doncalypso

Jillian, I do not know how many people you've been with in the past nor is it my business to know... what you have done in your past is in your past (especially if it happened before you ever met and hooked up with that ex-boyfriend of yours to begin with).

This being said, I have to say that despite how "liberated" society might be, and despite whatever advances the sexual revolution may have brought forward, the double standards still exist when it comes to male versus female sexuality.
Despite the fact that I disagree with the double standards myself, I must admit that I would find it hard to accept if I found out my girlfriend had been with a whole hell of a lot more people than I have. I am currently 22 years old, and thus far the total number of sexual partners I have had is somewhere between 10 and 13 (I have not kept count because I'd rather forget some of the circumstances under which I had sex when I was back in high school). My girlfriend is 21 years old, and if by this age she'd been with 30 or more people I would have had a hard time dealing with this despite my relatively high number of sex partners over the 8 years that I've been sexually active because I'd be afraid of not measuring up to those other guys she'd been with.

Honestly, I think that the sexual revolution and the women's liberation movement failed miserably... Not that I agree with the persisting double-standard that women should remain sexless and "pure" before marriage while men should have free reign to have as much sex as they want as soon as they're capable of achieving an erection, but rather that the sexual revolution was a good concept turned bad--analogous to how Stalin perverted Trotsky's notions of progressist socialism and turned them into hardline totalitarian communism.
What women should have done during the sexual revolution would've been to demand that men adhere to the same rigorous standards that women were being held to. Women should have said "hey... if you want us to remain 'pure' and 'clean' then you should respect us by not going around being manwhores and having sex with so many women while expecting us to be sexless..." or something to that effect. Instead, the message that was sent was "...if men can go out and be pigs and whores why shouldn't we?" and that's where I think things went wrong. So now, both men and women are having random promiscuous sex and not caring for the consequences.

In all honesty, I think that if the number of people a person has slept with by the time they're in their 30s is over 50 or in the triple-digits range then it is just too damned much. Don't get me wrong, I love sex, and honestly I don't think I could ever have enough of it. But if I were to choose between having experienced a whole variety of different partners and sticking to earth-shaking good sex with one or two in the whole time I've been sexually active, I'd choose the latter.
I think that people would be much happier and that there would be much less spreading of STDs if they stuck to fewer sexual partners and really took the time to get to know each other (sexually speaking, that is) so that they'd enjoy good sex rather than hook up with a plethora of different people in a matter of a few years.


I realize that I've been running my proverbial mouth way too long already, so I guess I'll stop my rant now.

And Jillian... maybe you're right that if you posted the exact number of people you'd slept with throughout your sexually active life I would probably pass negative judgment on you (damned double standard again), but your ex-boyfriend had no right to call you names when he knew this information when you two were together and still chose to sleep with you.

Even though you're comfortable with your past you must accept the fact that you will meet men who could be the ideal person for you but will not get involved with you because they don't agree with how many people you've slept with. It is not fair, but that's the harsh reality of life.

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Doncalypso... the one and only Haitian Sensation