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Sexual Behavior in The Human Mai: Voices From The Past
Sexual Behavior in The Human Mai: Voices From The Past
HOMOSEXUAL OUTLET
894 I Voices From the Past American Journal of Public Health ', June 2003, Vol 93, No. 6
It is ancjther thing if the phenom- nearly half of the population ent section of this chapter, are
enon proves to be a fundamental which has had sexual contacts based on those persons who
part, not only of human sexual- with, or reacted psychically to, have had physical contacts with
ity, hut of mammalian patterns as individuals of their own as well other males, and who were
a whole. as of the opposite sex. Actually, brought to orgasm as a result of
of course, one must learn to such contacts. By any strict defi-
DEFINITION recognize every combination of nition such contacts are homo-
heterosexuality and homosexual- sexual, irrespective of the extent
For nearly a century the term ity in the histories of various of the psychic stimulation in-
homosexual in connection with individuals. volved, of the techniques em-
human behavior has hecn ap- It would encourage clearer ployed, or of the relative impor-
plied to sexual relations, either thinking on these matters if per- tance of the homosexu^ and the
overt Of psychic, between indi- sons were not characterized as heterosexual in the history of
viduals of the same sex. Derived heterosexual or homosexual, but such an individual. These are
from this Greek root homo rather as individuals who have had cer- not data on the number of per-
than frcm the Latin word for tain amounts of heterosexual ex- sons who are "homosexual," but
man, the term emphasizes the perience and certain amounts of on the number of persons who
sameness of the two individuals homosexual experience. Instead have had at least some homo-
who arei involved in a sexual re- of using these terms as substan- sexual experience. . . .
lation. The word is, of course, tives which stand for persons, or In these terms (of physical
patterned after and intended to even as adjectives to describe contact to the point of orgasm),
represent the antithesis of the persons, they may better be used the data in the present study in-
word heiterosexual, which applies to describe the nature of the dicate that at least 37 percent of
to a reltLtion between individuals overt sexual relations, or of the the male population has some
of different sexes. . .. stimuli to which an individual homosexual experience between
It is amazing to observe how eroticaily responds. the beginning of adolescence
many psychologists and psychia- and old age. This is more than
trists have . . . come to believe PREVIOUS ESTIMATES one male in three of the persons
that homosexual males and fe- OF INCIDENCE that one may meet as he passes
males aj-e discretely different along a city street. Among the
from persons who merely have Satisfactory incidence figures males who remain unmarried
homosexual experience, or who on the homosexual camiot be ob- until the age of 35, almost ex-
react sometimes to homosexual tained by any technique short of actly 50 per eent have homosex-
stimuli. Sometimes such an inter- a carefully planned population ual experience between the be-
pretation allows for only two survey. The data should cover ginning of adolescence and that
kinds of males and two kinds of every segment of the total popu- age. . . . TTiese figures are, of
females, namely those who are lation. . . . In order to secure data course, considerably higher than
heterosexual and those who are that have any relation to the real- any which have previously been
homosexual. But as subsequent ity, it is imperative that the cases estimated. . . .
data . . , wiU show, there is only be derived from as careful a dis- We ourselves were totally un-
about half of the male population tribution and stratification of the prepared to find such incidence
whose sexual behavior is exclu- sample as the public opinion data when this research was orig-
sively heterosexual, and there are polls employ, or as we have em- inally undertaken. Over a period
a few percent who are exclu- ployed in the present study. . . . of several years we were repeat-
sively hcimosexual. Any restric- edly assailed with doubts as to
tion of tlie term homosexuality to INCIDENCE DATA IN whether we were getting a fair *
individuals who are exclusively PRESENT STUDY cross section of the total popula-'
so demands, logically, that the tion or whether a selection of
term heterosexual be applied The statistics given through- cases was biasing the results. It
only to those individuals who are out this volume on the incidence has been our experience, how-
exclusivfily heterosexual; and this of homosexual activity, and the ever, that each new group into
makes no allowance for the statistics to be given in the pres- which we have gone has pro-
ONE OF THE |VK)ST INaUENTIAL barked on a massive and metlcu^ tercourse, and the techniques of
A m e r i c ^ of flie 20th century, bus Darwinian case study of the contraception, as were h^ ^irited
Alfred Charles Kinsey conducted evolutionary taxonomy of the denunciations of repre^ive laws
