Editing Kinsey Reports (section)

== Criticism ==
Kinsey's statistics in his Reports have been criticized both at the time he published and today. Although Kinsey sought to work on a more complete report involving 100,000 interviews and considered the initial 1948 publication to be a sample progress report, academics have criticized the sample selection and sample bias in the reports' [[methodology]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=10cEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA87 |title=LIFE |date=1948-08-02 |publisher=Time Inc |language=en}}</ref> The main issues cited by researchers are that Kinsey did not use random sampling procedures when collecting his data, that significant portions of his samples come from prison populations and male prostitutes, and that people who volunteer to be interviewed about [[taboo]] subjects are likely to create a [[self-selection bias]]. These issues would undermine the usefulness of the sample in terms of determining the tendencies of the overall population.

=== Statistics ===
In 1948, the same year as the original publication, a committee of the [[American Statistical Association]], including notable statisticians such as [[John Tukey]], condemned the sampling procedure. In a tense meeting with Kinsey, Tukey supposedly declared that even a sample as small as three to five, chosen randomly, would be preferable to hundreds in Kinsey's sample.<ref>Jones 1997, [[Iarchive:alfredckinseypub0000jone/page/658/mode/2up|p. 658]]</ref> In 1954, leading statisticians, including [[William Gemmell Cochran]], [[Frederick Mosteller]], John Tukey, and [[W. O. Jenkins]] issued for the [[American Statistical Association]] a critique of Kinsey's 1948 ''Male'' report, stating:

<blockquote>Critics are justified in their objections that many of the most interesting and provocative statements in the [Kinsey 1948] book are not based on the data presented therein, and it is not made clear to the reader on what evidence the statements are based. Further, the conclusions drawn from data presented in the book are often stated by KPM [Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin] in much too bold and confident a manner. Taken cumulatively, these objections amount to saying that much of the writing in the book falls below the level of good scientific writing.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cochran |first1=William G |title=Statistical problems of the Kinsey report on sexual behavior in the human male: a report of the American Statistical Association committee to advise the National Research Council, Committee for Research in Problems of Sex |last2=Mosteller |first2=Frederick |last3=Tukey |first3=John W |last4=American Statistical Association |last5=National Research Council (US) |last6=Committee for Research in Problems of Sex |date=1954 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Conn. |language=en |oclc=2908863}}</ref></blockquote>

In response, [[Paul Gebhard]], Kinsey's close colleague, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" co-author, and successor as director of the [[Kinsey Institute for Sex Research]],<ref name="nygebhard">{{Cite news |last1=Roberts |first1=Sam |date=2015-07-22 |title=Paul Gebhard, Sex Researcher Who Worked with Kinsey, Dies at 98 |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/us/paul-gebhard-sex-researcher-who-worked-with-kinsey-dies-at-98.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220103/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/us/paul-gebhard-sex-researcher-who-worked-with-kinsey-dies-at-98.html |archive-date=2022-01-03}}{{cbignore}}</ref> cleaned the Kinsey data of purported contaminants, removing, for example, all material derived from prison populations in the basic sample.<ref name="gebhardrelia">{{cite web |author=New River Media |title=NEW RIVER MEDIA INTERVIEW WITH: PAUL GEBHARD Colleague of Alfred Kinsey 1946-1956 Former Director of the Kinsey Institute |url=https://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/gebhard.htm |access-date=May 27, 2017 |publisher=PBS.org}}</ref> (Gebhard had, while working with Kinsey, raised serious concerns about the use of prison populations especially, but had been shot down by Kinsey at the time.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gathorne-Hardy |first=Jonathan |title=Sex the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey |publisher=University of Indiana Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-253-33734-8 |location=Bloomington, IN |page=326}}</ref>) In 1979, Gebhard (with Alan B. Johnson) published ''The Kinsey Data: Marginal Tabulations of the 1938–1963 Interviews Conducted by the Institute for Sex Research''. Their conclusion, to Gebhard's surprise, was that none of Kinsey's original estimates were significantly affected by this bias: that is, the prison population and male prostitutes had the same statistical tendencies as the rest of the men Kinsey interviewed. The results were summarized by historian, playwright, and gay-rights activist [[Martin Duberman]]: "Instead of Kinsey's 37% (men who had at least one homosexual experience), Gebhard and Johnson came up with 36.4%; the 10% figure (men who were "more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55"), with prison inmates excluded, came to 9.9% for white, college-educated males and 12.7% for those with less education.<ref name="MDOG">[http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/publications/duberman.html Martin Duberman on Gebhart's "cleaning" of data] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090111215816/http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/publications/duberman.html|date=2009-01-11}}</ref> 

Kinsey himself was extremely frustrated by the criticisms of his sampling procedures, because he maintained that there was no way to do a successful study about sex using random probability sampling.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Gathorne-Hardy |first=Jonathan |title=Sex the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-253-33734-8 |location=Bloomington, IN |pages=280-281}}</ref> As Kinsey biographer Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy points out, because of the sensitive nature of a sex study, contacting a truly random sample will garner a very high refusal rate--as modern sex studies using random sampling have shown.<ref name=":0" /> If the study is trying to gather information about any sort of population subgroups, as Kinsey was, the small percentages of the population plus the high rates of refusal may make these subgroups effectively disappear, despite their importance to the study.<ref name=":0" />

