The Magic Number

"How many girls have you slept with?"

There are few questions that make me break into cold sweats like this one. There truly is no good answer. The truth is wrong because ANY number can be twisted and used against you and a lie is wrong because it's a lie. Avoidance is a good policy, and my preferred method, but you're merely postponing the conversation.

I found that I was asked this question most while in college, but it still comes up on a regular basis and it always makes me uncomfortable.

Going into college I had only slept with a handful of girls, maybe four or five, but that number increased by a factor of at least three or four within a few months of my freshman year. During that period I found that almost every girl I had sex with asked how many sexual partners I had, and I was truthful. Each time I would answer: seven, eight, nine..." but when I got to "ten" I noticed that I suddenly was perceived as sleazy, or a player, and I would have to do a lot of talking to convince the girl otherwise. It went on "...eleven, twelve, thirteen...", but at thirteen I was stopped, and the girl wouldn't sleep with me. This happened a couple of times, and like Pavlov's dog, I learned quickly to change my behavior.

It was at this point that I found the magic number in college is "nine". When you're in your late teens or early twenties, nine shows that you are experienced but not sleeping with every chick that crosses your path. Nine is a fair number of partners, but just short of double-digits. All through college my policy was avoidance, but if I was really pressed for an answer I always said nine.

After college I continued to use "nine" as my answer if truly pressed, but this was obviously a flagrant lie, and I had an increasingly hard time saying it with any degree of sincerity. I eventually increased the number of my answer to "twelve". I used twelve for a short time, but it wasn't long before I couldn't even say that in good conscience. Shortly thereafter I simply stopped answering the question and have been double-talking ever since.

My friend John, a notorious player, got married a few years ago and after his wedding I asked him how his wife felt about the fact that there was hardly a girl in town that he did not "know" in the biblical sense? His answer was "we have a strict don't-ask-don't-tell policy". I am all for avoidance, but I am not sure this is the best policy once you decide to marry someone. While technically not a lie, there is a certain degree of deception involved here that you may not want to drag into a marriage.

The first girl I met in college was from Cuba. She was a great girl, smoking hot, and I really liked her. After a few weeks of dating we went to a dance together and that night we ended up in my dorm room. We were naked on my futon (the ubiquitous college couch) when Cuba told me that she was a virgin. We slept together that night, and dated or a few months after that. After that we both moved on, but we would get together for sex every once in a while that year (and, actually, all through college). One night towards the end of my freshman year Cuba and I ended up back at her room, and after a few rounds of sex while laying in bed she asked me how many girls I had slept with, to which I answered "nine". I didn't ask her what her count was, but she said "me too, also nine". I'm not sure why, but her answer shocked me. A few months before she was a virgin, and now she's giving me the old "nine" answer. I was infuriated, but understood this was a double standard, and kept my anger in check.

I always think of this story when girls ask me how many sexual partners I have had because there is clearly a double standard for this in society. If a guy sleeps with a lot of women he's virile, and a stud. If a girl sleeps with many guys she's a slut.

Honestly, I have never asked a girl how many guys she has slept with. A part of me really doesn't care, but I also don't want to know because I am usually not willing to answer the question myself, so I avoid the topic.

But I am curious about what an average female number is? I would guess that a girl in her late twenties or early thirties would have had around 25 partners, maybe even thirty. That's about two per year since high school. If you factor in a couple of slow years for long-term relationships, and a couple of Vegas weekends with the girls I think two per year is a fair assumption. My guess is that most guys are about double that number, or maybe a little less than double.

Anyone care to shed some light on the subject?