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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Confused pseudo-science,
By
This review is from: Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men & Women (Paperback)
As Paul Gebhard notes in his preface to this book, "Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men & Women", represents the fulfillment of Alfred C. Kinsey's wish to publish a study of homosexuality as a follow-up to his two works on sexual behavior ("Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female"). Kinsey collected a large number of homosexual case studies, but died before he was able to analyze the data. The Kinsey Institute focused its attention on homosexuality again late in the 1960s, and this study, based on a survey done in San Francisco and published in 1978, was one of several that were produced as a result. Unfortunately, Alan P. Bell and Martin S. Weinberg, its authors, have a confused and fundamentally incorrect understanding of homosexuality, one which appears to be based on mistaken scientific assumptions they inherited from Kinsey.In a peculiarly-worded footnote on page 35, explaining their criteria for classifying people as "homosexual", they write, "In reality, the ratio of homosexuality to heterosexuality in individuals' sexual behavior and feelings varies infinitely, but for statistical purposes it was obviously necessary for us arbitrarily to distinguish between 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual' respondents. Respondents were therefore assigned to one or the other group based on their self-ratings on the seven-point Kinsey Scale, which ranges from 'exclusively heterosexual' (a score of 0) to 'exclusively homosexual' (a score of 6)...If a respondent's score with respect to feelings, added to his or her score with respect to behaviors, amounted to 4 or more, he or she was assigned to the 'homosexual' group." In other words, Bell and Weinberg are trying to maintain both that, A. There is no objective, scientifically valid way of classifying people as "heterosexual" or "homosexual" and, B. That they can nevertheless do a study of "homosexuals", one with (presumably) meaningful and valid results. In fact there is no obvious reason why there cannot be objective criteria for classifying people as "heterosexual" or "homosexual", but if Bell and Weinberg are right and no such criteria can exist, they have no business doing a study of "homosexuals"; one cannot at one and the same time assert that "homosexuals" do not really exist and that it is possible to study them, at least not without making oneself look utterly ridiculous. Bell and Weinberg seem to consider their findings important, but if criteria for classifying people as "homosexual" can only be arbitrary, it is hard to see how their findings can be anything but meaningless - different criteria might have produced different results, and there would then be no way of deciding which set of results was more accurate or showed us the "truth" about homosexuality, a serious matter when scientific findings about this subject can have political consequences. It is possible that Bell and Weinberg might have got more or less the same results from their survey whatever the criteria they used, but that doesn't get them off the hook, since in the absence of objective criteria for classifying people as "homosexual", it could be impossible to compare their findings to those that might be produced by future surveys or decide which are more accurate. This is why I've given "Homosexualities" a one star rating. I'd give it a zero-star rating if I could - it deserves it due to its sheer illogic.
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