ABSTRACT
Surveys of sexual activity have been carried out in both countries' notably by Kinsey in the USA and by Chesser for English women. These are the main sources of information for this section, since these surveys were both extensive and rigorous. Kinsey and his collaborators interviewed 5,300 men (1948) and 5,940 women (1953). Although the samples were unduly weighted with middle-class people and with Jews, they included widely varying sections of the population, and great efforts were made to avoid volunteers by interviewing 100 per cent of each group contacted. The interviews show test-retest and inter-interviewer consistency, and various ingenious crosschecks were carried out. However, in an effort to induce frankness, the questions were phrased in a way that might be expected to produce exaggeration in the answers. There is, of course, no final check on the validity of such interview material. There has subsequently been a series of further studies in Britain and America.
