Sexual Relationships
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Is Your Partner’s “Number” Relevant?

Is Your Partner’s “Number” Relevant?

Short answer: It depends . . . but it probably isn't very relevant.

Long answer: I see this question frequently on G@G. When is it okay to ask your SO how many partners they have had? Do you want to know your partner’s number? What number is too high to accept with a partner? Apparently, it is a topic that concerns many users.

First, I want to address the gender issue. The word slut gets thrown around frequently and, if you use the word, many people assume that you are only talking about females. No, not me. There are players, man whores, lotharios, gigolos, etc. just like there are loose women. It really doesn’t matter what you call them. If a guy just wants to run up his total, he gets no respect from me . . . and I am not the only guy with that attitude.

Of course there are some guys who “admire” a 21 year old currently in pursuit of #50, just like there are girls who will defend other girls who join the Three Partners A Week Recreational Fucking Club. But guys and girls who aspire to have a committed, monogamous relationship (and I think that is a majority of users on this site) don’t idolize the champions of the casual sex crowd.

Is Your Partner’s “Number” Relevant?

Is there an absolute number that means a girl won’t be a good partner? Well, if a 14 year old girl has already had 3 partners, I would be extremely concerned about her. But if a lady is 62 years old, or even 25 years old, and she has only had 3 partners, I would not be too concerned. So, there is not an absolute answer. "It depends" sounds lame, but the answer really does depend on many variables.

Suppose a 25 year old girl has had 20 partners but 18 of those were before age 20 and she has only had 2 partners in the past 5 years; would you be concerned about having a relationship with her? I wouldn’t be concerned about it (other than being called a pedophile by some users who seem to enjoy calling other users names, and, no, I wouldn’t dream of dating a girl that young. My current girlfriend will be 65 years old next week.)

So what is it that is truly important about the number? It is what that number might reveal about your partner’s attitude about sex and the role that it plays in a relationship. Every relationship has the potential for coming to an end and, if it does, I want to know that I was not just #74 on her list and that she will remember me for the rest of her life.

Is Your Partner’s “Number” Relevant?

A few years ago, I dated a lady who revealed, after about a month, that she had worked as a prostitute about 20 years previously. Those earlier years had been a turbulent time in her life and had been filled with lots of drama, lots of problems, and she had been a prostitute. Since then, she had stopped drinking, stopped drugs, regained custody of her son, gotten a 9-to-5 job, enrolled in college, and was just finishing her bachelor’s degree. After making that revelation, she said that I would probably not want to date her anymore. I thought about it. I knew that she had make big changes in her life; in this case, her past behavior was not a strong clue for how she would behave in the future. I continued to date her and we eventually broke up for reasons unrelated to these details. (And we never had sex.)

What is important for most (but not all) of us is knowing that our partner views sex as a means of expressing love in a monogamous, committed relationship. If I know that a lady has that attitude, it doesn’t matter whether she was promiscuous 40 years ago. For a few years 40 years ago, I was promiscuous and I know that having that history did not doom me to a life of being unfaithful, uncaring, and uncommitted. I also know that I would not want be judged on the basis of my history if that history is irrelevant to who I am today.

I am not saying to ignore someone’s history. If they had 5-6 sexual partners last year, the odds are that they are not ready for, or not even wanting, a committed monogamous relationship. But as the history becomes more remote, it is only a clue about the person and it does not trump our assessment of who that person is today.

So . . . when should you ask your partner about their number? Never. Instead, ask them if sex means love (or serious affection) or whether it just means fun. The answer to that question (if the question is answered with sincerity) should tell you all that you need to know.

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Most Helpful Girls

  • the specific number isn't relevant to me I guess only if there is a number or not. . Beyond that, I don't care to know about my bf's prior conquests, I'm interested in him for the man he is now, before me currently. To some degree that is what has shaped him as a man I'm sure but so have his college studies and i don't need know what courses he tool or his grades. If he's going to drive us on our date, I don't need to see his driving record. I did ask to see his health report though once we decided to not use condoms anymore.

