Kinsey Scale Test

What is the Kinsey scale?

The Kinsey scale is a seven-point rating, from 0 to 6, that Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy and Clyde Martin introduced in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948). It was later used in the companion volume on women (1953). At 0 sits "exclusively heterosexual", at 6 "exclusively homosexual", and the points in between describe mixes of the two. The reports also used an extra category, X, for people with no socio-sexual contacts or reactions.

Kinsey's team did not ask people to pick a label. Interviewers rated each person on both their experiences and their psychological responses, and the point of the scale was that many people do not fit neatly at either end. The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, which looks after Kinsey's work today, presents the scale in the same spirit: a description of experience and response, not a fixed identity category.

How this test works

You rate 20 statements on a five-point agree–disagree scale. Ten are about attraction to people of your own gender and ten about attraction to people of a different gender. They cover feelings, crushes, daydreams, romantic interest and dating. Half of each set is worded the other way round, so simply agreeing with everything does not push you to either end.

Each set becomes a score from 0 to 100, where 50 means neutral answers. If both scores are under 25, the test shows X. Otherwise it takes the same-gender share of the two and cuts it into seven equal bands, 0 to 6. The statements were written for this site and are not taken from any published questionnaire.

How to read your result

Your result shows a number on a 0–6 line with a marker, or the X chip. Next to it you'll see Kinsey's original wording and a plain-language line, such as "mostly attracted to a different gender, occasionally to the same". A marker near the edge of a band means you were close to the neighbouring number.

Read the result as a snapshot of how you answered today. Orientation is yours to name: a number doesn't decide whether you call yourself straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer or something else, or no label at all. Many people find their feelings shift over the years, and that is ordinary.

Limits of the Kinsey scale

The scale is more than seventy years old and shows its age. It assumes two sexes and places people between them, so it doesn't describe non-binary people or attraction to non-binary people well. It folds romantic and sexual attraction into one number, although for many people the two differ. It also treats attraction as one balance rather than two separate amounts, which is why this test adds X for low attraction to everyone.

Most importantly, it was built as a research rating, not an identity label. Use your result as a prompt for reflection, not as a verdict.

Privacy: what happens to your answers

Scoring runs entirely in your browser. Your answers are never sent to a server, never stored, and this test does not even save your progress for resuming later. Your result is not added to My results. Analytics see only that a test was started or finished; the result address is stripped before anything is sent, and result pages are never indexed by search engines.

Your result lives only in the page address. The share button copies a link to the test, not to your result; sharing the result itself takes a deliberate extra step. You can check this yourself: open your browser's developer tools, watch the Network tab while you answer, and you will see no requests carrying your answers. The result address may stay in your browser history, so use a private window if that matters to you.

Sources

Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B., & Martin, C. E. (1948). Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders. The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, "The Kinsey Scale" (kinseyinstitute.org). This test is independent and not affiliated with the Kinsey Institute or Indiana University.