Frases de Alfred Charles Kinsey

“La muy generalizada situación del homosexual en la Antigua Grecia, como la plena situación hoy en día de que en algunas culturas en cuya dicha actividad no es tabú, sugiere que la capacidad de un individuo a responder eróticamente a cualquier clase de estimulo, provenga este de una persona de su mismo u opuesto sexo, es básico en la especie.”

“Fomentaría un raciocinio más claro sobre estos temas si las personas no fueran clasificadas como heterosexuales ni homosexuales, sino individuos que han tenido cierta cantidad de experiencias heterosexuales y cierta cantidad de homosexuales. En vez de usar estos términos como sustantivos indicativos de la persona, o incluso como adjetivos para describirlas, debiesen mejor ser empleadas para describir la naturaleza de las relaciones sexuales en sí, o al estimulo al que el individuo responde(…) El género masculino no representa dos diferentes poblaciones, la homosexual y la heterosexual. El mundo no esta dividido entre cabras y chivas. No todo es blanco y negro. Es fundamento de la taxonomía que la naturaleza rara vez se topa con géneros discretos. Solo la mente humana puede inventar dichas categorías e intentar forzadamente separarlas de dos ternas diferentes. El mundo viviente es una continuidad de cada uno de sus aspectos. Mientras más rápido aprendamos esto concerniente a la sexualidad humana, más pronto alcanzaremos un serio entendimiento de las realidades del sexo en sí. Lamentablemente, el estudio se basa en una muestra sesgada, ya que se selecionó a los entrevistados, en penales o ejerciendo la prostitución, por lo que no se puede extrapolar a la población general.”

“Hay una tendencia a considerar cualquier comportamiento humano que sea inusual, no bien conocido, o no bien entendido, como neurótico, psicópata, inmaduro, perverso, o la expresión de algún otro tipo de trastorno psicológico.”

“Nunca es suficiente enfatizar que la conducta de cualquier animal dependerá de la naturaleza del estímulo con el que se encuentre, sus capcidades anatómicas y psicológicas, y el contexto de experiencias pasadas. A menos que haya sido condicionado por una experiencia pasada, un animal responderá de manera idéntica a un estímulo idéntico, ya sea que emane de una parte de su propio cuerpo, de un individuo de su mismo sexo, o de un individuo del sexo opuesto.”

“La inherente capacidad psicológica de un animal a responder a cualquier estímulo suficiente parece, entonces, la básica explicación al hecho que ciertos individuos responden a estímulos de otros individuos de su mismo sexo y parece indicar que cualquier individuo podría responder de igual manera si la oportunidad fuese ofrecida y no estuviera condicionada a negar dicha respuesta. No hay necesidad de hipotetizar sobre factores de tipo hormonal que hagan que ciertos individuos sean mas propensos a la actividad homosexual, ya que sabemos que no existe suficiente data para probar la existencia de dichos factores. (p.758). No hay suficientes datos para probar que los factores hereditarios están involucrados. Las teorías sobre apegos infantiles hacia uno de los padres, teorías de fijaciones infantiles a un nivel de desarrollo sexual, las interpretaciones de la homosexualidad como neurosis o psicopatías o degeneración moral, y otras interpretaciones filosóficas no están respaldadas por la investigación científica, y es contraria a la data específica a nuestra compilación de historiales masculinos y femeninos.”

“La impresión que mamíferos infrahumanos son más o menos frecuentes a confinarse a actividades heterosexuales es una distorsión de los hechos que parece haber sido originado en una filosofía hecha por el hombre, más allá de la observación de la conducta de los mamíferos. Biólogos y psicólogos que han aceptado la doctrina de que la única función del sexo es la reproducción simplemente han ignorado la existencia de actividad sexual no reproductiva. Asumieron que las respuestas heterosexuales eran parte innata del animal, su "instintivo" equipo, y que otro tipo de actividades sexuales representan "perversiones" de los "instintos normales". Dichas interpretaciones son, sin embargo, místicas. No provienen de nuestro conocimiento de la psicología de la respuesta sexual (Capítulo 15), y solo pueden ser mantenidas si uno asume que la función sexual es en cierta manera divorciada de los procesos psicológicos que controlan las demás funciones del cuerpo animal.”

“Así pues, el registro de mamíferos confirma el estatuto que cualquier animal que no esté fuertemente condicionado por cierto tipo especial de experiencias es capaz de responder a cualquier estímulo adecuado. Esto es lo que encontramos en los segmentos más desinhibidos de la especie humana, y es lo que encontramos en los niños jóvenes que no han sido rigurosamente restringidos en sus juegos sexuales tempranos. Las preferencias exclusivas y los patrones de conducta, heterosexual y homosexual, vienen solo con la experiencia, o como resultado de las presiones sociales en su tendencia a forzar a un individuo a elegir uno de los patrones exclusivos, ya sea de uno o de otro. Psicólogos y psiquiatras, reflejando las normas de la cultura en que uno es criado, han pasado mucho tiempo intentando explicar el origen de las actividades homosexuales; pero si consideramos la psicología de la respuesta sexual y el contexto mamífero de la conducta humana, no es muy difícil explicar que cualquier animal humano puede o no estar involucrado en cualquier tipo de actividad sexual.”

