First published by sex researcher Alfred Kinsey and his team in 1948, the Kinsey Scale can serve as a useful model for illustrating that bisexuality applies to a wide spectrum of attraction patterns. Each number on the Kinsey Scale represents a point along a spectrum, determined by the balance between same-sex (homosexual) and opposite-sex (heterosexual) behaviors an individual reported. “0” represents exclusive heterosexuality and “6” exclusive homosexuality. Although Kinsey himself preferred not to think in terms of identity, everything in between those two extremes represents bisexuality — people with both heterosexual and homosexual attractions and/or behaviors.
The Klein Grid:
In 1978, psychiatrist and sex researcher Dr. Fritz Klein developed the Klein Grid in order to better illustrate the complexity and nuance of human sexuality. Like the Kinsey scale, the Klein Grid is not meant to “diagnose” or provide a definitive label or number on anyone's sexuality. Instead, the Klein Grid is a model intended to help people see their sexuality more holistically. Klein expanded the concept of the Kinsey Scale to include past experiences and future desires in order to highlight sexual fluidity, that is to say, the many ways in which a person's sexuality can evolve and change over time. He also added social and psychological dimensions in order to account for the fact that sexuality is about far more than just sexual intercourse.
While the concept of sexual orientation was invented in the mid-1800s, it took almost a century for anyone to attempt to document the diversity of human sexual behavior in a quantitative way. Pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey and his team created a paradigm shift in public attitudes about sexuality with their unflinching account of real-life human sexual behavior published in the Kinsey Reports (1948, 1953). Since that time, researchers have proposed hundreds of sexuality scales, with new models appearing every year, each an attempt to reframe sexuality to better capture current trends or emphasize the researchers' priorities. But, like the concept of sexual orientation itself, older models have endured for a reason — they're relatively simple. Human sexuality is as diverse as humanity itself and neither lends itself to capture in narrow categories, nor does it always conform to the ideals of moralists, philosophers, or society. When it comes to understanding bisexuality, two models in particular have stood the test of time and proven useful: the Kinsey Scale and the Klein Grid.
The Kinsey Scale:
First published by sex researchers Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and Clyde Martin in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948), the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale — more commonly known as “The Kinsey Scale” — is a helpful model for understanding the spectrum of human attraction patterns. The Kinsey team interviewed thousands of people about their sexual histories and created the scale in order to chart them more precisely than would be possible with the use of labels such as homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual. Each number on the Kinsey Scale represents a point along a spectrum, determined by the balance between same-sex (homosexual) and opposite-sex (heterosexual) behaviors an individual reported. “0” represents exclusive heterosexuality and “6” exclusive homosexuality. Although Kinsey himself preferred not to think in terms of identity, everything in between those two extremes represents bisexuality — people with both heterosexual and homosexual attractions and/or behaviors.
Bi individuals who experience same and opposite-sex attractions nearly equally would be a “Kinsey 3.” Those who have a more pronounced preference for one would be a Kinsey 1 or 2 if they experience more heterosexual attraction, or a Kinsey 4 or 5 if they experience more homosexual attraction. As we can see, the common misconception that bi people must feel equal levels of same- and opposite-sex attraction erases 80% of the spectrum of bisexuality!
Another common misconception about the Kinsey Scale is that it frames bi people as a mixture of gay and straight. That idea comes from the currently-fashionable emphasis on identity as the primary determinant of sexual orientation. But identities are concepts, ways an individual or a group thinks about themselves. Kinsey's work was not focused on documenting how people thought about their sexuality, he was focused on how they behaved, often despite personal and societal concepts and taboos.
The Klein Grid:
In 1978, psychiatrist and sex researcher Dr. Fritz Klein developed the Klein Grid in order to better illustrate the complexity and nuance of human sexuality. Like the Kinsey scale, the Klein Grid is not meant to “diagnose” or provide a definitive label or number on anyone's sexuality. Instead, the Klein Grid is a model intended to help people see their sexuality more holistically. Klein expanded the concept of the Kinsey Scale to include past experiences and future desires in order to highlight sexual fluidity, that is to say, the many ways in which a person's sexuality can evolve and change over time. He also added social and psychological dimensions in order to account for the fact that sexuality is about far more than just sexual intercourse.