vided substantially the same THE HETEROSEXUAL- an intermediate position be- sex is correlated with various
data. Whether the histories were HOMOSEXUAL BALANCE tween the other groups. It is im- physical and mental qualities,
taken in one large djy or an- plied that every individual is in- and with the total personality
other, whether they were taken Concerning patterns of sexual nately—inherently—either which makes a homosexual
in large cities, in small towns, or behavior, a great deal of the heterosexual or homosexual. It is male or female physically, psy-
in rural areas, whether they thinking done by scientists and further implied that from the chically, and perhaps spiritually
came from one college or from laymen alike stems from the as- time of birth one is fated to be di.stinct from a heterosexual in-
another, a church school or a sumption that there are persons one thing or the other, and that dividual. It is generally thought
state university or some private who are "heterosexual" and per- there is little chance for one to thai these qualities make a ho-
institution, whether they came sons who are "homosexual," that change bis pattern in the course mosexual person obvious and
from one part of the country or these two types represent an- of a lifetime. recognizable to any one who
from another, the inddence data titheses in the sexual world, and It is quite generally believed has a sufficient understanding
on the homosexual have been that there is only an insignificant that one's preference for a sex- of such matters. Even psychia-
more or less the same..,. class of "bisexuals" who occupy ual partner of one or the other trists discuss "the homosexual
896 I Voices From the Past American Journai of Pubiic Hesith | June 2003, Vol 93, No, 6
VOICES FROM THE PAST
Research Council and the Rocke- tained many revelations about parents enshrouded ' , , •NY: Oxford LTriiversity Press; 1999:
feller I'oundation, which allowed sudi matters as women's niastur- sex in shame, heaping •944-949.
him to ^lire research assistants, batory practices, premarital sexu- more than enough guilt on 2, DuBois W,K-R, UePhiladelphia
expand the geographic scope of ality, and orgasxmc experiences. young people to mangle Negro: ,4 Sodal Study. New York. ^FY:
and twist them. This was Benjamin Blom; 1899,
his work, and found the Institute As before. Kinsey doaimented particularly tiue for those 3, Hoffman FL, Race Traits and Ten-
of Sex Research at Indiana Uni- an enojTiious gap between social like Kinsey who aspired dencies of the American Negro. New
versity in 1947, attitudes and actual practices. but failed to achieve moral York. NY: American Hranomu: Assoda-
In Jajuiary 1948, Kinsey and Also as before, the book was a perfection. His great ac- lion; 1896,
complishment was lo take 4, RampersHti A. DiiBois, WilUam Ed-
his collaborators published Sex- media sensation, but thLs time his pain and suffering and ward Blir^hartit, In: narraty JA, ed. Dic-
ual Behavior in the Human Male, the counterattack was so fen)- use it to translbnn hiinself tionary of American Biography. Siippl 7,
the souixe of the excerpt cious—including a congressional into an instroiment of,so- 1961-1965, New York, NY:'charles
reprinted here. It made the best- investigation of his finandal sup- cial reform, a secular evan- Scribiicr's Sons; 1981:200-205,
seller list within 3 weeks, despite port-that the Rockefeller Foun- gelist who proclaimed a
new sensibility about
its 804 pages, generally dry sd- dation terminated its fiinding. human sexuality ^'^'"' •
entific style, and ponderous Kinsey's health deteriorated
weight of statistics, tables, and under the strain of public attack
graphs. By mid-March, it had and uncertainty about the future ... Theodore M. Brown
sokl 200000 copies, Tbe book. of his institute. He suffered from ' ' "' [ ' Elizabeth Fee
based Oil over 5000 sexual his- heart disease and, after a brief
tories, provided a series of reve- hospitalization for pneumonia,
lations about the prevalence of died in Bloomington on August About the Authors
masturbation, adulterous sexual 25, 1956. In his own mind, his Theodore M. Brown is with the Depart-
tnents oJHistory and of Community and
activity, and homosexuality. One prindpal legacy was to have Preventive Medicine al the Unii-ersity of
religious leader attacked Kinsey brought sdentific rigor to the Rochester. .WY, Elizabeth Fee is with the
for puljlishing "the mcst anti-reli- study of human sexuality. But as History of Medicine Division. National
library of Medicine. National Institutes of
gious book of our times,""' Some his biographer James H, Jones Health, Bethesda. Md.
criticize(J his methods (and con- points out. Kinsey was not only a Requgstsfor reprints shoidd be sent to
clusions) because of inadequate sdentist; he was a reformer who Theodore M. Brown, Phi). Depaiiment of
History, University/of Rochester, Rochester,
sampling techniques; others ex- sought to rid himself of his per- NY 14627 (e-mail: theodore.bmm©
travagantly praised him as an- sonal sexual demons, while at u rmc. rochester. edu).
other Galileo or DarwirL the same timerevolutionizingthe ThL"; contribution was accepted
October 9, 2002.
