Sex Surveyed, 1949-1994: From Mass-Observation's "Little Kinsey" To The National Survey And The Hite Reports

This book provides the only feminist overview of the development of both the mainstream and the feminist variant of the survey as a means of investigating sexual attitude and behaviour. Sex Surveyed focuses on the sex survey for a number of reasons: first, surveys have been extremely important in influencing popular opinion about sexual norms and conventions; second, this approach is crucial to ideas about science, generalisability and validity; third, developments in the form and status of the survey from the 1930s through the post-war period are complexly interwoven with the sex survey and are under-researched particularly from a feminist viewpoint.
Section One examines the creation of Mass-Observation and the epistemological and methodological stance which led to the world's first national random sample survey of sex, as well as the major British sex surveys carried out from Mass-Observation's 1949 'Little Kinsey' through to the 1994 Wellcome 'National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles'. Section Two contains the full 'Little Kinsey' report, which many contemporary researchers allude to but which has not been published before now. Section Three discusses the structure and argument of 'Little Kinsey' and compares its approach with that of the feminist sex surveys carried out by Shere Hite through a detailed discussion of the Hite Reports.
Illuminating reading for the general reader, essential reading for students on Sexuality, Methodology, Women's Studies and British Modern Social History courses, and a key text for all Sociologists.

Liz Stanley is Reader in Sociology and Director of Women's Studies at the University of Manchester.