RE: Do you care about your significant others sexual past with a poll.
May 3, 2015 at 11:32 am
(May 3, 2015 at 5:10 am)robvalue Wrote: OK so... we agree questions should be carefully worded. Is this your point? This can all be sorted out by explaining exactly what you mean by "sexual history" when asking a question, can it not? It is up to the person asking the question to be as clear as possible, not for those answering it to try and work out what the question asker was thinking.
When is this a problem in the real world? Confusion in an Internet discussion is hardly cause for concern over a vague phrase. I'm failing to imagine the kind of conversations that would realistically occur. If I want to know how many people my partner has slept with, I ask them that. If I ask about their sexual history, and I don't make it clear I'm including crimes in that description, then for them to assume I am talking about crimes is... weird. People don't usually jump to "crimes" in polite conversation about pasts without being explicit. Are you suggesting this should be a phrase which is accepted as a polite way of asking about sexual crimes? And even if I flat out ask, "What is your criminal history?" there's no guarantee I'll get the truth. It's kind of something people have to feel ready to tell you.
If someone refuses to explain exactly what their question means and then jumps all over the answers for being "wrong" then that is just being difficult.
This all applies to any sort of question, and I fail to see the relevance of sexual stuff in any of this. The only other thing I can think is that you are asking for people to generally interpret "sexual history" in a different way to how they may currently do, and again if both parties are clear what the terms mean (they are not concrete) then there is no problem.
For example, if I ask about your education, am I also asking about whether you killed anyone in the classroom while getting your education? I could be, but if so I need to be clear about it. To expect people to know that is what I mean without making it clear seems pointless and inevitably leads to me having to explain what I mean anyway to make my "point".
But I've been round the houses already with this and made my points, so I'll sign off. Thanks for the discussion 
The definition of the term was made pretty clear in the original thread made by pauloroberts which this thread relates to which I repeatedly keep referring back to.
In it he says his girlfriend (presumably now ex girlfriend if she even existed in the first place and wasn't a fictional character.) was talking about her sexual history and he spoke about who she had sex with, where, when, which sexual websites she was on.
I don't think it would be weird in certain situations for a person to assume you are talking about crimes when asking about sexual history, in a situation where you're talking to a sex offender, and they know you know they are a sex offender, if you ask them about their sexual history I think they would assume you're talking about crimes.
Although outside of situation like that I agree it would be weird if someone thought you were specifically talking about crimes when asking for a persons sexual history, I think it's pretty much just as weird as assuming a person definitely isn't talking about sexual crimes when talking about sexual history.
If I killed someone in a classroom and you asked me about my education I could honestly answer that question without mentioning the fact I killed anyone because the act of me killing someone is where my education stopped and the killing began. Unless I was in some strange country where an education system teaches to kill people and perform the task of doing that in the classroom.
The same thing would be if I stopped having sex and murdered someone for reasons not related to sexual pleasure, or if I had to stop having sex one time to rob a bank or burn a building down. It wouldn't be related to any sexual history.
Although if I had a history of burning buildings down then masturbating while watching the flames (I've heard this does happen.) Then I'd say that's directly a part of my sexual history. If I enjoy having sex with people who it is illegal to have sex with in my country I'd say that's a part of my sexual history. Same as if I had a history of being involved with BDSM or any other sexual activity which doesn't necesserily involve direct intercourse.
