Poll: How many sex partners have you had?
- Posted by Peach on August 27th, 2007 filed in Polls, Relationships and Sex, What is Normal?, Whack Medical Theories, Dating
You all have probably already heard about it on the news or in a magazine, but a few weeks ago Gina Kolata reported survey results on how many sex partners heterosexual men and women had: 7 to 4, men lead. In a similar British study, 12.7 to 6.8, men lead again. Mathmaticians complain: it’s statistically impossible! Everyone else wondered, who’s lying?
I myself wonder. The usual theory goes something like this: men have to pad their numbers to appear like sexual conquistadors, and women have to “forget” a few of their encounters because the old double standard makes them seem slutty, which is neither a desirable nor safe label to allow. But there are other possibilities. Unless the survey specified, the discrepancy may also be due to a variance in the way subjects think of sex: if, for example, male subjects included anything that led to ejaculation, but women only counted penetration (I used to, on my mental checklist of Persons Fucked). Another theory described in Kolata’s article suggests that the men with higher numbers slept with women outside of the test population: sex workers, women in other countries, etc. It seems to be a subject wide open to speculation.
But I also wonder why it matters. What do the numbers represent to the people who keep track of them, and the people who want to know them? I think that on the surface at least, everyone knows that sex is about quality, not quantity: an individual who has been in one lifelong monogamous relationship might have more sexual prowess than another who has bedded dozens. Personally, I’ve put a few notches in the bedpost that I’d rather replace with the memory of a good book - both give me stories to tell for laughter or amazement, but at least books aren’t so risky. ; )
I keep track of my conquests for myself because I don’t like to think I am the kind of person who’d forget a lover. But when people share numbers - the interaction that leads to exaggerating or underestimating your score - what significance does anyone hope the body count will have? I can only remember a few instances in which I shared numbers with partners. My fourth lover was extremely worried about my lack of experience compared to his alleged score; I think he was concerned that I’d fall in love with him. (Similar scene in 200 Cigarettes between Jay Mohr and Kate Hudson.) On another occasion, I reunited with a Friend With Benefits after a long break, and he wanted to compare stats: “when was the last time I had sex?” (read: was it the last time we were together?)
“Why do you want to know?” I parried. “Men never want to know these things.” Particularly not when you’re shedding clothes, which is what we were doing at the time. A few weeks, I told him - not entirely truthfully. “Really?!” he asked with incredulity. I let it drop, but I’ll never know whether he meant “Really, that long? Get a life!” or “Really, you have other lovers that you see when I’m not around? Aw man!” What else is that information good for?
So, readers, I open this comment thread to you to air your theories on the number discrepancy. What’s it all about? Also, just for fun, you too can submit your Bedpost Notch Count for study and analysis. You can define sex how you please - after all, “lover” or even “fuckbuddy” can mean so much more than vaginal penetration. And of course, since these polls are anonymous, we have no way of knowing whether or not you’re honest about your gender - but that doesn’t make it any less relevant than the original survey, does it? ; )
I’m a man, and this is my score:
- 2-5 (63%)
- 11-15 (25%)
- More than 20 (13%)
- Love (like in tennis, get it?) (0%)
- 1 - monogamy is for me (0%)
- 6-10 (0%)
- 16-20 (0%)
- I’ve lost count (0%)
Total Votes: 8
Loading …I’m a woman, and this is my score:
- 2-5 (39%)
- 1 - Monogamy is for me (17%)
- Love (that is, zero) (11%)
- 6-10 (11%)
- 11-15 (6%)
- 16-20 (6%)
- More than 20 (6%)
- I’ve lost count (6%)
Total Votes: 18
Loading …Thanks to reader Dot for the link!
August 27th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I feel the need to add two things.
(1) Don’t feel bad if you have WAY more than twenty partners… I just ran out of space on my poll.
(2) Why is this study only about heterosexual sex, anyway? And how do the surveyers *know* they didn’t get any hetero-identified subjects who have had gay sex?
Non-hetero players, or those (like me) who feel it’s not terribly useful to categorize people as gay or straight, feel free to skew our results even further and weigh in with your numbers! : )
August 27th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Hi, new reader here. The number difference could be in part that men may be counting women they raped as sex partners.
