Men, where do you fall on the Kinsey scale of homosexual tendancies?

[BiloxiCouple 695]

Watched a movie/bio on a sex researcher from the 1940/50s called Kinsey. It was shown on HBO. He is also controversial and some of his research will not be accepted. But other parts of his research was interesting and that is what I am focusing on.

 

One question that he asked males was if they had any homosexual thoughts/tendencies. He based his scale on 1-6. One being a straight male with six being a homosexual. I haven't read his book, so I hopefully made a scale that would be close to the one he used.

 

Since submitting an answer to this poll is anonymous, I hope there are some interesting results.

[sexyshelby 19]

Very interesting poll.

 

I work with a gay man and he swears that all men have SOME gay tendencies. I don't necessarily agree with him and we agrue about this all the time.

 

But it will be interesting to see the results of this poll.

[Sweet_Candy 54]

Will come out and say I'm not turned on by same sex acts from either males or females. Sometimes wished I was but I'm not.

[good times 991]

Dito Sweet_Candy, I'm not even turned on by the thought of it.

[TNT 1,155]

Watched that movie too...very interesting and entertaining.

 

Here's a link that has Kinsey's scale...I think you did well aligning your's to match his Billy.

 

https://kinseyinstitute.org/research/publications/kinsey-scale.php

 

Teresa

[Spoomonkey 421]

I've run into the same thing, Shelby, and it is quite annoying. I mean, I can say that I have no interest at all, but of course people can say that I am in denial and really do have tendencies and need an anonymous poll to tell the truth...

 

(As an aside - good poll, Biloxi... I am interested to see where it is going to, so I am not "dissing" your poll.)

 

But, the truth is, I would/could never carry through with anything male on male - nor can I "fantasize" about it without getting a little queasy. I'm just not that way. Nothing wrong with those who are. But why so many need for us straight guys to say we're bi to make them feel better, I'll never know...

 

PS - "Kinsey" was a VERY interesting movie...

[Chicup 41]

Spoomonkey said:

I've run into the same thing, Shelby, and it is quite annoying. I mean, I can say that I have no interest at all, but of course people can say that I am in denial and really do have tendencies and need an anonymous poll to tell the truth...

 

(As an aside - good poll, Biloxi... I am interested to see where it is going to, so I am not "dissing" your poll.)

 

But, the truth is, I would/could never carry through with anything male on male - nor can I "fantasize" about it without getting a little queasy. I'm just not that way. Nothing wrong with those who are. But why so many need for us straight guys to say we're bi to make them feel better, I'll never know...

 

PS - "Kinsey" was a VERY interesting movie...

 

Dito

 

I'd enjoy sex with another male as much as I'd enjoy sex with a dog which is to say, not at all.

[jedi6942 18]

I find that I am interested in a broad (no pun intended) range of women. Big or small, short or tall, any size breast to maybe no teeth at all. (Though, I am espescially fond of large women.) But, I have no personal interest in males! Sure, I'm interested in what they do for my beautiful wife. Just not for me. And I am hard wired that way!

 

Anyone who says that all males have some degree of interest in other males sounds a lot like saying they want to justify or feel better about themselves. IMO.

[BiloxiCouple 695]

I watch too much TV. I can't remember the show, but the information/study went something like this:

 

They took two groups of male after an interview process which calculated their homosexual tendencies.

 

The 1st group was straight and against (for lack of better words) homosexuals.

 

The 2nd group was straight but not against homosexuals.

 

They made both groups watch a homosexual porn movie and measured their reactions to it. The 1st group said they had no reactions to it, while the measurements said they did. I believe the 2nd group had no reactions and the measurements confirmed it.

 

Maybe alot of us are in denial?

 

If you saw the show and my information is wrong please correct it. I don't even remember the show's name.

 

Thanks for the link TNT. Ya'll are great.

[BiloxiCouple 695]

Here is Kinsey's actual scale. Again, thanks TNT.

