Now, sex researchers say, the moment of truth is looming.

But many sex researchers and adolescent-health professionals say that rainbow parties are not a big part of teenage sexual behavior.

The release of the new study by the sex researchers was being handled more as a marketing promotion for the book than as a scientific study.

Such revelations, Dr. Gagnon said, are quite in keeping with what sex researchers have learned over the decades.

Some sex researchers, Shere Hite in particular, have focused on understanding how individuals regard sexual experience and the meaning it holds for them.

Dr. Stunkard continued: "This was at a time when some sex researchers seemed to be working in the realm of fantasy.

At the very least, it is here that Alfred C. Kinsey, the pioneering sex researcher, was born and grew up.

(In the late 1940's, the sex researcher Alfred Kinsey took an interest in this body of work.)

Many of the earlier sex researchers had been medical doctors.

And most sex researchers aren't exactly neutral.