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Free the Kinsey 3! Sorry. The Kinsey scale, created in the 1940s by Alfred Kinsey, rates sexual experience and response to individuals - men and women, and then classifies that according to the sex of the subject on a homosexual to heterosexual scale. It looks like this:
| 0 | Exclusively heterosexual |
| 1 | Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual |
| 2 | Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual |
| 3 | Equally heterosexual and homosexual |
| 4 | Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual |
| 5 | Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual |
| 6 | Exclusively homosexual |
It's been used since it was published to visualise sexuality, erase bisexuality and allow people to talk utter rubbish.
Re-working it as an identity scale doesn't work because people generally do this:
| 0 | Exclusively straight |
| 1 | Predominantly straight, only incidentally gay |
| 2 | Predominantly straight, but more than incidentally gay |
| 3 | Bisexual |
| 4 | Predominantly gay, but more than incidentally straight |
| 5 | Predominantly gay, only incidentally straight |
| 6 | Exclusively gay |
...which makes no sense - if 3 is bisexual then why do 1 and 2 reference 'gay' instead of 'bisexual'?
When Kinsey drew up the scale he was looking at sexual experiences of individuals - an different-gender sexual act was a point for heterosexuality, a same-sex one was a point for homosexuality. Consequently the scale is about gender and sexual experience, not identity - everything from 2 to 5 is bisexual in those terms:
| 0 | Exclusively straight |
| 1 | Predominantly straight, only incidentally bisexual |
| 2 | Predominantly straight, but more than incidentally bisexual |
| 3 | Bisexual |
| 4 | Predominantly gay, but more than incidentally bisexual |
| 5 | Predominantly gay, only incidentally bisexual |
| 6 | Exclusively gay |
...but this then gets into another trap - "true" or "proper" or "real" bisexuals are at 3. The amount of attractions can be based on so many things, and this just looks at gender. Is a person less bisexual because they're primarily attracted to long hair, and it's mainly women who have long hair in western society? We say no.
We think of sexuality as being a bit like the English Channel - if you set out from Dover then it doesn't matter how deep the water is beneath you; you can't start towelling yourself off until you get to Calais. And even if you're only dipping your toes in you will still get wet!
| 0 | Exclusively straight |
| 1 | Bisexual |
| 2 | Bisexual |
| 3 | Bisexual |
| 4 | Bisexual |
| 5 | Bisexual |
| 6 | Exclusively gay |
...because the Kinsey Scale is not about sexuality or identity or labels, it's about statistically analysing a person's sexual history by number of incidents.
The whole "Are you 50:50?" idea has a number of other problems:
The Klein Grid attempts to revise the scale, but falls into the same trap of using a single scale to reference attraction, implying that the amount of attraction to one diminishes as the other increases. And it's fiendishly complicated, so it may well be useful if you're doing a survey of 1000s, but it's completely useless if you're comparing identity labels down the pub.
Don't worry about being a Kinsey 3, or a 'true' or 'proper' or 'real' or 'technical' bisexual. Don't worry that you sleep with more of one gender than another.
If you are attracted to more than one sex, you are bisexual. If you recognise that about yourself, why not identify as bisexual!
I am not a number! I am a free bisexual!
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