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The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States

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I am not a sexual scientist nor a professional survey taker, but I am very comfortable with statistics, data gathering and analysis as used in statistical process and machinery control. I purchased S. O. S. for use as an unbiased source of statistics on male/female couples sexual practices, preferences and fantasies. Unfortunately this survey and report are not that unbiased source.
Throughout this book the authors make reference to the political opposition to this survey. Those politicians and others opposed fear that if the survey shows that a certain sexual act is common (and it's something they personally feel is wrong) then that will encourage others to do it. I have come to realize the extent and far reaching effects of this pressure.
My first hint of something wrong was the use of entirely bogus figures to calculate the preference match of receiving and giving oral sex (page 166). Their calculations showed only 9% of couples where both partners liked giving and receiving oral sex. The calculation using the real statistics (taken from their own tables on page 162) shows a 60% agreement mutually enjoying oral sex.
When I found more things like this, missing data, unreported group statistics, unlabeled graphs not described in text, and some unbelievable statistics, I finally went to the questionnaire in the appendix. WOW, I could not believe my eyes. They were not guaranteeing confidentiality. In fact, they were taking personal information to positively identify not only the test taker, but the NAMES of all sexual partners, ALL. I don't know about you, but that would inhibit my responses. Privacy, confidentiality and security are easily accomplished and absolutely necessary for a survey of this kind of sensitive subject.
While cruising the questionnaire I realized that much of the missing data had actually been asked, just not reported in the tables and text of the book. Since I was having to check and double check any statistic that I wanted to use, I came across another very dishonest method to deceive. If you want to prove something that really isn't true, you can make your false statement then use something different as proof passing it off as the same thing. Example: page 135 - Table stating only 2% of women use a vibrator. The question asked to prove this was - "Have you purchased a vibrator in the last 12 months?" Aunt Girdie who purchased her Hitachi Super-O vibrator 20 some years ago and used it every day would not be counted. Hmmmm!
The discrepancies I found involved oral sex, masturbation, anal sex, and sex under 18 years of age. There could be problems in the other stuff, but I got tired of looking.
Conclusion: There were some good people involved in this survey (the data to prove most of these faults were buried but still in the data). The censorship of the Adolf Hitlers of our country showed throughout. The weak willed university management and project directors sold their souls (probably to obtain further monies in future contracts). I expected so much more. This survey infuriates me since it could (and should) be so much more.
If you believe that more than half of the men and three fourths of the women in the U. S. do not like RECEIVING oral sex, then this book is for you (page 166).

We have adopted this title as a textbook for our Social Aspect of Human Sexuality course. In addition to our sexuality course, I use data from The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States for my courses in Social Statistics and Research Methods. I note the importance of employing random sampling by contrasting this data to data collected found in Shere Hite's The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality (#06963).

The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States is clearly a scholarly book. The authors also published a volume for the general public entitled: Sex in America: A Definitive Survey. This title includes nearly the same information. However, it is much more readable, but doesn't included all the scholarly details.

At this point in time, it is not likely that readers can find a more comprehensive study on human sexuality.

I am not a person of scientific stature or training. I am a relatively skeptical person. The writers of this piece of work describe the problems that ran with the initial setting up of the survey, political/religious issues that influenced the survey among other items. The survey renders their own faults in reccomending further work in specific populations. You have to read the book to learn about which populations were not represented. It is still a fairly broad look at what happens in surveys on this topic among others. We must remember...All people lie about Sex. I still believe that this book does open some interesting door for conversation on sex and surveys.