By: Joseph Kramer Ph.D.
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female: A ReviewBy Joseph Kramer, Ph.D
Early in the 21st century, I had the opportunity to read both of Alfred Kinsey’s studies on human sexuality. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) is divided into three parts. Part one describes the history and methodology of the study. Part two explores the various types of sexual activities that females engage in. And part three compares the data on female sexuality with the data on male sexuality.
This study starts with a statement of intention: this is a "fact-finding survey" attempting to discover what women do sexually, how their "sexual experiences have affected their lives" and "what is the social significance for each type of behavior." (p 3) Most of the data in this volume comes from interviews with 5940 white women. Additional sources of data are diaries, original art and fiction, letters and other correspondence. The bases of statistical breakdown and analysis are discussed. These are generally the same as in the Male study except in two realms. The breakdown by social group takes into account the profession of both the respondent and her husband. But the most significant statistical difference has to do with the reporting of orgasm. The Kinsey Male study reported numbers of ejaculations. Since "a considerable portion of the female's sexual activity does not result in orgasm...statistical calculations throughout the present volume have shown, wherever the data were available, the incidences and frequencies both of the female's sexual experience and of her experience in orgasm." (p. 45) What follows is data on the sexual activity among human females.
Pre-adolescent Sexual Development. Kinsey's statistics show that some girls are capable of adult-like orgasms before adolescence and even as infants. "There is no essential aspect of the orgasm of an adult which has not been observed in the orgasms which young children may have." (p. 104) Most pre-adolescent girls who discovered orgasm did so through masturbation (86%). Only about half of girls engaged in what John Money calls "sex rehearsal play" before the onset of adolescence. Kinsey found that there was slightly more homosexual behavior in the respondents' prepubescent play which he attributes to cultural restrictions against heterosexual contacts. Kinsey suggests that "socio-sexual play" helped girls adjust sexually as they got older. He did report that girls who were discovered and punished for their sexual play experienced negative effects in their adult adjustments.
Twenty-five percent of Kinsey's respondents reported sexual episodes with older males who had come on to them. Kinsey found that 80% of girls had been "upset or frightened" by these contacts. He theorizes that the major "abuse" comes from the environment rather than from the actual physical contact. "It is difficult to understand why a child except for its cultural conditioning, should be disturbed at seeing the genitalia of other persons, or disturbed at even more specific sexual contacts." (p. 121)
Masturbation. Masturbation is the sexual behavior that most often results in a woman's orgasm (95% of incidences.) In pre-married woman, masturbation is second in frequency to petting and in married woman it is second in frequency only to coitus. Kinsey again emphasizes that humans are animals by reporting on masturbation in female mammals. He reports that devoutly religious women masturbated much less that those who were not religious. The techniques most respondents used focused mainly on clitoral and labial manipulations (84%) but also included thigh pressure, muscular tension, breast and nipple manipulation, and vaginal insertions. Some 45% of woman reached orgasm in less than three minutes; another 25% of woman reached orgasm somewhere between four and five minutes. Kinsey felt a woman's ability to orgasm quickly in masturbation was "important information on her basic sexual capacities. ( p. 164) Kinsey further suggests that lack of orgasmic experience with masturbation can affect adjustment to coitus. (172)
Perhaps the most insightful statements in this chapter concern Freud and the psychoanalytic tradition whom Kinsey criticizes for putting a new veneer on the old medical proscriptions against masturbation. These doctors know that masturbation causes no physical harm but they have introduced new sources of psychological distress "by rating the activity infantile, immature, and a personality defect which merits psychiatric attention when it occurs in an adult." (p 170)
Nocturnal Sex Dreams. Approximately 65% of the woman in this study have had sex dreams and 20% have had orgasm with sex dreams. Married women have a higher incidence of sex dreams than single women and previously married women have an even higher incidence. Kinsey again notes that religious devotion affects even sex dreaming. "Fewer of the females who were active or devout religiously had dreamed to the point of orgasm--perhaps because they had had the smallest amount of overt sexual experience about which they could dream." (p. 205) The researchers found that sex dreams can be correlated with high levels of erotic responsiveness and the ability to have multiple orgasms.
Pre-marital Petting. Kinsey writes that petting is behavior in adults that would be characterized as "sex play" if the contacts were "among mammals and among children of the human species. (p. 228) Researchers found that women engaged in pre-marital contacts an average of two times a month in the group aged 15 to 35. Among all women who had petted, frequencies to orgasm were "remarkably uniform...5 to 10 times per year." (p. 241) This reflects poorly upon male petting techniques. Again Kinsey suggests petting as a source of positive premarital sexual adjustment.
