When Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues, authors of the most significant and trend-setting sex survey in 20th century America, discussed sexuality knowledge in the introductory chapter of their first research volume (Kinsey et al., 1948, pp. 21-34), they indicated that “a sex library.. . would have to cover materials drawn from practically all of the following fields” (p. 22) (see Table 1). Not all work in such a library would have equal value, however, if the goal is a true understanding of sexuality. Kinsey felt that most of the “inexhaustible” literature about sexuality failed to present an “objective, scientific approach” (p. 21), and that most could not pass the crucial test of valid generalizability. “Thousands of individual sex histories. . . contributed materially. . . but none of the authors of the older studies.. . had even an approximate knowledge of what average people do sexually” (p. 34). Kinsey and his colleagues proposed that their “fact-finding survey… to discover what people do sexually” (p. 3) would provide valid, generalizable answers because it would be “a taxonomic study of the frequencies and sources of sexual outlet among American males[7]” (p — 23).
Kinsey, a zoologist, viewed the taxonomic method as the gold standard of validity, and devoted four and a half pages (1948, pp. 16-21) to describing its value. Asserting that “problems in social fields involve the understanding of a whole species” (p. 18), he claimed that
modem taxonomy is statistical in its approach. … It is, precisely, the function of a population analysis to help in the understanding of particular individuals by showing their relation to the remainder of the group. Given the range of variation, the mode, the mean, the median,
[etc.], the clinician can determine the averageness or uniqueness of any particular person, (p. 20)
Thus, although Kinsey was aware of the tremendous quantity of knowledge on sexuality emanating from the diverse points of view represented in Table 1, he affirmed the value of only a few previous studies
TABLE 1
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Contents of Kinsey’s Hypothetical Complete Sex Library
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TABLE 1 (Continued)
Household implements Architectural designs Symbolism Music
Note. From Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948, pp. 22-23.
which are (1) scientific, (2) based on more or less complete case histories, (3), based on series of at least some size, (4) involving a systematic coverage of approximately the same items on each subject, and (5) statistical in treatment. (1948, p. 23)
The preference for statistical (quantitative), controlled, objective, and operationally rigorous studies, whether taxonomic or not, was hardly unique to sex research methodology. Their value is proclaimed throughout psychology and other areas of social and natural science, and they make important assumptions, which I will discuss later. Just for the moment, think about the familiar phrase in point (4) above—“the same items on each subject,” and think about all that is packed into the term same. Yet there is a special attraction for these methods within sex research because of the peculiar political problems related to the subject matter.