=== Volunteer bias ===
In the 1950s, [[psychologist]] [[Abraham Maslow]] stated that Kinsey did not consider "[[volunteer bias]]." The data represented only those volunteering to participate in discussion of taboo topics. Most Americans were reluctant to discuss the intimate details of their sex lives even with their spouses and close friends. Before the publication of Kinsey's reports, Maslow tested Kinsey's volunteers for bias. He concluded that Kinsey's sample was unrepresentative of the general population.<ref>Maslow, A. H., and Sakoda, J. (1952). Volunteer error in the Kinsey study, Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 1952 Apr;47(2):259-62.</ref>

The charge of an over-reliance on volunteers is also critiqued in the Gathorne-Hardy biography. ''All'' surveys rely on volunteers.<ref name=":0" /> Kinsey attempted to correct for this by gathering as many "100 percent groups" as he could--that is, collecting all (or nearly all) of the sex histories of a given group that had gathered together for reasons other than sex, such as law societies, sororities, or even a small group of hikers.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Gathorne-Hardy |first=Jonathan |title=Sex the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-253-33734-8 |location=Bloomington, IN |pages=144-147}}</ref> Kinsey would ask the president or leader of the group to agree to an interview, and then that leader's influence would get him an initial batch of volunteers from the group, a second batch who did not want to be seen volunteering but would agree to be interviewed, and then a third batch brought in by, essentially, peer pressure.<ref name=":1" /> While all the participants were still volunteers, he got interviews and thus samples he would not have otherwise gotten. In addition, the groups themselves, though any one was not representative of the population as a whole, provided a random element while encouraging greater participation.<ref name=":1" /> These "100 percent groups" made up about a quarter of Kinsey's overall data.<ref name=":1" />

=== Other criticisms ===
More recent researchers have also criticized Kinsey's sampling methods and believe that he overestimated the frequency of nonheterosexual behaviors and attractions, because the Kinsey Reports show higher frequencies of homosexuality than more modern studies do.<ref name="Lehmiller" />{{rp|147}}<ref name="Bailey16">{{cite journal |last1=Bailey |first1=J. Michael |last2=Vasey |first2=Paul |last3=Diamond |first3=Lisa |last4=Breedlove |first4=S. Marc |author4-link=Marc Breedlove |last5=Vilain |first5=Eric |last6=Epprecht |first6=Marc |date=2016 |title=Sexual Orientation, Controversy, and Science |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301639075 |journal=Psychological Science in the Public Interest |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=45–101 |doi=10.1177/1529100616637616 |pmid=27113562 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Balthazart">{{cite book |last=Balthazart |first=Jacques |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3fjGjlcVINkC |title=The Biology of Homosexuality |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-983882-0 |page=29}}</ref>{{rp|9}} This may be explained in part by Kinsey's interview style, which focused on in-depth conversations with subjects carried out by himself or highly trained members of his team; they emphasized creating rapport with the interviewee and making them feel comfortable and secure.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Gathorne-Hardy |first=Jonathan |title=Sex the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-253-33734-8 |location=Bloomington, IN |pages=283-286}}</ref> Modern interviewers tend to be less thoroughly trained and emphasize scientific detachment, which may make respondents less likely to share sensitive personal details.<ref name=":2" />

It has been suggested that some data in the reports could not have been obtained without collaborations with child molesters.<ref>{{cite book |last=Salter, Ph.D. |first=Anna C. |title=Treating Child Sex Offenders and Victims: A Practical Guide |publisher=Sage Publications Inc |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-8039-3182-4 |pages=22–24}}</ref> The Kinsey Institute denies this charge, though it acknowledges that men who have had sexual experiences with children were interviewed, with Kinsey balancing what he saw as the need for their anonymity to solicit "honest answers on such taboo subjects" against the likelihood that their crimes would continue.<ref name="kinsey-inst">[http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/controversy%202.htm Kinsey Institute statement denies child abuse in study] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130123084849/http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/controversy%202.htm|date=2013-01-23}}</ref><ref name="Welsh-Huggins">{{cite news |last=Welsh-Huggins |first=Andrews |date=September 1995 |title=Conservative group attacks Kinsey data on children |work=Herald-Times |url=http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/1995/09/06/archive.19950906.b0c15bb.sto  |access-date=2008-01-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513184522/http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/1995/09/06/archive.19950906.b0c15bb.sto |archive-date=2013-05-13 |quote=Providing such absolute assurances of anonymity was the only way to guarantee honest answers on such taboo subjects, said Gebhard.}}</ref>

Historian [[Peter Gay]] described ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Male'' as "methodologically far from persuasive".<ref>{{cite book |author=Gay, Peter |title=The Bourgeois Experience Victoria to Freud. Volume II: The Tender Passion |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-19-503741-8 |location=New York |page=447}}</ref>

Sociologist Edward Laumann stated that the Kinsey Reports were limited to the biology of sex and lacked psychological and clinical information and analysis and that this "meant that sex research did not move into the mainstream of academic credibility. People took their reputations in their hands if they attempted to pursue it."<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |date=2003-01-27 |title=50 Years After The Kinsey Report - CBS News |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/50-years-after-the-kinsey-report/ |access-date=2023-11-05 |website=www.cbsnews.com |language=en-US}}</ref> Laumann also acknowledged that "The Kinsey report was a cultural event of enormous consequence."<ref name=":3" />