Pre-marital Coitus. Although 64% of women in this study had experienced orgasm before marriage, only 17% of the total orgasms these women experienced came from sexual intercourse. Kinsey attributes this low figure to the legal and moral condemnation of intercourse before marriage. In responding to moralists of his day who asserted "that premarital intercourse always brings psychologic disturbance and lasting regrets, " (p. 316) Kinsey found that 69% to 77% of women reported "no regrets" about pre-marital intercourse. This was true even in cases that resulted in pregnancy. Devoutly religious women indicated high levels of regret. Again, Kinsey found that orgasmic ability in pre-marital coitus highly correlated with orgasmic ability in marital intercourse.
Marital Coitus. Some 25% of the study's respondents never experienced orgasm during intercourse in the first year of their marriage. About 10% of woman never orgasmed during intercourse during their entire marriage. Marital coitus showed the greatest decline in frequency of any sexual practice. Kinsey blamed this decline on the male partner. "This pattern is certainly controlled by the male's desires." (p. 353). Intercourse within marriage is a sexual activity that is sanctioned by most religions, so it is not surprising that "the accumulative and active incidences of marital coitus were essentially the same among all of the groups of females in the sample, irrespective of their levels of religious devotion." (p.360). One hundred percent of females had used the male-above position for intercourse; 9% had used that position exclusively. Some 45% had used female above, 31% had used side-entry, 15% had used rear entry, 9% had used sitting positions (a favorite position with couples practicing Tantric sex) and 4% had used standing positions. (p. 400). Kinsey lays the foundation for the contemporary sex education industry with his statement: "More expert males have learned to bring their wives to a number of orgasms in their coitus, before they allow themselves to ejaculate for the first time." (p. 376)
Extra-marital Coitus. The researchers note that males are basically non-monogamous, but that females are basically monogamous. These positions are supported by observations of other mammals and by anthropological observations of other cultures. About a quarter of all respondents have had extramarital intercourse. This activity peaks in women between 36 and 40 years old. Women who have had extra-marital intercourse wanted or considered more of this activity than women who have never had extra-marital intercourse.
Homosexual Behavior. The researchers begin by asking why everyone doesn't engage in all possible sexual behaviors since "there is nothing known in the anatomy and physiology of sexual response and orgasm which distinguishes masturbatory, heterosexual, or homosexual reactions." (p. 447) The term "homosexual" only describes the sources of the sexual stimulation. Homosexual behavior is largely engaged in by single and, to a lesser extent, previously married women. The cumulative incidence increases with age, and unlike other sexual activities, greater variations in behavior are found in older age groups. Some 13% of women have experienced orgasms in a homosexual context and 28% report some homosexual response by the age of 45. Devoutly religious women had far fewer homosexual experiences. The techniques used in sexual contact parallel the techniques used in heterosexual petting.
But the males in heterosexual petting seldom stimulated their partners to orgasm. Kinsey says, "Homosexual contacts are highly effective in bringing the female to orgasm." (p. 467)
Animal Contacts. Only one woman in eighty has had sexual contact with an animal after puberty. Nearly all of these contacts were with dogs and cats. One percent of women have fantasized animal contacts during masturbation.
Kinsey et al. end part II of this study with a summary of the sources of total sexual outlet. Total sexual outlet is defined as sexual contacts and sexual responses which have led to orgasm. Kinsey acknowledges that there are sexual responses that don't lead to orgasm. He then breaks down the total sexual outlet demographic factors for single females, for married females and for previously married females.
Part III of this study Comparisons of Female and Male is actually an extraordinarily brilliant attempt on Kinsey's part to educate his reader in the anatomy, physiology, psychology , neurology and endocrinology of human sexual behavior. He compares the sexuality of men and women in each of these areas.
Anatomy. The skin and its touch receptors are the chief physical receptors of sexual response. The human male and female have similar physical sexual capacities. In fact, the penis and the clitoris are very close in the numbers of sensory nerves. Although the male often thrusts and the female often receives in coitus, "the differences in aggressiveness of the average female and male appear to depend upon something more than the differences in their genital anatomy." (p. 592) The vagina is of little significance to the woman as far as tactile stimulation is concerned. However, the mouth, the buttocks, the perineum and inner thighs are very sensitive and erotic areas for both men and women. Kinsey ends this chapter by stating, "..we conclude that the anatomic structures which are most essential to response and orgasm are nearly identical in the human female and male." (p. 593)
Physiology. The sexual response and the physiology of orgasm is made up of a complex of physical responses which are basically uniform throughout mammals and in male and female humans. Kinsey says "this is surprising, since orgasm appears to occur only infrequently among the females" of the human animal. (p. 640).
