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PAUL A. ROBINSON
drome," the tendency of husbands and wives to expand their sexual repertory
to include practices that they don't really enjoy for fear of seeming old–
fashioned or repressed.
Hunt argues that his findings concerning extramarital sex and sexual
deviance confirm the basically conservative nature of the sexual revolution.
Infidelity is only little more common than it was in Kinsey's day, and the
incidence of deviance, he believes, may even have declined.
Unfortunately, his treatment of deviance is statistically unsatisfactory,
and it also reveals a regrettable bias. Most of his energy is devoted to refuting
Kinsey's findings about the prevalence of homosexuality, and to lobbying for
the reinstatement of such terms as abnormal, unnatural, and even pathologi–
cal as legitimate characterizations of homosexual behavior. Kinsey's figures
(the most famous being that 37% of the male population had had at least one
homosexual experience to orgasm) are, by general consensus, exaggerated.
But Hunt's sample, as he admits, is also untrustworthy since it doesn't include
an adequate number of self-confessed homosexuals. I also suspect that the
questionnaire format allowed his respondents to deny homosexual experi–
ences with greater ease than was the case with Kinsey's subjects. Kinsey was
extraordinarily successful at creating a non-judgmental atmosphere in the
interview, and he made it very difficult for his subjects to dissemble. Typically
he would ask not, "Have you ever had a homosexual experience?" but, "How
old were you when you had your first homosexual experience?"
Because, then, of the limitations of his sample and his method of inter–
rogation, Hunt's conclusion about the incidence of homosexual behavior
(namely that it has remained constant) is highly suspect, as are his conclusions
regarding sadomasochism, incest, and bestiality. Nor should his homophobia
be allowed to pass uncensured. He makes the nice point that "abnormal,"
"deviant," and "unnatural" are not moral terms but refer, respectively, to the
statistical prevalence, the social acceptability, and the evolutionary logic of a
particular form of behavior. As such, he argues, they are necessary to orderly
and rigorous intellectual discourse. This call for toughmindedness and a re–
pudiation of the kind of slack relativism that has characterized much recent
sexual debate is in a way refreshing. But it shows great insensitivity to the
political significance of the terms in question. I doubt that they carry entirely
un pejorative connotations even for the most disinterested social scientist, let
alone the man on the street. One may responsibly (and humanely) assert that
homosexuality is relatively uncommon, that it is socially disapproved of, and
that it serves no apparent biological purpose, but to insist on labeling it de–
viant, abnormal, unnatural, or pathological betrays a mean and reactionary
spirit. There is more playboy in Hunt's philosophy than he apparently
realizes.
