Thursday, July 5, 2007

MyBlackBook popularity grows

I blogged this a while back, but it is really nice to see MyBlackBook catching on. 2032+ people have signed up to keep track of their sex lives. The site makes its purpose very clear:

"What happens if you find out you have an STD? How do you know who to notify? Well, some people, both male and female keep track of whom they have slept with either in a little diary or notebook. However, this has always posed a security flaw - what if someone finds it?? Well, MyBlackBook has solved that problem by creating The Internet's First Secure and Confidential Online Sexual History Tracker!"


It's free to sign up, and easy to add an entry or session. The pull down menus are pretty rigid in some categories (like you have to be male or female and either straight, bi or gay), but the each entry also gives plenty of room for embellishing, including over a dozen "activities" to select that you tried and also nearly a dozen sexual positions to choose from.

Two extra features stand out on this site.

1. VDNote provides a risk assessment as a percent chance that you will acquire each listed STI based on your personal entries. After entering one fictitious unprotected encounter where I "had anal sex" I had a 2.91% chance of getting herpes, 0.01% chance of getting syphilis, etc. Therhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gife is a disclaimer, which I was relieved to see. I think the idea might help some realize their risk for STIs in general, but cannot paint a realistic picture of what to worry about. The site also does not mention HIV/AIDS.

2. Graphs provide a visual representation of your monthly sexual activity, hourly sexual activity (as in do you do it at night or in the morning?) and a pie chart of the sexual positions that you do. If these were constructed differently, or addressed different aspects of the sex you're having, then they could be better risk management tools. As they are now, they might just state the obvious right back to you. For example: yes I like 'reverse cowgirl' and yes, I like it in the morning.

The forums hold some gems, but the site could really pack a punch if they also talked about what to do with all the saved info if/when you do get an STI. I am making the suggestion to them. This is their chance to reach this particular record-keeping group.

Check out the press release.

Update: MyBlackBook now links to InSPOT.org. Yay!

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