Psychological Factors. Kinsey here explains his understanding of the influence of learning and conditioning upon sexual response and orgasm. Although he acknowledges early erotic experiences as being foundational, he writes that "it is incorrect to minimize the importance of all except childhood experiences in the development of adult patterns of behavior." (p. 643). The emphasis here is on the tremendous variation possible because of psychological factors. For example, males are excited by seeing female genitals and even their own genitals, but females are not excited to the same degree seeing male genitals. Kinsey reports that females are more easily distracted during coitus than males. In fact, this section explores 33 realms where males are more influenced and conditioned by sexual experience than females.
Neurological Factors. Sexual arousal is a total body phenomenon mediated by the human animal's neurology. Because the human neurology is one connected system, stimulation of any part of the body affects the rest of the body. The researchers examined the similarities between arousal and orgasm and the emotion reactions of fear and anger. Arousal and orgasm were even compared to epileptic seizures. The evolved cerebrum of the human contributes to the ability to be stimulated psychologically and also increases the potential for conditioning. Cortical damage interferes with responses to pyschosexual stimuli as well as motor conditioning and sexual aggressiveness; perhaps the cortex, the researchers suggest, is responsible for some of the sexual differences observed between human males and females.
Hormonal Factors. Kinsey ends this study with a survey of hormonal influences on sexual responsiveness. Hormones do affect both the intensity and the frequency of the sexual response, but Kinsey warns that "there is no demonstrated relationship between any of the hormones and an individual's response to particular sorts of psychologic stimuli, an individual's interest in partners of a particular sex, or an individual's utilization of particular techniques in his or her sexual activity." (p.761)
Critique of Kinsey
This student of sexology was conceived during the time Kinsey was interviewing the women in this study. In other words, this writer emerged from the sexual culture that Kinsey was chronicling. For that reason, he read this study as if it part of his family history. This writer's mother is an extremely devout Catholic, attending mass everyday of her life. It was disheartening to read again and again the deleterious effects of such religious devotion on female sexual response and orgasm.
Certainly, Kinsey had problems with the limited population that he interviewed. He did omit all interviews with women who were incarcerated from his study because he found out that prison populations skewed the data in his male study. This left him with a more educated population with about half of the woman having attended college. A significant problem with this study's population was that the respondents were all white. The only positive result of the omission of black, Hispanic and other women of color from this study is that white people in America did not attribute any of Kinsey startling sexual statistics to non-white ethnic women. In Kinsey's book America learns what white women do sexually. Perhaps a better and more descriptive title of this study might have been Sexual Behavior in White, Educated American Females.
As a body-based sexologist, this writer paid special attention to Kinsey's information on touch. This study rightly emphasized the erotic significance of the clitoris while reporting almost no sensations in the walls of the vagina or on the cervix. This writer was enlightened by the information that the labia minora may have more nerve endings than any other skin-covered part of the body. Kinsey even writes "As sources of erotic arousal, the labia minora seems to be fully as important as the clitoris." (p. 577) Kinsey rightly differentiates between tactile stimulation and erotic stimulation in such areas as the anus and buttocks. This distinction is actually true of the whole body. One could be savoring the sensuality of touch--even touch on the penis or vulva--without sexual arousal.
The most surprising information Kinsey presented on touch is that as one is more sexually aroused, one becomes less aware of tactile and other sensory stimuli. "All of our evidence indicates that there is a considerable and developing loss of sensory capacity which begins immediately upon the onset of sexual stimulation." (p. 613) This erotic body worker certainly has experienced this within the context of giving thousands of erotic massages. Men and women in my experience become less conscious of gentle caresses and other touch nuances once arousal has taken hold in their bodies. Part of this writer's teaching is for humans to stay equally aware of both the tactile and the erotic.
In Part III of Sexual Behavior in the Human Female Kinsey reached his apex as an educator with chapters on the anatomy and physiology of sex. After interviewing over ten thousand men and women, he was painfully aware of the lack of basic sexual information available to the American public. These chapters were not statistical analyses of men and women's sexual behaviors. These essays contained the best scientific information available in 1953, but they were not composed as dry, academic writing. Kinsey's tone seems to break loose into poetic prose. Here, he seems to be celebrating sexuality rather than reporting on it. If any part of Kinsey's research could be called erotic writing, it is the chapters on anatomy and physiology at the end of Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. If you are going to tackle this book, I recommend starting at the end.
Kinsey, Alfred C., Wardell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin, and Paul H. Gebhard. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Philadelphia and London: W. R. Saunders Company. 1953. pp. 761.