“The impression that infra-human mammals more or less confine themselves to heterosexual activities is a distortion of the fact which appears to have originated in a man-made philosophy, rather than in specific observations of mammalian behavior. Biologists and psychologists who have accepted the doctrine that the only natural function of sex is reproduction, have simply ignored the existence of sexual activity which is not reproductive. They have assumed that heterosexual responses are a part of an animal's innate, "instinctive" equipment, and that all other types of sexual activity represent "perversions" of the "normal instincts". Such interpretations are, however, mystical. They do not originate in our knowledge of the physiology of sexual response (Chapter 15), and can be maintained only if one assumes that sexual function is in some fashion divorced from the physiologic processes which control other functions of the animal body.”

“With the right of the scientist to investigate most aspects of the material universe, most persons will agree; but there are some who have questioned the applicability of scientific methods to an investigation of human sexual behavior…. It is as though the dietician and biochemist were denied the right to analyze foods and the processes of nutrition, because the cooking and proper serving of food may be rated a fine art, and because the eating of certain foods has been considered a matter for religious regulation.”

“The inherent physiologic capacity of an animal to respond to any sufficient stimulus seems, then, the basic explanation of the fact that some individuals respond to stimuli originating in other individuals of their own sex-and it appears to indicate that every individual could so respond if the opportunity offered and one were not conditioned against making such responses. There is no need of hypothesizing peculiar hormonal factors that make certain individuals especially liable to engage in homosexual activity, and we know of no data which prove the existence of hormonal factors (p. 758). There are no sufficient data to show that specific hereditary factors are involved. Theories of childhood attachments to one or the other parent, theories of fixation at some infantile level of sexual development, interpretations of homosexuality as neurotic or psychopathic behavior or moral degeneracy, and other philosophic interpretations are not supported by scientific research, and are contrary to the specific data on our series of female and male histories.”

“Some scientists hesitate to continue in a given field of research as soon as its application becomes apparent. This refusal to apply knowledge when it exists seems to us, however, to be as unrealistic as the attempt to apply knowledge before it exists.”

“It cannot be too frequently emphasized that the behavior of any animal must depend upon on the nature of the stimulus which it meets, its anatomic and physiologic capacities, and its background of previous experience. Unless it has been conditioned by previous experience, an animal should respond identically to identical stimuli, whether they emanate from some part of its own body, from another individual of the same sex, or from an individual of the opposite sex.”

“There is an honesty in science which demands that the best means be used for the determination of truth. Certainly there are many sorts of truth in the universe, and many aspects of truth must be taken into account if man is to live most effectively in the social organization to which he belongs. But in regard to matter---the stuff of which both non-living materials and living organisms are made---scientists believe that there is no better way of obtaining information than that provided by human sense organs. No theory, no philosophy, no body of theology, no political expediency, no wishful thinking, can provide a satisfactory substitute for the observation of material objects and of the way in which they behave.”

“The history of medicine proves that in so far as man seeks to know himself and face his whole nature, he has become free from bewildered fear, despondent shame, or arrant hypocrisy. As long as sex is dealt with in the current confusion of ignorance and sophistication, denial and indulgence, suppression and stimulation, punishment and exploitation, secrecy and display, it will be associated with a duplicity and indecency that lead neither to intellectual honesty nor human dignity.”

“There is an honesty in science which leads to a certain acceptance of reality. There are some who, finding the ocean an impediment to the pursuit of their designs, try to ignore its existence. If they are unable to ignore it because of its size, they try to legislate it out of existence, or try to dry it up with a sponge. They insist that the latter operation would be possible if enough sponges were available, and if enough persons would wield them. There is no ocean of greater magnitude than the sexual function, and there are those who believe that we would do better if we ignored its existence, that we should not try to understand its material origins, and that if we sufficiently ignore it and mop at the flood of sexual activity with new laws, heavier penalties, more pronouncements, and greater intolerances, we may ultimately eliminate the reality.”

“The mammalian record thus confirms our statement that any animal which is not too strongly conditioned by some special sort of experience is capable of responding to any adequate stimulus. This is what we find in the more uninhibited segments of our human species, and this is what we find among young children who are not too rigorously restrained in their early sex play. Exclusive preferences and patterns of behavior, heterosexual or homosexual, come only with experience, or as a result of social pressures which tend to force an individual into an exclusive pattern of one or the other sort. Psychologists and psychiatrists, reflecting the mores of the culture in which they have been raised, have spent a good deal of time trying explain the origins of homosexual activity; but considering the physiology of sexual response and the mammalian backgrounds of human behavior, it is not so difficult to explain why a human animal does a particular thing sexually. It is more difficult to explain why each and every individual is not involved in every type of sexual activity.”

“The very general occurrence of the homosexual in ancient Greece, and its wide occurrence today in some cultures in which such activity is not taboo suggests that the capacity of an individual to respond erotically to any sort of stimulus, whether it is provided by another person of the same or opposite sex, is basic in the species.”

“At the risk of being repetitious, I would remind the group that we have found the highest frequency of induced abortion in the group which, in general, most frequently uses contraceptives.”