The complexities of developing appropriate forn~ats for obtaining sexual histories that include women's consensual and coercive sexual experiences are discussed in this paper. The Wyatt Sex History Questionnaire (WSHQ), used with a multi-ethnic sample of women, is described to obtain incidents of non-consensual sexual abuse. The aclva~t~ages of using a face-to-face format to obtain incidents of child sexual victimization are highlighted. In order to assess a range of effects of women's consensual sexual functioning, item on the WSHQ, administered in telephone and face-to-face interviews, through self report measures and indirect questioning using randotnized responses, were cotnpared for their effectiveness in obtaining consensunl sexual experiences. The adanil Eliznbeth