Reactions to First Postpubertal Female Same-Sex Sexual Experience in the Kinsey Sample: A Comparison of Minors with Peers, Minors with Adults, and Adults with Adults

Abstract

This study examined reactions to first postpubertal same-sex sexual experience in the Kinsey female same-sex sample (consisting of females with extensive postpubertal same-sex experience) as a function of participant and partner ages. As such, it complemented the Rind and Welter (2016) study, which examined the same in the Kinsey male same-sex sample. Data were collected by Kinsey interviewers between 1939 and 1961 (M year = 1947). Girls under 18 (M age = 14.9), whose sexual experience was with a woman (M age = 26.3), reacted positively just as often as girls under 18 (M age = 14.1) with peers (M age = 15.0) and women (M age = 22.7) with women (M age = 26.3). The positive-reaction rates were, respectively, 85, 82, and 79 %. In a finer-graded analysis, younger adolescent girls (≤14) (M age = 12.8) with women (M age = 27.4) had a high positive-reaction rate (91 %), a rate reached by no other group. For women (M age = 22.2) with same-aged peers (M age = 22.3), this rate was 86 %. Girls with peers or women had no emotionally negative reactions (e.g., fear, disgust, shame, regret); women with women rarely did. Results contradicted prevailing clinical, legal, and lay beliefs that minor–adult sex is inherently traumatic and would be distinguished as such compared to age-concordant sex. The findings are discussed in terms of the time period in which the sexual experiences occurred.