A partial replication of Kinsey's graffiti study

Abstract

In the early 1950s, Kinsey collected wall inscriptions from a number of public bathrooms, hypothesizing that sexual graffiti provided a great source of information on the extent and nature of the suppressed sexual desires of men and women. Data were analyzed in terms of gender, heterosexuality, homosexuality, types of erotic contact, and types of non-erotic references to love. The present study is a partial replication of Kinsey's studyt investigating and comparing changes in American human sexuality as manifested by wall inscriptions in public bathrooms. The results show an increase in the percentage of erotic graffiti made by women and a decrease in the percentage of homosexaul graffiti made by both sexes. A discussion of these results is preserlted at the end of this paper. In 1953 Kinsey collected wall inscriptions from a number of public bathrooms, hypothesizing that sexual graffiti provide a great source of information on the extent and nature of the suppressed sexual desires of men and women. He found that a higher proportion (86%) of inscriptions in men's bathrooms were erotic (erotic defined as specifically referring to genitalia, genital, oral, or coital contacts, and erotic vernacular vocabulary) whereas only 25% of the inscriptions in women's toilets were erotic Most of the women's graffiti referred to love in non-erotic terms. Kinsey interpreted his data to mean that: