I'm coming out as an aspiring two. Let's say 1.68.

I'm a solid five.

Might as well ask where broccoli falls on the periodic table.

Teach me, pup.

I actually was researching this a bit, I wanted to get my facts, er, straight. I was surprised that Kinsey had no formal tests, just went from reported behaviors and thoughts.

Teach you what, rainbaby? You coming over to the other side?

0 - a big fat zero

I'm a 2, I suppose.

I don't understand what incidentally, or "more than incidentally," heterosexual/homosexual means. What's the difference?

I'm probably about a 1.5.

0.7

I'd have said I was a two, but I haven't had enough real life experience to justify that, apparently, hence the paging mudpuppie.

Yeah, mudpuppie, it seems to be based on actual experiences (incidental/exclusive/more than incidental) than thoughts feelings or desires. All the little sites I looked at used the same language.

Whatever. I talk about it in the play I'm in and looked it up real quick to make sure I knew what I was saying.

But all the sweet, great guys on metachat puch me up to a 1.3

Incidentally.

Maybe I had better change my answer to a (1) one, because, well, just because...

MP: A person like me - I think I might be the incidental they refer to. Example: I have no overt interest in women, but if a beautiful and intelligent woman made a pass at me, I would more than likely consider it, but would probably pass. That's just how I read that statement.

Actual experiences. Now you say.
Well that would be #####EXCEPTION ERROR: INT0;######

*Feeling smug now because the only people to get that joke would probably be the same people I'm poking fun at*

Well, there are a lot of things that can't be covered by a number, obviously.

I mean, there's who you're attracted to physically. This could be one or both sexes. There's who you connect with emotionally. Also could be one or both. There's who you enjoy having sex with. One or both. There's who you enjoy dating/being in a relationship with. (One or both.) Then there's who you think you'll end up with as a life partner. I think that one's less fluid for most people. A Kinsey 1 or 2 might fool around with a person of the same sex, but I'm guessing that they pretty much always picture themselves ending up with someone of the opposite sex.

I'm one of the classically born-gay people. Tried the man thing. Didn't work for me. It seems really unlikely to me at this point in my life that I'd ever date a guy, but unlikely isn't the same thing as impossible.

Just thinking aloud here. I find it interesting. Haven't had good old soul-searching exploration of sexuality issues since I did the whole coming out thing 15 years ago.

I thought it meant you've had incidental sexual contact with the same/other sex, getoffmylawn. By your standards, my number would be above two. But what counts as contact, and where do your fantasies come into play? Seems like awfully soft science.

Whoops! In one isolated incident, I awoke in the wrong bed at boarding school! My ROOMATES!!!

I don't know what it means, seanyboy, but you're making me laugh.

Rainbaby writes: I thought it meant you've had incidental sexual contact with the same/other sex...

I think so too, and in the spirit of oversharing... I have had incidental sexual contact with other women before, but it's just not my preference, but if I thought she was a absolutely fabulous person, I would consider regardless of her gender.

-e^iπ

What's "incidental" sexual contact, then? And what makes it more than incidental? I still don't get it.

+ or - infinity

about a 2

2, meaning I am recreationally bisexual but could not fathom coupling with another male, and even that side of me is deeply dormant, bein' married and all. . .

Eleven. It's not even funny.

No matter how often I recalculate, it keep working out to -1 for me. Yep, an open asexual. If I reproduce, it'll be by division.

I'm right around a 1, maybe a 1.5 when I'm feelin particularly lonely (see, it's women like mudpuppie that push me towards 2, and that's what makes me a 1, get it?)

(at my undergraduate frosh orientation, they had 7 of the directors sit at the front of a room, and we had to guess where each of them placed themselves on the scale (there was one of each!) I think I got 5/7 - pretty good, huh?)

5.5

"Yeah, mudpuppie, it seems to be based on actual experiences (incidental/exclusive/more than incidental) than thoughts feelings or desires. All the little sites I looked at used the same language."

From a scientific rigor standpoint, you can understand why. A better scale would attempt to quantify actual inherent sexual orientation independent of experience. Well, actually, the best would be to put it in two dimensions and consider both.

But you've got to get good data on this, and just getting truth about how people have actually behaved is hard enough, much more so what's going on inside their noggins.

I'm a 1, I suppose. If this were an orientation, not experience scale, I'd probably be a 0.5 or something. And if it were, I'd prefer that I were a 3. Alas, I'm not.

I think an orientation "value" would be something that discovers the relative probabilities of someone being both romantically in love and sexually in lust with someone of a particular sex. I think we correctly distinguish between love and lust but that sexual orientation is precisely the conjunction of the two. And, as I think about it, the disjunction of the two may be a sort of fourth type of major sexual orientation (hetero, homo, bi, and disjuncted) when relatively extreme. Mild disjunction is just a minor characteristic of the major three.

