Sunday, April 29, 2007
Life, "Ask a Bachelor"

Partners, trysts and one-night stands

You do the math

By Blane Bachelor

Farts, pus-filled pimples, masturbation—there are few topics that are off-limits between C. and me. An area we’ve barely scratched, however, is one that close girlfriends and I, especially after a few glasses of wine, can barely resist: the number.

Anyone who was born after 1960 knows which number I’m referring to: the number of sexual partners one has had.

I recently read a story in Glamour magazine in which several men reported their number alongside their photos. I had one overriding thought as I read the piece: There’s no way in hell most women would agree to willingly volunteer such information to the world, let alone be connected to it via not only their names, but a photograph. You’d have more luck sending a reporter to a spa and asking clients how they like their Dead Sea mud facial mask and, by the way, would they mind posing for the camera?

That’s because, even in a society in which women have made considerable progress when it comes to the sexual revolution, there’s still plenty of stigma attached to quantifying the level to which we’ve allegedly gained equality. It goes back to that stud/slut cliché: A man who has had 10 or more partners, for example, gets a collective thumbs-up as a virile love machine, while a woman with a comparable number gets a scathing look of disapproval.

I got a strong taste of just how alarming that disparity is when I interviewed seven guys in a roundtable discussion for a women’s magazine one year ago. I asked them what they considered an acceptable number for women, and the consensus was 10. Of course, when pressed, I’m sure the majority would have admitted to surpassing that number themselves years ago.

But one man at the roundtable had a different line of thinking. He said he doesn’t care how many partners a woman has before him, provided that she isn’t still sleeping with any while they’re together. As refreshing as that sounded, I found it a difficult to believe that if he and his current girlfriend were casually discussing the topic over brunch one lazy Sunday morning and she admitted he was, let’s say, number 45, he wouldn’t choke on his coffee before leaping up from the table with the newspaper, claiming he wanted to read the sports section in solitude.

Indeed, everyone has their limits. And as much rhetoric as we spew about how someone’s past is their past, if that past includes more than a certain number of partners, we tend to cringe—in the present. The real problem I have is that, in the minds of most men and in that of society in general, that number is unrealistically—and unreasonably—low for women. Consider this formula: If you’ve been having sex since you were 18 (which is ancient if you consider the ranks of 14-year-olds who are giving it up today) and you’re now 28, that means you’ve got a decade’s worth of doing the deed. Let’s say you’ve had an average of two partners a year, hardly an excessive number if you date often. Do the math: That adds up to a lot more than 10.

Furthermore, consider this little corollary, which is related to the Three-Date rule. The premise is that it’s considered acceptable to sleep with someone after the third date. If that’s true, then why isn’t it acceptable for a woman to have a number higher than the aforementioned 10, or, heaven forbid, one that trumps her boyfriend’s?

When my editor, the photographer and I—the only women in the room—brought up these points to the men at the roundtable, we were met with sheepish shrugs. The same guy who tossed out 10 as the all-powerful number summed it up: “There’s still a double standard.” My next question to him should have been: “So if you found out your current girlfriend had more than 10 partners, you would dump her because you couldn’t get past a societal double standard?” But, unfortunately, I didn’t think to ask it.

I don’t think twice, however, about spilling my secrets—and sharing my number—with girlfriends, especially when the conversation turns a bit racy after a bottle or two of wine. And as much as women say we’d go to the grave for our girlfriends, I still think we breathe a little sigh of relief when we know we’re not the only one who’s had a one-night stand (or two) or got a little too crazy during college. That we seek support in our girlfriends is commendable; that we do so because we may harbor guilt over our sexual pasts is a shame.

As for C. and me, we continue to talk about the nasty stuff, but I have no doubt we’ll leave discussions about doing the nasty with others completely out of our conversations. I think he inherently understands what should be a universal rule when it comes to women and their numbers: There are two you should never ask about—the number of years she’s been on this earth, and the number of men she’s been to bed with. That is, unless you can react to either without an ounce of judgment.

Blane Bachelor is a full-time freelance writer who covers travel, health and lifestyles. E-mail her at blanebachelor@sundaypaper.com.