    • Thanks for the MHO💟

  • I believe that being honest and open with your partner about your past is very important.

    We never went out of our way to discuss it, but when, for whatever reason, the subject did come up and he told me his number, and so I wanted to be honest and told him mine, even though it was just under twice his number.
    We're still together.

Most Helpful Guys

  • Of course the number is relevant. Now whether you chose to value or have standards on the amount of people your partner has been with is entirely up to you.

    IF you chose not to, that doesn't make the number irrelevant in general, just irrelevant to you. Personally? As someone with high standards of personality towards a serious relationship, high partner count is a deal breaker for me. And for majority of other men out there.

    • At your age, I understand that a high number would be an adverse reflection upon a girl's present state of mind regarding this matter. Do you see that if you were 35 or 40 years old, it would be possible for a lady of that same age to have a relatively high number from her younger days but to have settled down and become more serious about relationships?

    • Yes I can see it. If I were 35, my standards around past partners wouldn't as strict, but still strict nonetheless. I'll maintain high standards on this specific topic throughout my entire life. If I were 35 or 40, i could only take a women seriously who has had a stable relationship in the past, (therefore leading to a low number for a woman around that age), rather than a women who's been in and out of relationships so far in her life and has a rather high number of partners.

    • Some people go through a phase of being promiscuous and they must suffer those consequences before they "wake up" and realize how they should be living their lives. If someone has had that experience, their lifetime number may not be a good indication of their attitude about sex and love now.

    • Show All

  • I personally don't ask nor do I want to know what a girl's number of partners is. Nor do I want her telling me.

    As long as she's clean, doesn't cheat, and doesn't have a kid then that's all that matters. These types of conversations don't end well. Even if a girl has a low number, it's not like oh please tell me the details of your sexual encounters with them.

    • Thanks for most helpful guy

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What Girls & Guys Said

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  • Of course the number of girls my boyfriend has fucked in the past is relevant, for several reasons. To know what his general view on sex and what it means in respect to a relationship (and be able to see how compatible that is with my own views), which would encompass in it how casually or not he views sex. To know if he'd messed around with any of my classmates/friends prior to me, to know if he'd messed around with people from a sketchy side of town in which case I may hold some reservations about getting physical with him myself, etc..

    (My boyfriend and I discussed things like this before we even became an official couple. We were really close friends a few months prior to that and had initially met in high school.)

    • "To know what his general view on sex and what it means in respect to a relationship (and be able to see how compatible that is with my own views), which would encompass in it how casually or not he views sex." That is the gist of what I said.

    • Me being a Christian would close lots of doors. For sex belongs in marriage. So the female who I am with would have to agree to it. I would only date Christian girls. So if they are really Christian. Then we both be on the same page.

  • Yes, I think I agree with you on this. There's just one problem... I'm too curious! I just HAVE to ask ;-).

    But it is true that the attitude towards sex is more important than the actual number.
    One point where I disagree with you (and with others) is that "love" is always a better answer than "fun". I think what's important instead is that your view matches with the other person's view. Contrary to most people these days, I have absolutely nothing against promiscuity. I think it's kind of cool when my parents (vaguely) tell me about their wild experiences during the last years of the hippie era, when young people were much more relaxed about sex as they are today. I don't look down on anyone who is promiscuous. If somebody wants to have sex with a lot of different people, all power to him/her. Why should my leisure activities be somehow morally superior to those people's leisure activities?
    No, I won't judge anyone.
    But I do think it's important for MY personal life that I have a partner who has a similar view on sex as I do.

  • What a great post, @OlderAndWiser. I quite enjoyed reading this. It was very thoughtful and insightful.

    Great job.

  • the way i see it, if it comes up naturally and is relevant, by all means talk about it. your number is just a number.

  • If I know the person sleeps around it mattersin courting because I'll be more cautious but after that no. We're together and in love. That's all that matters.

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