With this scheme, which I've just invented as I type this comment, believe it or not, there would then be these variations possible:

Hetero conjunctive

Hetero romantic disjunctive
Hetero erotic disjunctive

Bi conjunctive

Bi hetero-romantic disjunctive
Bi homo-romantic disjunctive
Bi hetero-erotic disjunctive
Bi homo-erotic disjunctive
Bi hetero-romantic/homo-erotic disjunctive
Bi homo-romantic/hetero-erotic disjunctive

Homo conjunctive

Homo romantic disjunctive
Homo erotic disjunctive

True hetero-romantic/homo-erotic disjunctive
True homo-romantic/hetero-erotic disjunctive

(The undifferentiated hetero and homo disjunctions are denominated in the opposite orientation direction. For example, homo romantic disjunctive indicates a general tendency to both love and lust the same sex but with a slight romantic affiliation with the opposite sex.)

On that scale, I'd be very slightly hetero erotic disjunctive.

...see, it's women like mudpuppie that push me towards 2...

Hee hee!

I think I'm just disjunctive in general this summer, not towards anyone in particular.

experiences? Around a 1.

I'm definitely at least a 2. percentage-wise, I'm 90/10 hetero-majority.

I'm a firm believer that you can't say you're truly straight until you at least follow up once on any same-sex action that's nagged at you.

One-point-fivish.

This is a bit tangential, but my favorite quote about bisexuality is...

["bisexual"] We prefer the term "best suited to appreciate the X-files" - it's less clinical.

Dull as it is, I am also a big zero.

Why are people apologizing for being hetero? It's like apologizing for having brown eyes. Be comfortable with what you are.

Also, I don't this scale takes into account that different parts of people's libidos get awakened at different points in their lives, which throws a monkeywrench into things.

The scale as an index of how we position ourselves in the spectrum "right now" doesn't take that into account, but Kinsey noted that our place in the spectrum may change over time, it's mentioned in the article actually. Characterizing that movement as a monkeywrench out of the gate is detrimental in my opinion (a view which is held from tracing my own arc, I'll admit).

Well, the other question is: Is orientation based of behavior or simply desire?

Nah, I am not apologizing, I am just saying it's dull. It's like eating only one flavour of ice cream I guess. Well, maybe eating only one brand of ice cream? There is certainly lots of variety available in the hetero world.

I am just saying it's dull

well, if it feels dull to you, maybe you aren't as 100% het as you think.

0 for me. I would call what I feel for others of my gender agape rather than eros, not sure how that would change the number.

If this is an objective scale, then it has to be purely behavioral. Which makes sense, since subjective space is so prone to suggestion and the like.

jonmc, my friend, I think that it's been covered in the discussion here as well as highlighted in the article (and no doubt acknowledged by the people at Kinsey as well as many other thoughtful sex / gender researchers) that the answer to your other question is not a matter of simply one or the other but is likely a both/and operation. I feel compelled to suggest that you knew this, of course, and that the complexity of the issue was your point.

A scale that is behavioral in its own orientation can be of use to sex/gender research when, as I believe as this one does in its overall research context, it acknowledges the difficulties of recording the intensity and directionality of desires not acted upon, and seeks to record what is verifiable and quantifiable instead. That people lie at times when interviewed (particularly about "sensitive" topics) is also a sociological given, and as such, I'm as skeptical about the overall results of any research program which doesn't pursue more varied ways to define and solve the problems as the next person.

In other words, that you appear to take umbrage with the scale is cool with me, I'm a skeptic too, but your rhetorical stance that presents your point as if they haven't thought of the issues does your intelligence a disservice.

// end grumpy rant

fork, my man, I'm not really upset about the scale, just sort of spitballing theories in my head. My knowledge of psychology ended with psych 101 in my sophomore year of college, and my knowledge of Human Sexuality is more [cough]practical than theoretical, so I occasionally may be I may be less knowledgeable than some.

It's cool, and I'm sorry for the grumpitude, it's because I know that you are smarter than what you were presenting and because you got a, ahem, handle on the sex thing that I was just like:...awww, jon come on and get with the good stuff!

And, I felt like the OP was more in the spirit of the latter part of the article, in particular:

Because there is no test or quiz that categorizes people on the Kinsey scale, those who are interested in it can simply take a look at the continuum and consider where they might place themselves, with the understanding that your own placement might change over time. You may feel like a "Kinsey 2" at this point in your life only to find later on that you feel more like a "Kinsey 3". Or something completely different.