ABSTRACT
Sexual diaries have been kept quite naturally by all sorts of people and for all sorts of reasons: as a record of prowess, as an information-source in case of infection, as a therapeutic tool. Direct systematic observation as a method is therefore far from unobtrusive and would involve massive problems of consent, organization and cost. Much information obtained about sexual activity in the interview context is also atomistic and out of context. The "Structure of Sexual Action" Schema as people grandiloquently termed it was based on systematizing and inter-relating the components of sexual behaviour relevant to HIV transmission and then attempting to relate the structure of sexual behaviour to Talcott Parsons' account of the Unit Act and to theories of Communication Processes. Socio-Sexual Investigations of Gay Men and Aids (SIGMA) was the main British longitudinal study of homosexual and bi-sexual men in the UK in the 1980/90s.
