Maybe ten, maybe fifteen years ago there was a little tidal wave of do-it-yourself family oral histories, aided by a couple of books, a number of popular press articles, and even at least one computer program.

The oral history model involves asking simple, clear, and very open-ended question that are designed not so much to get specific answers as to unlock whole corridors of memory.

Now, via Jess McCabe of The F-Word Blog‘s Sex-Ed for Adults project it turns out someone’s

One of the many brilliant resources that I’ve come across through our sex-ed for adults project is the About.com sexuality blog.

Today they recommend an exercise about writing out your own sexual story. Not in the sense of a sexual history you might tell a doctor, or long list of conquests, but more a private diary, or opportunity to think through your experiences of sex and sexuality.

Read the quote in context here.

The organizing post, once again, is Cory Silverberg’s “Writing Your Sexual History.”

Writing your own sexual history is a different kind of exercise. It’s only for your benefit and as such you get to define the terms and parameters and even the questions. Whatever sort of change or growth your looking for in terms of your sexuality or your sex life, writing your own sexual history offers many benefits including:

• the chance to reflect on your experiences from your earliest memories to the present and think about the choices you’ve made and what resulted from those decisions,
• getting a big picture perspective, that can help you see patterns and paths that you might not have otherwise noticed,

  the chance to identify the things you like and don’t like, and understand your sexual terrain in new ways,

• gaining a sense of emotional and psychological control over your sexual history and how you experience positive and negative past events in the present,
• getting more control over your current sexual behaviors.

He said it here.

Can I just try to stress how important this can be, not so much to others — Silverberg isn’t conducting research, just making suggestions — as to ourselves? At least that’s the way an awful lot of oral-history subject say when they’ve been given a chance. Like writing, and like those sometimes-crazy “survival” courses, and like… well… like a lot of other opportunities for introspection and self-examination you learn stuff about yourself you didn’t think you knew… stuff you didn’t believe could be true.

Pretty cool stuff, in other words.

Anyway, here’s an example of the kind of bland and, when you think about it, serious but non-confrontive questions in Silverberg’s list:

Sexual Values: Our position on issues such as monogamy, promiscuity, sex work, abortion, homosexuality and fundamental sexual rights may say a lot or nothing at all about who we are as sexual beings.

• What were some of the sexual values you were raised with?
• How have your values changed, and how have they remained the same over time?
• Can you remember a time when you experienced a conflict between your values and your desires?

Other subjects include fantasies, partners, influences, orientation, satisfaction, feelings, memories, and so on. Hey, if nothing else if you’re a meme fanatic or you like quizzes… or even if you’re just looking for new things to blog about. But it might also be an avenue for insight into not just how you are but who!

Anyway, figleaf says check it out.