genuinegirly

My 2 cents: Numbers are not relevant.

What was wrong with 50? Did you feel inferior? Did you see her as unclean rather than adventurous?

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abaya

Oh, believe me, I knew the power was in my hands, before I got married. When I was a virgin, I chose to not have sex with a man with many partners, though it was for other reasons (his extreme emotional imbalance and insecurity, which manifested itself in his having an uncountable number of partners--which is not always the case, but it was this time). I did choose to have sex with a man who was a virgin, and I had only been with one person before that... and while neither of us cared about each other's backgrounds, it certainly didn't hurt to have a similar background of experience, if that makes sense. I married that one.

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jewels

My problem with the double standard is that deciding someone's current value based on their past is ludicrous. You don't know a potential partner's life experience. Their values and priorities can change. There are so many extenuating circumstances and the human experience should allow us to grow and learn from one another.

I find it so ironic that many here have stated in previous threads that they didn't feel it necessary to "tell all" to their partners, yet something so personal to each of us is important to know before sleeping with someone new.

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We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

AKR

I think "too many" is too many for the person to handle, its subjective...

Kim Jong Il has a 2000 woman harem, divided into Happiness, Satisfaction, and Joy Teams

cadre

Am I the only one that noticed how many women have a problem with this whole number deal? Just an interesting sociological phenomenon, women tend to bear the grunt of this issue.

If you ask me, numbers don't really matter since it only takes one to give you something. I think that's a weird way to judge people and if you're trying to justify not dating someone there must be better things than a number to take issue with. Maybe that is my atheist upbringing talking though.

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My life is one of those 'you had to be there' jokes.

inBOIL

I'd be uncomfortable with a woman who has had too many partners, although I don't really think there's a cutoff point. I'd like to think that I have a noteworthy place in her list of lovers, above and beyond being Mr. Right Now. Ideally, I'd like to be the best she's ever had, but I could settle for being the beast at a particular act. I'd like to know that she shares something with me that she's never shared with anyone else. I wouldn't want to get done fucking her with my A-game and have her think "He's good, but not as good as that guy I hooked up with in Cancun." That's a lot less likely when she's had four partners than when she's had fifty.

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Rococo

For me its about how valuable the relationship is to the significant other. Its hard to believe that someone with 2-3 boyfriends per year will stick around through good times and bad, and values you as much as someone who has had a few long-term relationships that never worked out.

The other thing to think about is not how many but why there were so many. I'd rather know that i'm with someone who went through some sort of shitty phase and slept with a bunch of people rather than a pattern of never maintaining a "boyfriend" for more than 6 months.

I just went through this exact ordeal with a girl that said she slept with 20-30 guys by the age of 26. her longest relationship was a year and a half, she started having sex when she was 14. It was hell. I hated the feeling more than anything else I had ever experienced before. It soon became clear why there were so many ex's. It became clear that all the praise as being the best at everything from sex to intimacy was not as sincere as she made it seem. many of the feelings she had for me she had with other ex's early on in her relationships. I found out over the months that she cheated on them, that she even cheated on me, she lied constantly (caught her after I looked through her facebook and email) i tried to break up several times, she eventually slit her arm one day when I tried to end it because of the lies. I foolishly stuck around even after that and around the 8 month mark, she dropped me like a bag of rocks when she "needed time to reflect".

its been over 3 months since i last communicated with her and it still hurts as much as ever. It feels even worse when I know that i'm just another statistic, someone else is or soon will be hearing all the sweet things that I was made to believe.

by the way, I have only slept with 6 and I'm 30. I'm not holding a double standard here, I tried to make most of my relationships work and for whatever reason they did not. I have never been hurt by any of them like this particular girl, but they never had anything like this girl's baggage.

I wouldn't avoid a relationship knowing that the girl had many partners, but now I will take that as a sign to be very cautious. I would never even remotely want to know anything about the past until i was sure that this girl was someone i could trust.

jewels

You determine your worth by how many men she can compare you with and keeping those numbers low makes you a better lover?

I think, inBOIL, you're the only one to come out and say it (kudos for your honesty!) but this is the underlying issue for the men that have a number in mind.

Instead of twisting the numbers to suit your needs, though, why not look at it this way: Damn! That woman's slept with 50,000 men and she chooses me? I am King Kong!

