Alfred Kinsey’s death prevented him from publishing a book on homosexuality as he had hoped. He had collected a large number of case histories from homosexuals and had learned that a large number of people had participated in homosexual behavior in childhood and adulthood. Homosexuality, to Kinsey, was not as “abnormal” as society had thought.
In 1967, a task force was established within the National Institute of Mental Health to examine homosexuality. A total of 5,000 homosexual men and women were interviewed, and 5,000 heterosexual men and women were used for comparison. The interviews contained 528 questions and took 2 to 5 hours to complete. In 1978, Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg published Homosexualities, which explored the results of this study.
Prior to this research, many people believed that homosexuals were sexually irresponsible and had psychological problems that needed to be cured (Bell & Weinberg, 1978). However, Bell and Weinberg revealed that the majority of homosexuals do not conform to stereotypes. They do not generally push unwanted sexual advances onto people, nor do they seduce children. In fact, heterosexual men were found to be more likely to sexually abuse children than were homosexual men. The homosexual community was also found to be similar to the heterosexual community in its types of intimate relationships.