 

0- Exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual

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

 

Wait till my next interesting thread. I hope it works out to be a good one!

[Spoomonkey 421]

BiloxiCouple said:

Maybe alot of us are in denial?

 

Perhaps...

 

Who knows...

 

This weekend, Mrs Spoomonkey and I went to a party held at the home of some friends. It is a swanky loft downtown. One of our friends is straight - but very metrosexual. One of our friends is gay. There were an even number of straight and gay people at the party.

 

Honestly, I was more uncomfortable with the number of straight singles, but that is a long story.

 

The gay group decided - at about midnight - to leave en mass and go dancing. The gay host came over to thank us for coming and wish us a good night. I gave him a hug and thanked him for having us. He kissed me on the lips.

 

It was not a sexual thing - anymore than it would have been sexual to give a quick peck to any female party hostess. It felt like the natural thing to do - so the quick peck didn't phase me in the least...

 

Nor did it "do anything for me".

 

I am very comfortable with my gay friends - as a few on this board who have hung out with me in my natural environment can attest. One of the lesser reasons that we get along is that they respect my sexuality. I am straight and they don't feel the need to convince me otherwise.

 

I am decidedly not "against" homosexuality - I AM "against" the near militant "push" by some bi-males to try to convince straight males that they are hiding something. That, to me, sings of some needy desperation to justify something that they are internally uncomfortable with themselves.

[Paphian 16]

They took two groups of male after an interview process which calculated their homosexual tendencies.

 

The 1st group was straight and against (for lack of better words) homosexuals.

 

The 2nd group was straight but not against homosexuals.

 

They made both groups watch a homosexual porn movie and measured their reactions to it. The 1st group said they had no reactions to it, while the measurements said they did. I believe the 2nd group had no reactions and the measurements confirmed it.

 

You're right about this study, BiloxiCouple. Read the report on it on the web myself recently (or heard it on the radio, or both, who knows?). It confirmed the hypothesis that those men who have a strong negative reaction to homosexuals appear to be reacting out of fear/denial of their own urges, as you mentioned. That study gave me a pretty good laugh, as it's something that most of the gay friends I've had over the years have always alleged.

 

--------------------

 

I thought Kinsey was a pretty good film. It seemed to me that they needn't have spent as much time on his bisexuality as they did (it struck me as being thrown in more for shock value than being really relevant to the story). The film did do a pretty decent job in showing just how ignorant of (and even hostile to) the normality of many aspects of sexuality that people were, and in just how difficult it was for Kinsey to get taken seriously as a researcher and get and keep funding.

 

I can remember that even when I was a teenager (in the late 60s/early 70s) his books were still considered to be groundbreaking research and nearly the only thing available (if you could even get hold of a copy) that presented sexuality in a non-judgmental fashion. All of us who're out in "alternative sexuality" land--swingers, gays, lesbians, BDSM, whatever--owe Kinsey a huge debt.

[BiloxiCouple 695]

Quote

You're right about this study, BiloxiCouple. Read the report on it on the web myself recently (or heard it on the radio, or both, who knows?). It confirmed the hypothesis that those men who have a strong negative reaction to homosexuals appear to be reacting out of fear/denial of their own urges, as you mentioned. That study gave me a pretty good laugh, as it's something that most of the gay friends I've had over the years have always alleged.

Pahpian - you explained it better than I did on that study. That is what I was trying to get to.

[curiousagain 326]

Well, there was such a study but I have read that orginally it was actually on prison inmates. At the time it was the only group he could study. I imagine the percentage of bisexual men is greater in prison just due to the circumstances and also the more they told him what he wanted to hear, the longer before they had to leave the comfy interview room to go back to their cell or the yard. Scientifically, the study was fucked from the word go.

 

As Kinsey himself states, a random sample is impossible.

 

Without double blind, random samples, and reproducible results, any study is deemed worthless by the scientific community. But, they sell a lot of books and give people something to talk about.

