only a small portion of Kinsey’s subjects were asked to assign themselves a number on the scale. “It was a self-rating only for those asked the question—those who had significant homosexual experience. Otherwise, it was assigned by the interviewer,” he writes .
Since most people’s score on the Kinsey Scale wasn’t their own assessment, it was more or less based on the subjective decision of the expert conductors. That means those online quizzes purportedly telling where you fall on the Kinsey Scale aren’t official in any way.
But that’s not to say that they can’t be useful. Plenty of people—perhaps even most—question their sexuality at some point in their lives. It’s natural. And it’s equally natural to feel anxious, unnerved, or uncomfortable about having feelings that you’re not sure how to categorize or think about. Society has a plethora of negative judgments for anyone who deviates outside of the cisgendered, heterosexual bucket.
Of course, no one has to fall under specific labels. Many men interviewed for sex research, for example, avoid using the term “bisexual” even if they’ve had multiple sexual encounters with other men. San Diego State’s Weinrich spoke extensively with Thomas Albright, one of Kinsey’s original collaborators, who painted a likely far more accurate picture of how the interviews went and the challenges that the study presented. He wrote that a significant percentage of men in the Kinsey sample self-reported that they had “extensive” homosexual experiences, but when asked to rate themselves (men with homosexual experiences were the only ones asked to rate themselves) would self-identify as a zero (exclusively heterosexual) on the Kinsey scale when first asked. If pushed, they might push that back to a one or perhaps a two even as they acknowledge that they receive oral sex from other men.
While just one example, it highlights some of the inadequacies of the Kinsey Scale and of many other attempts to quantify human sexuality. One is that all answers are self-reported, and so rely on people to self-examine. Another is that there may be a disconnect between the attractions a person feels and the label they identify with. Perhaps they only have romantic feelings for people of the opposite sex, but are sexually aroused by men and women.
All of this intricacy is only magnified when you add the spectrum of gender identity. Transgender people, those identifying as gender-fluid or really anything outside of the traditional binary genders are often left out of these sexuality scales.
If you’re questioning your own sexuality, looking at some of these scales might be helpful in getting you to consider aspects of yourself that you might not think of. And if you’re not yet comfortable confiding in another person, these tests and quizzes may be a way of testing ideas and identities. Probably the healthiest way to explore would be with a psychologist who specializes in sexuality (you can find one here , as well as locate all manner of bisexuality-aware health professionals), but if you’re not ready for that step or can’t afford to see someone, these scales may be of some use.
The oldest and most basic spectrum, the Kinsey Scale is a straightforward numerical scale:
0 – Entirely heterosexual
1 – Mainly heterosexual, little homosexual
2 – Mainly heterosexual, but substantial homosexual
3 – Equally hetero and homosexual
4 – Mainly homosexual, but substantial heterosexual
5 – Mainly homosexual, little heterosexual
6 – Entirely homosexual
X – “have no sociosexual contacts or reactions” (Kinsey didn’t use the word “asexual,” but modern researchers interpret the X this way)
Kinsey and colleagues allowed for intermediate numbers, like 1.5, along the scale in keeping with the idea that sexuality is a smooth spectrum. The Kinsey Scale is nice and simple—and that may make it useful to some—but it also focuses on behavior. Cisgender -women who have some unexplored feelings towards other cisgender -women or towards a transgender -woman may not find a place for themselves on the scale if they’ve never acted on those feelings.
The KSOG tries to remedy some of the nuance that’s not included in the Kinsey Scale. Rather than a single number line, the KSOG is a grid that asks you about sexual attraction, behavior, and fantasies along with emotional and social preferences (and even a few more variables) along a scale from 1 to 7. Importantly, it also asks about these variables in different time scales—past, present, and ideal. (It’s easiest to understand if you take a look at the grid on this page ). Perhaps you have historically thought of yourself as an exclusively straight, cisgender male, but now feel some sexual attraction to men like yourself, though you still feel emotionally attached only to cisgender -women. There’s a place for you on the KSOG. There’s als
Hannah Gross Sex
Nsa Urban Slang
Carmen Perez Nude

Kinsey Scale Official Test

Report Page