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The publication of a report which gives statistical facts about the sexual behavior of 12,000 American men has two potentially constructive aspects. First, it may provide the psychiatrist and other scientists with unique material, rarely obtainable in such quantity. Secondly, this scientific report—the first to become a nationwide best seller—may contribute to a decrease of prejudice and an increase in tolerance, since it must undermine any idealized image fostered by some exponents of our culture concerning the realities of prevailing sexual patterns. It should lessen hypocrisy and condemnatory attitudes against deviants from the more common forms of sexual behavior.
However, such potentially constructive value is considerably diminished if the reported facts are open to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. What is the source of these facts? A highly elaborate interview method which deserves credit for eliminating many possibilities of error. But analytical experience has shown that one or several interviews, even though most skillfully conducted, can hardly produce reliable and comprehensive information about an individual's sexual life.
What are the facts on which the report is based? They consist in the statistical incidence of various forms of “sexual outlets,” such as masturbation, homosexuality, and extramarital intercourse. In the light of character-analysis, which sees sexual behavior as determined by the total character structure and by the specific function which sex has in it, these facts are symptoms only. The frequency of these symptoms can by no means be taken as a criterion of their normality or abnormality. The authors' findings that more than ninety per cent of men masturbate, about thirty-seven per cent have some homosexual contacts, and about fifty per cent of all married men have extramarital relationships, do not give the character of normality to masturbation, homosexuality, or extramarital intercourse. They only reflect the effect of specifi