This Scale Divides Sexual Identity Into 7 Categories: Do You Fall Into One?

"The scale was created as a way to 'measure' someone’s sexual orientation beyond simply heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual, based on a spectrum-like scale where 'exclusively heterosexual' was on one end and 'exclusively homosexual' on the other," explains Anne Hodder-Shipp, multi-certified sex and relationships educator and founder of Everyone Deserves Sex Ed.

At the time, Kinsey’s research found that most people fell somewhere between the two, Hodder-Shipp notes. This, and much of Kinsey’s research, was considered subversive and groundbreaking for its time.

That said, today the scale is considered to have some limitations, both in terms of its ability to accurately represent the vast array of experiences of sexuality and because it excludes non-binary folks. Not everyone will feel like they fit into one of these seven categories, and that's OK.

The Kinsey Scale was named after Alfred Kinsey, who is widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant sex researchers, according to sexologist Carol Queen, Ph.D. It's no stretch to say that without his work, today’s sexual landscape would look very different and less diverse.

Kinsey, who was an entomologist, was hired at Indiana University to teach sex education, but there wasn't much to draw from. So, with the help of a team of grad students, he began doing his own research, much of which ultimately changed the world of sexual education and understanding.

The Kinsey Scale was developed in an attempt to show how sexual orientation (specifically, heterosexuality and homosexuality) existed on a continuum, or spectrum. A common misconception today, Queen adds, is that “Kinsey was trying to codify a binary way of looking at sex. This is ahistorical, though."

"People did think in binary, either/or terms in those days to a significant degree,” she notes, but adds: “Among other things, the Kinsey scale illustrates how significant bisexuality is since everything in the middle of the scale could be called bisexual.”

As mentioned, the Kinsey scale is used to categorize a person’s sexual attraction between exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. The scale runs from zero to six and includes an additional category labeled X, which attempts to represent asexuality.

Here’s what each label represents:

The Kinsey scale emphasizes the existence of bisexuality and the many ways a person can experience it in its categories one through five. Kinsey's research at the time found 37% of the men interviewed had some kind of same-sex experience between adolescence and adulthood, and this number jumped to 50% for unmarried men by the age of 35. Among women, 13% had a same-sex experience. This data was groundbreaking for its time and made it clear that human sexuality was vast.

“It really helped make bisexuality visible, as well as helping bring homosexuality out of the closet. In my day (the '70s, when I came out), the gay movement very openly acknowledged its debt to Kinsey,” Queen says.

The Kinsey scale “maintains the sex and gender binary,” Hodder-Shipp points out. Describing people’s behavior as exclusively some mix of “heterosexual” or “homosexual” depicts gender and sex in binary terms, making the Kinsey scale less useful for those who are non-binary. Some trans and intersex people may also find these categories limiting, not fully nuanced enough, or exclusionary.

The scale wasn’t intentionally meant to exclude these groups of people, Queen notes; it is in many ways an artifact of its time, and language to describe gender diversity was simply in its infancy at the time the scale was developed. 

The Kinsey Scale focuses on behavior rather than identity. So rather than describing how much a person identifies as heterosexual or homosexual, it describes how heterosexual or homosexual their pattern of sexual behaviors has been. This distinction matters a lot to some people: for example, a lesbian who only came out later in life may largely have a history of having sex with men, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t a lesbian. 

According to Queen, Kinsey didn't think it was appropriate to use orientation terms as anything but adjectives—he did not want us to use these words to define ourselves, but so far he has lost that battle with history, she says. "Still, when we think about why he felt so strongly, it might point to the fluidity of identity, or the way people can engage in all sorts of behavior that doesn't match their 'label,’ and when we look at our history of behaviors and attractions, those are really useful insights.”

In general, many people today argue that the scale can feel like an oversimplification of how many people experience sexual attraction. “Though it did technically create new sexual orientation 'categories,' the scale still simplified sexual attraction in ways that can feel arbitrary and even confusing,” Hodder-Shipp says.

"Like, what does it mean to be 'incidentally' homosexual or heterosexual? Where do I fall on the Kinsey scale if I’m not really heterosexual but also definitely not homosexual? What if I feel lovey-dovey feelings toward pretty much any gender, but only sometimes feel sexually attracted to one gender?" 

The Kinsey scale was incredible and ahead of its time, but in many ways, it may not quite fit how we talk about sexuality and sexual identity today. It's not a one-fits-all situation, and you absolutely don't have to fit or identify within the Kinsey scale.

If you do find yourself identifying with the parameters set in the scale, Menezes suggests "taking what you love and leaving the rest."

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