In the course of yesterday, I spoke with one of each of the following types of people:
1. A man who has known he was attracted strictly to men since childhood, but who only began telling his closest friends about it at 21.
2. A man who realized he was attracted primarily to men in his mid twenties, to the surprise of none of his friends.
3. A woman who has always known she was attracted only to women.
4. A woman who only dated men until very recently, when she fell in love with a woman.
5. A woman who proclaimed herself a lesbian in high school, but has been with only men in the last decade.
6. A woman who was in relationship with women from childhood through graduate school and a few years beyond, with a boyfriend in between, who now dates a man and loves him.
Naturally the day also brought acquaintance with many, many persons asserting heterosexuality, at least two of which I feel confident have had sex with a person of the same gender at one time or another. My friend's reference to Kinsey was not unexpected. He is (now) gay and we discuss my admiration of Kinsey's insight regularly. What my friend undoubtedly fails to appreciate is that I think Kinsey's insight is only part of the story.
Kinsey said, in brief, that humans do not fit neatly into the categories of heterosexual or homosexual. I don't believe that "bisexuality" was contemplated then. Humans instead fall evenly distributed along a scale. 0 on this scale means entirely heterosexual; 6 means entirely homosexual. A 2, then, is primarily heterosexual with more than a passing interest in persons of the same sex. Kinsey asserted (at least in the movie) that a person's "number" could change over time.
This is insightful for its scientific assertion of what now seems an obvious principle: there is more than just "straight" and "gay." IMHO, straight and gay don't even exist. I formed this opinion long before I knew who Kinsey was, based on personal experience and historical research into times before Christianity and times in spite of it.
The purpose of this narcissistic exploit is to explain why it seems that Kinsey's insight was incomplete and seek feedback on the contours of the complete story. Kinsey (through no fault of his own) lived in a time where men were men and women were women and those terms have very concrete sociological and psychological applications across the human species. They do not. "Male" brains and "female" brains are as fictional as hetero and homo.
Men, it is said, are better at hand-eye coordination and math. Women, by contrast, at language and communication. Yet what of men who are grossly uncoordinated in comparison to particular women? What about "lesbian" soldiers who exhibit all the best characteristics of the ideal male infantrymen, or "gay" men with an uncanny knack for nonverbal communication?
I am female. I like sports (a lot), I'm good at math, I can throw better than at least some men with more accuracy, and I paint my nails religiously. So what of me? I heard once that the only athletic world record held by a woman was long distance swimming, an accolade that the speaker (not this guy) attributed to our comparatively generous body fat percentages. There are obvious evolutionary justifications, of course, for the hunter to be faster than the gatherer. But, a few thousand years of societies that physically and sociologically subjugated women seem to have obfuscated the reality that there is some play in these stereotypes. That play is what's missing from Kinsey's scale, and probably holds the key to explaining why anyone falls where they do.
I'll start with this personal observation: I am generally more attracted to women when I have been working out a lot, particularly when I have been building much muscle.
