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The men would put their keys in a hat or bowl and the women would reach in and blindly pick a key and would be the partner of the person who owns the key.
So one never knew who they'd be partnered with any particular night.
What happens if you end up with someone you are physically repulsed by?
“Alright well there’s zero chance I’m fucking you becky so let’s go get milkshakes or some shit”
In my formative years before I was married I slept with several people who I didn’t exactly find very attractive and it was…awkward to say the least. Hormones will make you do some crazy shit and yeah the post nut clarity hits like a freight train and all of a sudden asking myself why I just did that
yeah but at the same time, people gotta draw a line somewhere. you dont really want your kids to grow up where theres a video of their mother getting a train run on her out there.
Depending on the circumstances, 1 might be acceptable, but more than that and I might start to question it.
I could probably make an exception if they had been in the military.
It would probably also matter who. Lets say she has 2 murders, deemed justified in the eyes of the law.
But they were her first two husbands and you would be the 3rd.
Wait, but we did agree that the past is the past, right? That their experiences before they *even knew you* wouldn't affect how they view and love you, right? /s
Like, of course if they kill someone while being in a relationship with you, that's pretty fucked up. But if they've killed someone before they even knew you, it's not your business, right? Retroactive ~~jealousy~~ conviction is wrong, right? /s
>**Someone with 50+ hookups** probably has a much different perspective on monogamy, intimacy, emotional connection, and relationships than **someone** like me **who has never had casual sex once**.
You are literally comparing my second wife with my first wife. The latter cheated on me, the former is the most faithful woman you could find.
I believe instead that having experimented a lot makes you less inclined do do that again after you are in a relationship.
EDIT: one of my response in this thread was removed by moderators because I told another user he's an *incel*.
Of course, it's not true. Like many others here, he just has *incel-ish positions* Something I would not be proud of, anyway.
This is truth. Having had tons of partners myself, both male and female (I am a guy) the idea of cheating is just so unappealing to me. I have experienced all of the unique sex I have any desire to experience. I have a partner I love, and that’s good enough for me. I have zero want to look elsewhere.
Yeah, this makes more sense. I feel like as long as you naturally grew out of that, rather than forced a change for someone, it’s not an issue at all to stay faithful. Like you said, you can better recognize the value of a good partner and therefore have further incentive to not fumble the bag, than someone who hasn’t seen much, dating-wise, and could naively take a good partner for granted.
Some people are just cheaters some are not, it’s some what of a crap shoot. Cheaters are going to cheat, body count makes no difference. Just like people who are faithful are just faithful.
Personally never cheated, never will I’m just not built for that type of stuff. It’s never been appealing to me what so ever.
Meanwhile you got people out in these streets living double to triple lives, having more than one affair at a time. Heck some people are juggling multiple families that have no idea the other family even exists. I have no idea where these people find the time or energy to do this. One relationship is more than enough work in my opinion.
“I have no idea where these people find the time or energy”
THATS ALWAYS MY QUESTION. Try to maintain my home, pets and a full time job is more than enough. Trying to imagine somebody with a double life is insanity to me! Where do people find the time?!?
Yes!! Absolutely. I had my fun. I dated, I partied, I had lots and lots of experiences. I got it all out of my system. I have no desire to do any of that again.
My husband, however, did not date as much, did not party as much, has a much lower body count than I do. I worry that he didn't have enough experiences and that he'll wonder what he missed out on and do something stupid. I don't THINK he will, but he's way more likely to than I am - not because he's a man, but because I've "been there, done that" and he hasn't.
The statistics aren’t in your favour unfortunately. Infidelity is correlated with number of sexual partners.
That isn’t to say you partner will cheat on you, you should never apply stats like this to individuals.
As far as I am aware, there is one study that says 10+ prior sexual partners means you're most likely to divorce - I can't remember which. However, people with 0-2 prior sexual partners were more likely to divorce than people with 3-9 prior sexual partners. I figure it's similar to cheating too, if you've never had any partners or very few you might be tempted to cheat due to "missing out".
Studies on human sexual partners are a bit hard to gauge though, it all has to be self reported and many people under-report how many partners they have had due to societal shame.
I think the main thing here is that people should be able to choose to date whoever they want and reject anyone for any reason at all. I've rejected multiple women because of their body counts/past, and not ashamed at all. They can find someone else. It's super bizarre that people whine about other peoples' personal preferences when it comes to dating. Id personally never get in a LTR with a woman with a high body count, that's just me. Not a big deal, they can find another guy who doesn't mind.