[good times 991]

Spoomonkey said:

The gay group decided - at about midnight - to leave en mass and go dancing. The gay host came over to thank us for coming and wish us a good night. I gave him a hug and thanked him for having us. He kissed me on the lips.

Watch out buddy, I wouldn't know from personal experience, but I have been told, that's how it starts.

[Spoomonkey 421]

curiousagain said:

Well, there was such a study but I have read that orginally it was actually on prison inmates.

 

...and I heard that they found a bloody hook hanging from the passenger side door...

 

I am not saying there is no study out there, but isn't this starting to sound just a bit like an urban legend? I mean - can anyone actually cite the study?

 

And what did they use to measure their reactions? Rapid heart beat? Shifting around in their seats? Agitation? What signs were they looking for? Did the room full of skin head truckers start "shucking corn"?

[Paphian 16]

Spoomonkey said:

...and I heard that they found a bloody hook hanging from the passenger side door...

 

I am not saying there is no study out there, but isn't this starting to sound just a bit like an urban legend? I mean - can anyone actually cite the study?

 

And what did they use to measure their reactions? Rapid heart beat? Shifting around in their seats? Agitation? What signs were they looking for? Did the room full of skin head truckers start "shucking corn"?

 

Here's a study, Spoo (abstract here, from a U of Georgia study, full article not available that I could find in a web search):

 

https://content.apa.org/record/1996-00463-014

 

The device used to measure reactions is a phalloplesthymograph--a device that measures penile tumescence.

 

There was another more recent article about this that I read (and forwarded to a couple of friends) in the past few weeks. Unfortunately, it isn't one of the emails still in my outbox as it had the link which I can't find at the moment.

[Chicup 41]

I watch too much TV. I can't remember the show, but the information/study went something like this:

 

They took two groups of male after an interview process which calculated their homosexual tendencies.

 

The 1st group was straight and against (for lack of better words) homosexuals.

 

The 2nd group was straight but not against homosexuals.

 

They made both groups watch a homosexual porn movie and measured their reactions to it. The 1st group said they had no reactions to it, while the measurements said they did. I believe the 2nd group had no reactions and the measurements confirmed it.

 

Maybe alot of us are in denial?

 

If you saw the show and my information is wrong please correct it. I don't even remember the show's name.

 

Thanks for the link TNT. Ya'll are great.

 

I don't think anyone here is 'against' homosexuals.

 

We are just not interested in having homosexual sex.

 

Big difference there.

[sereneiders 263]

The first link posted here, where you'll find the actual categories for that study, points out that "an individual may be assigned a position on this scale, for each period in his life".

 

The scale also refers to "incidental homosexuality", and I understand this means actual experiences and NOT fantasies. This seems to be a way different study than the other survey where guys were shown a porn movie and measured the reaction... and even such an study doesn't tells too much about fantasies.

 

A serious study should be properly framed, moreover, there should be some ways to reassure you're measuring what you want to measure, and not side effects from unrelated events. This is something very hard to achieve with sexuality: even the researcher is affected, an the lesser prejudice, even the his/her cultural dependence, may distort the setting and the results.

 

It's funny because I have a mix of attitudes regarding the subject that fits both Spoomonkey's arguments to say he's straight like a phone pole, and the supposedly opposing ones by means of which I'd be gay.

 

1) Yes, I had an incidental experience when I was young with another guy (my ass was the one in the line of fire). It took me time to admit to myself I liked the physical experience, but anyway, I was unable to take the emotional aspects, moreover the ones that have to do with my identity and the way I like to perceive myself. So, I may have the physical experience with a lady with a toy, and I am not up to repeat an experience with another guy.

 

2) That experience happened when I was young, so for that period of my life I'd have to say it was an 1 in the scale (incidental experience), but this is known after having the remaining experiences with women, by then it was the only experience I had, so it could have been ranged as 6 in the scale. Since today I am not up to be with another guy, in this period of my life I'd be ranged as 0 in the scale.

 

3) I have homosexual fantasies, perhaps from the memories of the physical feelings I got from that experience: I'd be ranging at, let say, 2. But actually these fantasies are depersonalized: I cannot "match" a face with the character in these fantasies, as soon as I try to do that, the whole fantasy becomes a turn off to the point of being disgusting. So, I may fantasize about a "someone" but cannot do it about some "one": I'd be ranging at 0.

 

4) I tried to watch homosexual porn when trying to understand something about all of this, and I've seen bi scenes in porn, in every case, just watching these guys together gave me that "stomach sick" feeling. I found it disgusting. Even when with gay friends, watching them kiss each other, I have to get rid of my poker face to be polite. I'd be ranging at 0 again.

 

5) About the porn thing, I have to admit this disgusting feelings may come from some stereotyped gay esthetics that porn producers use to stick to (they should know their market), and one of the aspects I have problems with are these esthetics, the feathers stuff, both the claiming for stereotyped female features for males, and the denial of femininity by enhancing the male/macho thing, so I have to suppose my reaction from pron movies are biased by these esthetics, as much as the current "sexual" thing. For example, I dislike these porn even before someone get even naked, in the other hand, it may find myself turned on from the sight of a hung guy... but in a straight porn movie. I'd be ranging at... what?

 

My point is, it seems there's no clear boundaries between fantasies, arousing events, and actual experience: I have homosexual fantasies, I am not aroused from homo-related events (moreover it's a turn off), I had an actual experience where I can set apart the turn-on's and turn-off's, and the later weights way more than the former in the balance.

 

I am with Spoomonkey here... and against his opinion too. In fact, it is pointless to try to define this straight vs. gay thing, making a scale to range graytones doesn't help to make a point.

[NandTfromCA 84]

I've already given my take on this in another thread but, based on the comments and poll, had to jump in here.

 

Anyone should feel comfortable being wherever they are. There shouldn’t be any pressure on “straight” guys to accept a “everyone is a little gay” agenda. On the same note, I’m not sure where the defensiveness is coming from??? Billy posted a poll and discussion topic to find out where everyone stands…what’s the big deal? His post seemed non-biased to me…was he really asking straight men to say they are bi? Maybe I am naïve and that was his agenda from the start.

 

What I read was someone sitting a study that suggests there is a scale people fall in, some 100% hetero and some 100% homo, and others somewhere in between. I will defend that point to the bitter end.

 

• Obviously there a many men, probably the majority, that feel like Spoo and have no inclination to think about or participate in any kind of male/male acts- straight men.
• Obviously there are men who are male/male exclusive- gay men.
• AND whether obvious or not, there are people like me that are between the two ends of the spectrum.

 

Am I straight because I decided it wasn’t for me? Am I gay because I thought about it and even tried it (blowjob)? Do I not even care how you want to label it? I’m going with the later…I am what I am…a guy who LOVES women and sucked a guy’s cock once.

 

The poll doesn’t validate (almost half have either thought about or had minor attempts at male/male) or justify anything. There’s no need for that.

 

The cool thing is that people ARE shades of gray. Keeps life interesting.

[bill&sabrina 22]

Why is it that everytime a poll about bisexuality comes up, the "straight" men have to tell us all how "straight" they are? I have been around the board for about 4 years now, and everytime something is said about male to male contact the same men have to post that they aren't interested in it at all. Who are you trying to convince? Us or yourselves?

[Thrax 384]

bill&sabrina said:

Why is it that everytime a poll about bisexuality comes up, the "straight" men have to tell us all how "straight" they are?

Well, in the case of this thread, men are asked where they place themselves with regard to the choices on the poll. One of the choices is straight, so I don't see any problem with someone explaining why they picked that option.

 

Secondly, as in other threads, there was a comment early on in this one that...

 

sexyshelby said:

I work with a gay man and he swears that all men have SOME gay tendencies.