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

Rococo

yeah, and how are you supposed to believe that she won't get bored of King kong 50,001 and look for something fresh with 50,002?

its not about the "number" its about what value the person holds in making that particular relationship work.

if you want to have a friend with benefits then yeah, numbers don't mean shit. if you are hoping to spend your life with someone who jumps from person to person everytime something isn't working out just the way they want it, then you're in for a disappointment.

lotsofmagnets

shows that she was looking for a "serious relationship"......

shit like this is so not worth worrying about (except mebe on the std level)

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mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor.
she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron.
physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?

jewels

So she's had 50,000 lovers (silly, but you get the point). She's 35 and just came out of a monogamous longterm (say 5 - 10 yrs) relationship. Would that change things? Would you have even listened to her story, or would the number have sent you flying out the door?

Men and women both often do things for the wrong reason, especially when we're young. Sometimes we grow up. That's why judgments based on numbers sucks and just proves we really need to listen to one another.

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We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

Rococo

that makes it worth a try. 50,000 (or more realistically 20) spread evenly over 15 years says something else.

creepysusie

I wasn't going to post to this thread because it is a topic that occurs time and time again with no real answer or solution because it's a personal preference... But here I am.

Some things to consider...

What if she was gang raped and that was the only reason for her high number? Would that change how you would react to that number?

Does that physically change what is different about her?

And if you were with a girl that you really love and she tells you her number, are you going to leave her for that reason only? Consider that every experience she has had (not just sexual), makes her the person that she becomes. (This is the same for males as well)

And in response to Mead's comment about changing the societal double standards. Consider the following words. "Whore" and "Player"
Strange that we automatically assign a gender to each word, female and male respectively. Double standards are not changed over night, but if we don't acknowledge the existance of the double standard, then we have already lost.

Take this ad from the 20's as an example

Why is it only "loose" women we have to worry about? Why don't we have to worry about "loose" men? If something has been hammered into society for so many decades, intantaneous amnesia is not going to occur, just because someone says, "Well, it's up to you to change it!"

I mean, even famous lovers in history are practically all men, such as Don Juan, St. Valentino and Henry's Secret Life. The only historical sexual female that women have to represent them is Fanny Hill, the prostitute. Men have saints to represent them; women have a prostitute. It just doesn't equal up.

So, Mead, if you think that these "double standards" can be cleared up at any moment in time, I applaud you for your optimism.

cadre

It's not about the number. Someone who's had two partners could have no desire to make a relationship work just as easily as someone who's had many. In fact, I know many people who have had more partners and seem to be more dedicated to relationships when they find the right one. The fact that someone's had many partners doesn't have to mean that you're just a number.

I understand the opinions of those of you who don't like high numbers but I really don't like that you believe number can define a person.

Personally, I'd rather have someone with more partners, it means they won't be as clingy and they're probably better in bed.

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loquitur

Well, the higher the number of partners the less likely the act was something of high significance to the person. And that's ok but it does reflect one aspect of the person's thinking.

mixedmedia

Rock on.

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Rococo

Hold up, this is basically the same thing as a person generalizing a negative quality with too many partners.

# of sexual partners DOES NOT equal better sex. Believe me. Again, its the person and whether they even give a rat's ass if the other person is enjoying the experience.

I can assure you, that with the "limited" number of partners compared to other men out there, you would find sex with me WAY more pleasurable than many of those 'players' out there. I have been having sex pretty much non-stop for 14 years. Even though i have not had lots of partners, i have had to learn how to please each woman, learn to be a better lover, basically find out how to make them cum and as often as possible.

The last girl, with the 20+ boyfriends was the worst partner i have ever had. Worst at oral, worst in bed, she handled genitals without any concern whether things were painful, enjoyable, nothing! So many times I had to say, "yo, that hurts!" She was the biggest disappointment when it came to sex. All she knew how to do well is get herself off, she never had to really learn to please someone else or seemed to give a fuck. She was onto a fresh relationship as soon as things got boring.

these generalizations whether for men or women are just more situations where you can be seriously dissapointed.

I think you should look for someone who is caring and looking for a long-term relationship. numbers are just illusions. its values and the quality that you should look for in the relationship otherwise likely one or the other person is just looking to get a short-term fulfillment.

inBOIL

It's not about determining my worth; that is independant of what anyone else thinks. It's analagous to wanting a partner who finds me very attractive, as opposed to just attractive enough.
Exactly. While number of partners doesn't determine this on its own, there is at least the underlying feeling that I'm not that special to her. It's not about measuring up to other guys per se, it's a desire to know that she's getting from me something that she can't get/hasn't gotten from anyone else. It's ridiculous and illogical, and that feeling shouldn't get in the way of an otherwise healthy relationship, but the feeling remains nevertheless.

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And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

cadre

Okay yeah, that was a pretty stupid comment on my part. You have a point.

But go ahead an apply that generalizations rule to the numbers thing. Make my point for me.

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My life is one of those 'you had to be there' jokes.

XtinaHollywood

i can't believe she didn't lie about it, that's what most of us do

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