Kinsey's next major project repressive sodety in which he
was Sexual Beha\'ior in the had grown up:
Human Female, published in
His formative years were 1. HoitTC.WE,B, DuBokIn:
1953. Biased on almost 6000 spent in a home and in a Garraty JA. Carnes MC, eds, American
sexual histories, this book con- nation where many middle- Natiomil Biography. Vol <i. New York,'
personality" and many of them that there are persons in the ual histories, both homosexual and goats. Not all things are
believe that preferences for sex- population whose histories are and heterosexual experience black nor all tilings white. It is a
ual partners of a paiticular sex exclusively heterosexual, both in and/or psychic responses. There fundamental of taxonomy that
are merely secondary manifes- regard to their overt experience are some whose heterosexual nature rarely deals with discrete
tations of something that lies and in regard to their psychic experiences predominate, there categories. Only the human mind
much deeper in the totality of reactions. And there are individ- are some whose homosexual ex- invents categories and tries to
that intangible which they call uals in the population whose periences predominate, there force facts into separated pigeon-
the personality, . .. histories are exclusively homo- are some wbo have had quite holes. The living world Ls a con-
The histories which have sexual, both in experience and equal amounts of both types of tinuum in each and eveiy one of
been available in the present in psychic reactions. But the rec- experience, . . . its aspects. The sooner we learn
study make it apparent that the ord also shows that there is a Males do not represent two this concerning human sexual
heterosexuality or homosexual- considerable portion of the pop- discrete populations, heterosex- behavior the sooner we shaU
ity of many individuals is not an tilation whose members have ual and homosexual. The world read! a sound understanding of
all-or-none proposition. It is true combined, within their individ- is not to be divided into sheep the realities of sex, , . .
June 2003. Vol 93, No, 6 i American Journal of Public Health Voices From the Past I 897
VOICES FROM THE PAST
SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL species. That patterns of betero- tutional inmate with a homosexual as those of the rest of the social
IMPLICATIONS sexuali^ and patterns of homo- record, are involved in behavior level to which they belong. It is
sexuality represent leamed be- tbat is not fundamentally different not a matter of the individual
In view of the data which we havior which depends, to a From that bad by a fotirth to a hypocrisy whichleads officials
now have on the incidence and considerable degree, upon the third of all of the rest of the popu- witb homosexual histories to be-
frequency of the homosexual, and mores of the particular culture in lation, the activity of the single in- come prosecutors of the bomo-
in particular on its eo-existence which tlie individual is raised, is a dividual acquires a somewhat dif- sexual activity in the commu-
with the heterosexual in the lives possibility tbat must be thor- ferent social significance.... nity. They themselves are tbe
of a considerable portion of the oughly considered before tbere Tbe difficulty of the situation victims of the mores, and tbe
male population, it is difficult to can be any acceptance of tbe idea becomes still more apparent public demand that they protect
maintain the view that psycho- that homosexuality is inherited, when it is realized that these those mores. As long as there
sexual reactions between individ- and that the pattem for each indi- generalizations conceming the are such gaps between the tradi-
uals of the same sex are rare and vidual is so innately fixed that no incidence and frequency of ho- tional custom and the actual be-
therefore abnormal or unnatural, modification of it may be ex- mosexual activity apply in vary- havior of the population, such
or Ihat they constitute within pected within his lifetime.... ing degrees to every social level, inconsistencies will continue
themselves evidence of neuroses to persons in every occupation, to exist....
or even psychoses... . SOCIAL APPLICATIONS and of every age in the commu- The homosexual has been a
The very general occurrence nity. The police force and court significant part of human sexual
of the homosexual in ancient ... Social reactions to the ho- officials who attempt to enforce activity ever since the dawn of
Greece, and its wide occurrence mosexual have obviously been the sex laws, the clergymen and history, primarily because it is an
today in some cultures in which based on the general belief that a business men and every other expression of capacities that are
such activity is not as taboo as it deviant individual is unique and group in the city which periodi- basic in the human animal. •
is in our own, suggests that the as such needs special considera- cally calls for enforcement of
capacity of an individual to re- tion. When it is recognized tbat the laws—particularly the laws
spond erotically to any sort of the particular boy who is discov- against sexual "perversion"—
stimulus, whether it is provided ered in homosexual relations in have given a record of inci-
by another person of the same or school, the business man who is dences and frequencies in the
of the opposite sex, is basic in the having such activity, and the insti- homosexual which are as high
898 I Voices From the Past American Journal of Public Health | June 2003, Vol 93, No. 6