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The psychopathological (or medical) model of homosexuality, which judges it to be an illness or developmental arrest, was, in the first half of this century, believed to be a "liberal" interpretation, since it replaced the religious judgment that homosexuality was evil. If a homosexual was sick, the medical profession might try to "cure" him, but would not penalize or condemn him. In its turn, the medical model, too, has come to be criticized by homosexuals, sexologists, and many others as incorrect, restrictive, and punitive; as the most recent rationalization of the majority's fundamental prejudice against any "deviant" group. Today, there is little consensus about homosexuality; it is being reassessed, partly in political terms, because of gay liberation, partly in sophisticated interdisciplinary analyses of the production of gender, heterosexuality, and homosexuality.
Retrospectively, Kinsey emerges as a pivotal figure in initiating this contemporary reassessment of homosexuality (see Kinsey et al., 1948), (1953). Committed, as he was, to weighting orgasms equally, whether heterosexual, homosexual, or masturbatory, he implicitly downgraded the distinction between homosexual and heterosexual. More important, he explicitly downgraded it when he distinguished homosexual behavior from homosexual people, stating that the source of sexual stimulation should not be taken as descriptive of the individuals themselves. Although previous studies had, like Kinsey's, revealed that approximately 4% of the male population was exclusively homosexual, Kinsey additionally reported that 37% of males had at least one homosexual experience to orgasm in adolescence or thereafter and that fully 50% had responded to homoerotic stimuli. His revelation of the extent of homosexual behavior, pointing to its widespread existence and making it impossible to view as restricted to a deviant, tiny minority, shocked the public. He devised the famous Kinsey Scale, which rates all individua