Constructing the Heterosexual, Homosexual, Bisexual System, by Jonathan Ned Katz

This feature explores the human production of the terms and concepts "heterosexual," "homosexual," and "bisexual," which are presented here as evidence of the construction of a historically specific social order or regime. This is the social-historical institution or system that divides people, identities, desires, acts, relationships, and groups into heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual with profound subjective, objective, psychological, social consequences. The chronology includes scholarly works dating to the 1980s, when historians began to develop what is now called "critical heterosexual history," analysis that interrogates the historically specific discourses and institutions that comprise the hetero, homo, bi system. First published on OutHistory in 2014. Last edit: April 15, 2021.

1948, January: The Kinsey report on sexual activity in human males

Among the varios statements in the influential Kinsey Report is the following:

Males do not represent two discrete populations, homosexual and heterosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white .... Only the human mind invents categories to force facts into separate pigeonholes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.

NOTE:
Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. (Philadelphia: Saunders, January 1948), 639.