I always am fascinated by debates around numbers. Well, I also really like numbers in general (and don’t even get me started on Excel spreadsheets – that stuff is like catnip to me), but when it comes to sex and how the numbers (of partners) matter to how much the person is worth, it gets even more interesting.
I must be a glutton for punishment, since due to my addiction to pick-up artist blogs I read some truly malicious things. Frankly, I would love to meet some of these guys face to face, which is probably not the smartest thing for me to do because I like discussions and I wonder if they would be able to just talk without getting brutally violent. Yes, some of them sound that bad. These blogs were my introduction to how differently women and men are viewed when it comes to sexuality… and now that I’m writing it it all seems terribly naive. Let me rephrase that. While I always knew that there are vastly different prejudices for men and women engaging in promiscuous sex, it was only when I started reading some of these articles that it hit home. There.
I have never thought that sexuality is something to be repressed, and while there were some activities I didn’t see as attractive for myself, I would never even think about criticizing someone else’s behaviour. Unless, of course, it dealt with certain things even I would consider inappropriate (for the record, so far it’s pedophilia, zoophilia and incest. Everything else is pretty much fair game). The number of people my partner would have never bothered me – not when I was a virgin, and not now, when I definitely am not. If anything, I prefer my lovers to be experienced (and older), but those are very much different issues altogether.
So, now I can’t look away from all of these recent posts about how the number of sex partners for women is supposed to be as low as possible, and the number for men can be sky-high without any damage to his “reputation”. This makes me nervous. I have never cared about what people thought about me, and I never paid attention to rumours. It’s funny, but it looks like the life ascribed to me was probably more interesting than the one I had. Also, apparently, I had a reputation of a tease, which probably started with me wearing leather pants to my grade 9 high school dance and dancing “provocatively” (which was the comment I got years later). The result of all that was me finding out from a good friend when I was 18 that my “boyfriend” of roughly a month from a few years prior has told other guys he got as far as fingering me, if not outright having sex. In reality, he didn’t have the balls to even kiss me. I can’t say that it completely didn’t bother me, but mostly I shrugged it off and laughed about it later. The funny part was, I was your classic “good girl”, and that didn’t precent the guys that weren’t getting in my pants from creating a reputation that was anything but innocent.
When I met S, I was 18 and a virgin. He was 29, and a self-proclaimed sex addict. I saw no problems with having NSA sex (even though I was not doing it at the time), wasn’t looking to be married or even be in a committed relationship. When S and I had a lovely late night talk about love, sex and people in general, to say that he was flabbergasted that I never had sex was an understatement. I believe the shocked expression and “A virgin? Do they still make those?!” were hilarious at the time. For the record, though, I never would think that the status of my hymen made me somehow better or more worthy than some other girl who had 10 or 100 notches on her bed. I didn’t see my situation as something to applaud or vilify, and to me it was simply a matter of fact – since I have not had sex, I was a virgin. When I would, I wouldn’t be anymore. No more, no less.
I ended up marrying S, and were together for 7 years, during which he was the only person in my bed. I had neither positive nor negative associations with the fact that I have only ever fucked one person in my life, even though he did bring up that maybe it would be an issue for me later on. I didn’t see his past sexual history as something against him as a person – if anything, it was a great advantage to me, as I love learning new things, and he was a very skilled lover. Before me, he was married twice, had a string of girlfriends and casual fuck buddies, and it in no way undermined him as a person in my eyes. At the same time, my lack of experience was only an issue when I wished that I knew more about sex and what to do to please him and myself. After just a little bit of time, it was not a problem anymore.
Fast forward to post-divorce O. Due to some of the problems we had, extremely difficult situation regarding the business he owned (and I managed), and the long process of ending our relationship, I went for a year and a half of no sex. None. Nada. Zilch. I simply couldn’t fuck my then husband, and I would not have an affair. Once it was completely finished between us, though, all I could think about was dick. All I wanted to do was get laid. I have hooked up with a friend of my roommate’s that she quite forcefully set me up with to get my groove back, met 3 guys online for mostly one-night stands, had a drunken threesome with a couple of guys whom I used to serve when I was a bartender and had a very strange night in the bed of a friend and her boyfriend. Then I met D, my current open-minded lover, which didn’t stop me from meeting an adorable couple online for a fun evening or (together with D) taking a girl home for a night.
Now here is the point of this rambling, rich in oversharing as it may be. I am the same person as I always was. I have the same “value” now, in an open whatever-you-may-call-it, as I had when I was a virgin, when I was in a monogamous marriage and when I was single and sex-crazed. I have the same values, principles, ideas and if anything, now I know more about myself and specifically about sex. I am better for my present and future partners because I know what works and what doesn’t. I can be more empathetic, I am more confident in the sack, more imaginative and, arguably, more fun. Yet consistently, over and over again, I am being told that my experience is not a good thing. That it is off-putting and somehow makes me an unfit human being. I find myself wondering if on a date, if it ever would come up, I should tell that my number is something much greater than what it is. 50? 60? 80? Just to see what kind of reaction I would get from a guy who would know nothing else about me. I find myself wondering about that because I have dear friends whose numbers are many times mine, and they are fantastic women and partners to their current loves, yet some of these articles would make me believe that learning on your own life choices is bad, that figuring out who you are cannot involve sex or mistakes with sex (if you’re a girl, that is). It’s fascinating and sad that some men and women would penalize (mostly) women for having a high sex drive and guts to figure out what they want and don’t want. I don’t know if sometimes it is a case of wishing to live vicariously through bad decisions and putting these people down to compensate for the lack of opportunity or desire to put your own life decisions on the line. After all, we all like drama, right? And what is more dramatic than dragging someone through the mud because of their choice of sex partners.
