Sexuality is a term many would describe
as who someone is attracted to.
Personally, this is still an extremely broad definition. To me, I would add more to this meaning. I would continue to say, that sexuality is also
the state of sexual influence and how much a person is concerned with being
sexual. Sexuality is a word that can be
defined many different ways, and it can also be tested through a means of many
different scales. Each scale will most
likely focus on a specific component of sexuality, making them all unique,
beneficial, and quite possibly accurate.
However, one of these scales is quiet interesting.
The
Kinsey scale is a spectrum that determines where an individual is orientated
based on heterosexual and homosexual relations.
This scale was developed in 1948 by a group of researchers who wanted to
break the social-norm that classified people as either strictly heterosexual or
strictly homosexual[1]. When learning about the process the Kinsey
team went through with gathering data, I found it admirable since society, at
that time, had a lack of interest and knowledge about the true understanding of
sexuality. A dedicated scientist was in
the minority and he wanted to help overcome societal bounds, and ended up
deepening the intelligence of a man and a woman’s sexual behaviors. 
Even
though the scale was created over sixty years ago, the relevance and importance
it possesses are still applied to people today.
Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and Clyde Martin truly grasped a
significant topic and made it vital that society know about their learnings[2]. From 1948 to the modern day, the Kinsey scale
is much more accurate than the gender binary.
The gender binary is a narrow classification that places a person on a
masculine or feminine side and does not consider anything in-between[3]. The Kinsey scale reinforces that individuals
do not have to fit into the gender binary, but rather they can prosper freely
as an “in-between.” The Kinsey scale was
assembled in a difficult period when dealing with sexuality. However, the scale that was created shows
that society normally falls within a heterosexual/homosexual range regardless
of the time period, and without the discovery of the Kinsey scale, the gender
binary could have been the main scale used today.
[1]"The
Kinsey Institute - Kinsey Sexuality Rating Scale." The Kinsey Institute -
Kinsey Sexuality Rating Scale.
http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-hhscale.html (accessed April 15,
2014).
[2]
"The Kinsey Institute - Kinsey Sexuality Rating Scale." The Kinsey
Institute - Kinsey Sexuality Rating Scale.
http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-hhscale.html (accessed April 15,
2014).
[3]
Moore, Crystal. “The Role of Sex and Gender in Sexual History.” Lecture.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, January 14, 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment