Kinsey and his team of researchers went to great lengths to reassure their subjects that confidentiality was a shared priority, and that they were not interested in the sex acts themselves but the variety of sexual encounters people had experienced.
Part of the reason the Kinsey Reports caused such an uproar in 1948 and especially in 1953 was because those reports provided widespread, quantifiable data about sexual behavior that no one had previously felt able to admit. Sexual inventories can be profoundly illuminating, challenging us to reconsider how we make choices about our sexuality. When it comes to sex, the same holds true. What do they intend to use it for? The individual who chooses invisibility, what motivates them to do that? Is it the desire to slip into a bedroom and leer at someone, or perhaps to go unnoticed and rob a bank? If they chose flight as their superpower, is it to travel the world and see new things, is it because they want freedom they are currently lacking, or because they envision themselves saving people from burning buildings? Aron was on to something pretty significant here. But, pressing further, we might also tease out what the choice of superpower means for them. Already, we have two levels to understand someone – their public persona, and what motivates them. The one who chooses to be invisible is an introvert. The individual who chooses flight tends to be more of an extrovert.
The answers can be dissected on a couple of levels asking a partner what superpower they would prefer to have, for example, reveals who they are apart from the image they are trying to project. I think all of them are great conversation starters and can produce some very revealing insights. Check out my general, depersonalized answers here. His general idea was that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness, but later people would claim these 36 questions were what “made” people fall in love with one another. One of my favorites is Arthur Aron’s 36 Questions. Even when I lecture, I do my very best to offer lists and bulleted items to help categorize and classify information – always adding, “The human experience is found in-between the details.” Lists are not the stories themselves, but they do offer some pretty good summaries. Who they are, the experiences that have shaped them. Inventories of who we are, lists of our favorite things, itemized receipts of what we have done on the way to where we want to be fascinate me because they offer a roadmap to understanding someone.