A different story of O 
first of all, stop reading those articles 🙂 second, don’t worry about your ‘number’. sure, some men will not wanna date you because of your number. but you know what I say to that concern? I WOULDN’T WANNA DATE SOMEONE WHO WOULDN’T DATE A WOMAN BECAUSE OF HER NUMBER. seriously, it’s on my checklist. if you’re the kind of guy who has a problem with my promiscuity, then you’re not the kind of guy I respect enough to wanna date you.
I absolutely agree. I find it strange and worrisome, but not because I’m afraid it will affect MY dating life. The reason these articles made me think about inflating my own history is precisely so that I can almost “weed out” those who would be concerned with my sexual history because of their prejudices and leave those who would see it just as a part of my past that made me who I am.
This kinda sounds like it might be related to the scientific principles – read that as mostly academics – surrounding why we behave the way we do about sex, namely, sperm is plentiful and spreading it around re perpetuation of the species is supposed to be done. Eggs, however, are not that plentiful and the mindset back then was to make those eggs a precious commodity and not easily available – part of that survival of the fittest stuff we’ve heard about and, indeed, women way back then literally had to pick the right man to have access to her eggs based on qualities that would ensure survival.
So men are dogs – but not really seen as this being a bad thing… but women who readily give up access to their precious eggs? Oh, the horror of it all! Words like slut and whore get coined and applied to those women who give up access to their eggs ‘easily’ and without any thought about selecting the right male… and all because getting laid is just fine with them and not taking that guy as a mate is okay, too.
It’s a premise that’s been hammered into us; boys are encouraged to sow their wild oats while women are doubly encouraged to not let us do that… and then, at some point in your life, you realize that while this might have made sense back in 100 BC, um, it doesn’t make sense in 2013 because, perpetuation notwithstanding, sex is a fun thing to do and that no one, male or female, should be looked down on because of any promiscuous behavior, that is, any behavior that runs counter to our moral norms.
So if you embrace “if it feels good, do it!” – but other women don’t, well, too bad for them, huh? If they ain’t getting theirs, one, it ain’t your fault (because you’re getting yours) and, two, they’re the ones with the problem because you can screw to your heart’s content and without it, in any way, diminishing you as a woman and a person.
Great post – really enjoyed it!
Thanks!
I am really trying to figure out for myself if some of ideas about sex I had when growing up were reactions to what is “acceptable” and “desirable”. I never put much weight into what others’ opinions were and always believed that everyone is responsible only for their choices and no one else’s, but not judging others for what they do and trying same things myself are not the same at all. I wonder if some limitations I put on myself were a result of what I learned women “do” or “don’t do”.
This is something I read a lot about, but on some level I think it’s overanalyzed to prove the view that’s already popular without much examination of alternatives. Humans get compared to animals all the time specifically for the “biological imperative” of men, but I don’t see how that would not apply to women as well. After all, if the goal is to produce as many offsprings as possible, why not grant access to the eggs for any sperm that wants to qualify and let them duke it out? I mean, what if the male specimen with the brightest plumage is actually shooting blanks in this particular generation, and saving yourself for him will actually ensure the species’ extinction? (I know, nothing is that dramatic, but I think it illustrates the point)
Of course, also, I don’t think that in the wild a particular girl duck is considering the best boy duck to get down and dirty with solely in the context of propagation of the ducks as a whole. It might be an urge to mate, but it’s not defined in those terms. I don’t think the early cavewomen were thinking “well, I have to find the biggest baddest man to make sure my babies end up taking over all the caves and have other cavepeople bring tribute”. It was probably more along the lines of “he looks smashing in the firelight and he just clubbed that other dude over the head, so I’ll go sample that beefcake”. It almost seems like all of these explanations are being made post-acceptance of male promiscuity, in a way to make it seem more legit and somehow valid scientifically. In truth, I think men and women are more alike than they are different, and when it comes to sexuality and desire most of us are on a continuum that ranges from those who have no interest in sex whatsoever to those who want to fuck like bunnies all day long. And that doesn’t depend on gender.
Well, that’s just it; the biological imperative is what it is… but it also applies to women, too, and not just in that biological baby clock ticking down thing because lust isn’t just one-sided.
The thing is that all those ancient notions about men, women, and sex were created by people who couldn’t possibly understand it the way we do today; yet, a lot of us still live by those rather ignorant notions, don’t we? Some of us – maybe most of us – got so brainwashed and conditioned about what can be done and what shouldn’t be done – and that was before we actually had sex! Which is why a lot of us eventually find out that all that moral shit about ‘sexual correctness’ is just that – clueless bullshit.
Because good girls can do… and bad girls can do even more… and just because they can.
Your blog is sexy and mighty. It makes me want to do very bad things with it. Very good, bad things. Award winning things. http://thewistfulsinner.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/as-i-do-my-little-dance-on-the-catwalk/