...and similar things have been posted in first or second person on other threads concerning male bisexuality. Again, if something like that is posted I have no problem with someone discussing and/or challenging the statement by explaining a personal preference, and why his opinion differs with somebody else's. And, to me, that seems to be what happened on this thread and in most of the other threads.

 

I think polls are used to get opinions and engender discussion, and that's what appears to be the case here.

[NandTfromCA 84]

I apologize if I led anyone to believe I would die defending this point. That said, I would be willing to piss some people off, make them uncomfortable, or get ostracized from a group while defending that point. Not that I WANT to do any of those but it’s apparent that I need clarify "bitter end" in this context.

 

For you the question may be black and white, and that’s all good. But it should be obvious that the overall issue is not black and white, and that’s all that was stated in the original post (and emphasized in my previous post).

 

Peace

[Spoomonkey 421]

I think the issue of sexuality is one of a very broad spectrum. There are many shades of gray - but the bookends are, indeed, black and white. I have zero problem with where in that spectrum anyone falls (see my previous post as to my comfort with gay males).

 

My only problem - and as Thrax posted above, this was based on Sexy Shelby's thread about a second hand conversation where the same tired "everyone has some degree of gay" postulate is put forth.

 

The truth is - no I don't - which ruins the argument.

 

I didn't take issue with the original poster until he posted about a study which had ambiguous (at best) findings.

 

To answer the question of Bill&Sabrina - I post to these threads when they become bullshit. In other words, when the idea is put forward that I MUST be in denial or outright lying about my sexuality. I know my sexuality better than anyone.

 

I think people bristle when this "pet theory" is attacked because if it isn't true that all men are "at least a little bi" then that means that not every man is like them and they may be a little bit different.

 

Why that is threatening to them... That I can't figure out...

[sereneiders 263]

I think the misconception here is to believe human behavior (and sexuality) can fit an analogy where these falls at some point of a segment, like having one end black, the other white, and shades of gray in between.

 

If I had to choose an analogy, it'd be the entire color spectrum as it's subjectively perceived by humans, where every primary color can be smoothly mixed with the others, there are no end points, instead a continuous circle (besides the physical fact that there's one end at the red wavelength and another at the violet one, we perceive violet close to red when composing light with colors), and this circle covers a surface when you smoothly mix every color with white and black.

 

Even so, the analogy doesn't fit, but let's give it a chance. To label someone as "straight" or "gay" would be the same than labeling someone as "red" or "blue": without a Pantone chart (that doesn't exist for human behavior), anything that is perceived "red enough" would be called "red", just when the amount of other colors become perceptible to the eye (and everyone's eye has it's own sensitivity), you can say "hmmm... no, that's not red... perhaps orange, a little dark, but not red", while someone else says "come on, man, that's red".

 

I believe that, when someone says "every male have some gay tendencies" it's because he/she's facing the fact of the inaccuracy we have to tell "this is red", I mean, how much shift towards some other color is within tolerance as to tell red from some other color, moreover when there's no such a thing in nature like "something REALLY red", since even the more slight change in the way that thing is illuminated will shift that pure red into something else.

 

Following this analogy, saying "i am not gay, at all", is like saying "i am sure I am red, without even a bit of orange"... and regarding to the colors spectrum... how you, or someone else, can tell?

 

In the other hand, when someone says "every male have some gay tendencies", it's under the supposition that there exist someone "accurate enough" to have "the authority" to tell your color... but that's something theoretical because no one is that accurate. And since we're not talking about painting, but something having to do with our own self appreciation and our identity, it is unacceptable to "give up" such an authority to tell to someone else because hypothetically such a person could exist, so the subjective ways everyone see colors cannot be challenged, and everyone es entitled to say "i am red, no yellow at all" or "i am pale green".

 

And this issue become "bolder" when you shrink the color "labels", for example, turning the picture into a black/white graytone.

 

So, what I actually know is that I don't fit into none of this survey categories, and if someone says that "it's impossible" and for sure "I should fit to one" (disregarding my subjective color sensibility), I'd feel violated.