August 28th, 2007 at 12:01 am
Perhaps in part, nails. But if anything, the recent hoopla about “gray rape” (an old idea getting new circulation in Laura Sessions Stepp’s new book Unhooked, for those not tuned in) suggests to me that men and women can be similarly confused about what distinguishes rape from not-rape.
I know, it seems like it’d be pretty straightforward, but apparently not… other bloggers have said it better, such as Melissa McEvans on gray rape, or Aunt B. on enthusiastic consent.
August 28th, 2007 at 10:16 am
As a guy having a high number of “conquests” seems like a tin badge to me. It seems no more honorable for men than it does for women, in my humble opinion. I certainly don’t have any more respect for my male friends that have slept around a lot just because of that fact. However, I think I’m probably in the minority at least in a vocal sense. I think Peach hit the nail, really. I believe many guys tend to inflate their numbers and women deflate theirs because of social expectations of each sex — however unbalanced those expectations are.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
I remember the first time I was talking to a (female) friend about the number of guys we’d slept with and I realized I could no longer remember or keep count of how many there were. Provided, I am well into my late 30s, but still…it was kind of a strange moment for me. I was not ashamed, or upset, just kind of mystified. I just thought to myself, “huh”.
Of course, many of the “conquests” (yes, I see them that way) happened on drunken nights in college, so they were kind of fuzzy even back then. And yes, they were all consensual.
September 9th, 2007 at 11:09 am
@shartheheretic: I just had *exactly* the same experience trying to come up with a count. I was sure of a number and then, “Oh, yeah, her! How could I forget that?”
I also becomes complicated as one remembers things further back through college and highschool (and maybe further, but not for me). “I know I thought of that person as a lover then, but I can’t really remember in detail what we did… or, really, am not sure that what I can remember doing is anything I’d consider Sex now.”
September 10th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Shar and grumpy, that’s exactly why I keep a list. I looked over mine before I responded, and I was rather surprised - I *had* forgotten a few. I’m glad I stored their names somewhere so I can remember… I have this thing about reviewing past experiences to understand the present.
Re: what is considered sex, I had trouble with that too… As I wrote above, my original list only tracked genital-genital penetration. But that category excluded women, so I added them in. Then I added in the encounters that were heterosexual but behaviorally similar to the lesbianish encounters. And I ended up with kind of a bigger number than I anticipated. I confess that I compromised on my response a little bit - which perhaps many of those in the cited surveys did as well.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
I would like to laugh a little bit at the whole “inflation of male partner numbers.”
Just about very relationship I’ve been in, I’ve been asked the number question. I typically try to avoid it, as 1. Then I have to know how many she’s had, and like Chris Rock says ” Two? Well I guess that’s just how you was raised.” Any is too many. A man isn’t going to get laid because a female suspects he’s got the required prowess for her. We aren’t that stupid. What girl wants to hear a high number before she believes she’s in for a good time. BS! Most girls want to think what’s about to happen will be special in some way or another. Not ” I’ve banged so many chicks, I promise I know how to take care of your needs.” Her’es a great example from my personal life. A year ago, bored as hell and curious as to my total, wrote down the name of every girl I had intercourse with. I’m 27 years old, and at 25 I was at 48. I had met a girl in college that was in studying the same major. She was very polite and respectable, and I fell for her. Sex didn’t happen for two weeks. She asked the number question after the first time, and I didn’t want to offend her, so I lied and said 11. She FREAKED OUT!!! She went on and on about how horrible it sounded. She was at 4 at 25 years. If I had told her the truth, we may have never enjoyed 8 good months together before graduation. Now I’m engaged to a 35 year old women who admitted to 125 apprx. partners, and I can help but think of how disgusting it is that that many men have pleasured her. It is an internal problem for me and is haunting me in a way. Now the tables are turned. My now comparably
small 52 looks angelic. I am ashamed of how many I’ve had, and now wish that her and I both saved are selves for each other. We would get good at it over time, and with a much purer mind about our discretions.
In my experience, men only lie to other men about their number. This is where the false payoff lay.