It’s often really hard to broach the subject of past relationships, especially if they involve sex, and your number of sexual partners is on the high side. While there’s nothing wrong with having multiple sex partners, or even a really high number of sex partners, there is a certain threshold where everyone else starts to judge you. While it’s totally not okay for people to do that, science has spoken, and studies have come out based on research that says that there is a set number of sexual partners you can have before everyone judges you. You might find that surprising, but what you might find even more surprising is that there’s a minimum number of sexual partners you can have in order for people to not judge you too. This all seems really disheartening, but this is research that’s worth looking into. Here are the cold, hard facts about the number of sexual partners a person has to pass in order to be judged or not to be judged, and why it’s really not okay to do that.
It can be really hard to have the conversation about sexual partners. You never know who’s going to have the weirdest hangups about your past exes, or who is going to want a partner who’s never had sex at all. There’s also no real way to gauge whether your partner is going to be one of those people who goes postal at this conversation until you actually have this conversation.
It’s probably because this conversation has gone so awry before that people are constantly asking this question. People have constantly wondered if there’s a universal number of sexual partners that you have to stay away from, lest they be judged for having sex with too many people. However, science had yet to weigh in…until now.
Science always finds answers eventually. New research came out from Nottingham, Bristol and Swansea universities shedding light on just how many sexual partners you can have before people start trying to weigh in. What they found might be surprising, not just because the number isn’t what you think, but because there’s a minimum number as well.
This kind of reminds me of a fairy tale. This is kind of like the Goldilocks question of sex, now. One number might be too big, another might be too small, but there’s a window that’s just right, and that makes all the difference.
The study was pretty small. There were only 188 people in the study, and 104 of those people were women. However, those 188 people said that they wanted people who’d had sex with at least two people before them, but if they’d had more sex than that, the less attractive that they get.
The research didn’t stop there. The research found that people who had a longer laundry list of sexual partners were also more likely to have an STI or to have had one before. It also found that people with more exes were more likely to cheat.
Men care a lot less about this than we think. The men who were in this study claimed that if the woman they were sleeping with was just a casual hookup, they really didn’t care how many sexual partners they had. Considering we’re so used to the idea of guys freaking out about a woman’s sexual history, this one was kind of surprising.
We still haven’t talked hard numbers. According to women, if a man has slept with more than six people, they’re gross and undatable to them. Men think the same of women if they hit more than eleven sexual partners before getting to them.
This might make you wonder some things. Considering the cultural emphasis on men having a lot of sex and women having much less sex, it’s interesting to see the cliches about men who want women who’ve had less sex get contradicted by science here. This also flies in the face of what we think about women’s sexuality.
One stereotype about women got put to bed here, too. It’s often been said that women would prefer a man who’s had more sexual experience than them. However, this study has proven that particular idea wrong.
Let’s talk about mandatory minimums. While there’s been a lot of talk about the maximum number of partners a person can have before they start getting judged, not much time has been taken to discuss what the minimum number is. The answers here might really surprise you.
Women and men are in agreement here. Both genders wanted their serious relationships to have at least some semblance of a past before getting to them. They both wanted their serious partner to have had at least two past partners, and no more than three long term relationships.
This goes against a lot of ideas about what we know about what both genders want. “Contrary to the idea that male promiscuity is tolerated but female promiscuity is not, both sexes expressed equal reluctance to get involved with someone with an overly extensive sexual history. The only significant sex differences is, men were more willing to get involved with a virgin or with someone with a low number of past sexual partners.” said Dr. Steve Stewart Williams, one of the researchers.
While we have lots of expectations, the reality is a bit different. The average number of sexual partners women have is about 5.81, and for men, it’s slightly higher at 8.4. This means that by their own parameters, women are the only gender that actually pass this test.
This is why it’s important not to judge others for their magic number. Your number really doesn't matter, because everyone has lived a different life and has sex for different reasons. You can’t judge someone unless you’ve walked some miles in their shoes, and this is just one of those things where you can’t really do that.
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