[NandTfromCA 84]

 

Spoomonkey said:

To answer the question of Bill&Sabrina - I post to these threads when they become bullshit. In other words, when the idea is put forward that I MUST be in denial or outright lying about my sexuality. I know my sexuality better than anyone.

 

I think people bristle when this "pet theory" is attacked because if it isn't true that all men are "at least a little bi" then that means that not every man is like them and they may be a little bit different.

 

100% on board with you. To each their own...accept your inner freak...whatever color it is, and accept that everyone is not like you

[Spoomonkey 421]

 

NandTfromCA said:

100% on board with you. To each their own...accept your inner freak...whatever color it is, and accept that everyone is not like you

 

Exactly! The idea of swinging is simple - HAVE FUN! If you are doing that - who cares what other people are doing or thinking. If it is for you, be about it. If it is not, no skin off your nose. I'd rather share a beer with someone than try to force my personal feelings on them

 

And in the end - if we can all just share a beer - these debates are simply academic...

[viajero 40]

Hi folks,

 

I've been lurking for ages now and never pipe up for any discussion. I love your openness to the subject of sex. I’d like to set things straight or gay or bi about this subject since I’ve read extensively about it.

 

First of all for all the straight men I will say yes there are guys who are all straight. I expect my dad, my brother and my brother-in-laws all fall into that category. I on the other hand do not.

 

I prefer men but lately I’ve been thinking that the ultimate sexual experience would be to do a woman while sucking a man. Now you have to understand that I’ve been almost exclusively gay since I slept with a stunning Brazilian model about 20 years ago and I couldn’t get hard. I had tons of opportunities with very attractive woman and turn them all down. Yet, when I started to get to know a few swingers I started having sexual dreams about woman again. The real thought that turned me on were women who were turned on by guys going at it. Once I realized women could get turned on by who I am it the bi fantasies started to crop up again.

 

Meanwhile I’ve always walked a thin line between the straight and gay world. I’ve had lots of straight male friends who have openly discussed whatever sexual desire they might have. I’ve also found myself having sex with guys who I thought were all straight. I even found many gay men who admit that they would have sex with the right woman if the time were right. The more open people are sexual the more you find they will admit such things.

 

I am not implying that everyone is a little bi. It is just that we constantly heterosexualize everything and bury any thing remotely bi. It is not just heterosexual but many homosexuals who are guilty of this. I’m not talking about homophobia or biphobia, I’m talking about everyone assuming that anyone who is not like them must be a freak. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a homo and hetero erotic component to most (not all) people’s sexuality. For the majority the hetero component dominates. But the stats we see are wrong. If people were open sexual we would probably find at least 50% had some curiosity about the same sex. This seems to be what the results of this poll shows, and most of you are heterosexual.

 

Forgive the gay men who think everyone has a little homo in them. I know without doubt the vast majority of men are either all straight or their bi tendencies are so minor it only comes out in their dream. But I also know that there are far more closet cases anyone can imagine.

 

You guys are great because you talk and explore. I just moved from Miami(where I met swingers for the first time) to a small southern city and let me tell you, it ain’t like that in the bible-belt. Here the effeminate guys are made fun of and the rest marry. Many of the latter cheat on their wives with guys later in life. I’d have to say 8 out of 10 of the non-heterosexual men I meet here have kids either from a current or previous marriage. So yes there are plenty of red blooded heterosexual but there are also a number of closet cases. My guess is 10 to 20% of the population would be gay or bi in a sexual free society. perhaps another 10% or more would have some curiosities and then the curiosities become more and more minor as we move up the scale. 50 to 70 percent have no same sex curiosities and never will. This by the way is how most of your polls end up and I don’t expect any homosexuals participate. Actually I forgot the percent of asexuals. They are presumed to be hetero but sometimes you get the impression most Americans don’t even like sex.

 

Take care all and have an erotic time.