And it made me wonder, is it? If your biography gets written is who you slept with important?
If my biography gets written (surely the most boring biography ever. Nice to live, pointless to document), then it’s important to include my husband. And it’s also important to include that he’s not the only person I ever slept with, if only to make it clear I had options.
I wouldn’t say it’s important, unless the sheer numbers are remarkable, or they were part of a relationship that was somehow formative or that marked a particular period in a person’s life.
I mean, some of the women I’ve been with are definitely worth mentioning in a biography of me- my wife and a longtime girlfriend before she came along, but there are others who were merely flings and/or short-term relationships that wouldn’t be interesting to anyone reading the biography. Hell, I’d probably leave them out of an autobiography!
It is important to your personal life story. It may or may not be important to your life story as it relates to history or your contributions or notability. Henry VIII sex life= very important. Cleopatra’s bed mates. Relevant. Oscar Wilde or Alan Turing? Peripheral, but needed for completeness sake. Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Christopher Wren, Duke of Wellington? Irrelevant.
As Osacr Wilde’s sexuality caused him to end up in prison and generally ruined his career and life, in his case I would say far from merely perpheral.
For those who note their spouse - is it of import that you were having sex with your spouse or is it other considerations that make them an important part of your life?
Well, how to put this… it wouldn’t add anything beyond titillation value to *my *life story to include one name, but it would have significant repercussions were it to be included in hers.
Wouldn’t matter much in mine up the the present time, but nobody is ever going to write my biography based on anything I’ve ever done so far.
However, among those people who are actually worthy of having biographies written, who they did (or didn’t) have sex with could be key in the development of their lives.
It would be if only to show that I’ve only been with two men sexually. My husband has only ever been with me. Makes for a relevent factoid about the dynamics of our relationship and lives.