Why Your Average Number Of Sex Partners Doesn't Really Matter

Not that it's anyone's business anyway.

By Slutty Girl Problems — Last updated on Sep 02, 2022

Photo: Volodymyr TVERDOKHLIB / Shutterstock

Whether it happens during a drinking game with friends or a heart-to-heart with your boyfriend, the question is eventually going to come up: How many people have you had sex with?

Sometimes you’ll want to shout out your answer to anyone who will listen, and other times you’d rather crawl under a rock and die than reveal that secret.

But no one except you (and maybe your doctor) is entitled to know that number, and you should never believe that you have to tell someone if you don’t feel comfortable.

And don't even bother worrying about the average number of sexual partners you've had by age 30, 40 or even 100!

Because research quoted in an article on Thrillist shows that "women and men lie in just about every sex study — all in accordance with what they perceive as cultural expectations of their gender."

Feel free to share your number liberally or not at all. Just know that you are not your number.

Here are 5 excellent reasons why your number of sexual partners doesn't matter at all.

1. It’s not a competition.

More often than not, the first thing someone will do when they find out how many people you’ve slept with is compare it to their own number (admit it, you’ve done it, too).

You’re not hotter or more desirable because you’ve had more partners, and you’re not cleaner or more virtuous because you’ve had fewer partners. No woman is better than any other woman.

We might sometimes refer to hooking up as “scoring," but in the end, nobody is winning or losing.

2. It’s hard to define what sex is.

Everyone has a different idea of what “counts” as sex.

Society likes to tell us that “real sex” has to include some good "old-fashioned" penetration, but that belief discredits all same-sex experiences and a lot of opposite-sex experiences as well. It’s hard to argue that oral sex or anal sex “don’t count” when you can still have an orgasm or catch a nasty STI from either one.

There are countless other reasons to “count” an experience or not, and even your own opinion may change over the years. At that rate, how can a woman even begin to calculate what her number is?

3. Your 'number' reveals nothing about the quality of your sex life.

Maybe you’ve only had sex with one person but you have sex with them every day, or maybe you’ve had sex with hundreds of people but they were all one-night stands. How many partners you’ve had says nothing about how much sex you’ve had.

Furthermore, if you’ve been with a lot of men but have never had an orgasm, it’s pretty hard to say that you’re any better or worse off than a girl who’s had mind-blowing orgasms with only a few different partners.

It’s much more important to have fun and enjoy yourself than to keep a tally. Focus on each individual experience rather than the total sum.

4. The past is in the past.

Don’t let your past define you (especially if you regret parts of it).

Why should it matter how many other guys there have been before your current guy? What matters is that your relationship status right now is both happy and healthy.

Everyone makes mistakes, but the important thing is that we learn from the past. As long as you make smart decisions regarding safe sex, any current or future partner you may have should be concerned with how you interact and communicate with them and not worry about anyone you were with before them.

5. It’s only a number.

We’ve all heard that “age is just a number” and “weight is just a number.” So is how many people you’ve had sex with.

What Your Number Of Sex Partners Really Says About You