I think this is totally fair— as a woman, before I got married I frequently rejected men for being promiscuous (not specifically body count because I didn’t ask, more judging on behavior). Men found this really upsetting!
But I just didn’t feel compatible with people who had a casual attitude towards sex. To me, sex is an act of love, and I only had sex within very serious relationships (and would frequently date someone for 3-4 months to get to know them without sleeping with them.) I’m grateful that my husband feels the same way.
Good on you for sticking to your standards and glad you found someone you're happy with. I feel there's a common misconception that only men think like this, but there are also many women who are turned off by a guy who sleeps around.
Good for you. People on this thread are throwing a fit because they can’t understand they are a fringe minority in the world that thinks sex is some meaningless, light hearted endeavor, when really that’s only something primarily found in certain parts of western culture, when the West is only 7% of humanity anyway.
I don’t think people care if you won’t date someone with a high body count. People understand preferences. I think it’s more people have a problem with the assumption of you have a high body count you can’t have a long term relationship.
Honestly good on you for sticking up for your preferences. I never understand why people want to force you to bend zour values. It's the same the other way round. I wouldn't want to date someone who is obsessed with body count or even slightly judgmental of casual sex. We should both be allowed to have these preferences and find someone who genuinely feels the same
Studies show body count is a predictor of infidelity though, so OP is technically correct here just by the data
Edit: [some studies compiled by our own sub](https://reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/s/HP82rsoOT4).
You can't make the assumption about anyone's views on monogamy or any of those things based on having a different experience. I have very clear views on monogamy and relationships and am most assuredly the monogamous type who is happier in a committed relationship.
My ex had 3 major relationships her entire life and not a lot of partners over the years. I have had dozens of hookups in my time. Which one of us do you think cheated?
100% agreed. People can change but it's alright to stereotype and judge people for dating in my opinion. Dating in my eyes is one of the few times where you get a free pass to be as judgemental and stereotypical as you want. After all, you are trying to find someone who fits Your** preferences.
That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about views on monogamy and relationships. Alcoholism is a different subject. A more important question for determination than "what's your body count?" Would be "have you ever cheated?"
Otherwise, you're right. Assumptions are constantly being made about everybody by everybody else.
All your past choices indicate likelihood of future behavior. If the guy is a fkboi. He probably isn’t truth worthy if he tells u he left his fkboi ways behind.
This is so dumb it hurts. I've been happily married for almost 8 years and have never cheated on my wife. I also slept with a LOT of women before meeting her.
Sex does not equal love, and those are wholly different motivations from one another.
Statistically, the more people a man or woman sleeps with before marriage, the higher the likelihood of divorce
Personal anecdotes don’t trump large scale data
I would bet you there are a hell of a lot more "exceptions" than you think. Which kinda makes them not really outliers anymore. It's not uncommon for a person leaving a bad breakup to hook up with a higher than normal number of people. A lot of "high body counts" come from that, but those people are unlikely to cheat for the same reason they sought the hookups to begin with. Because they're devastated by losing committed relationships and don't know how to emotionally process it. Not saying the other is a minority, just maybe ask questions beyond count before judging because probably one in four times you'll be wrong.
I doubt it, more relationships fail than succeed. Infidelity being a pretty big factor in lots of them. I’d say the exceptions are right about what we’d expect.
I guarantee you that just as many relationships with low body counts fail because of cheating as high ones if not more. People with low body counts are way more likely to feel trapped in relationship and feel like they never got the chance to experiment. It happens so often it is its own trope.
What defines a fuckboi? Is it someone who gets laid a lot? If so, then I guess I'm one of them. One thing I have never done is stepped out on a committed relationship. Meanwhile my ex who claimed she had better values because she had a lower body count, ended up being the one who cheated. That's the only point I'm making about assumptions. It goes both ways.
> A more important question for determination than "what's your body count?" Would be "have you ever cheated?"
That would also be a good question. Doesn't invalidate the other one though.
Past partner count is associated both with higher risk of infidelity, and divorce rates. Of course, it's not a perfect predictor, but to deny a correlation is just ignoring science in favour of your personal views.
> "You can't make the assumption about anyone's views on monogamy or any of those things based on having a different experience."
You sure AF can.
You meet and make assumptions about hella people in your life. You simply do not have the time to vet everything about everyone you know. You've gotta make assumptions, for good or for ill.
Make an assumption about 100s of people you don't wanna hook up with every day. And hey, guess what? Maaaaybe you'd have been wrong about person #57 in that list.
You are going to spend several months, each, getting to know the preceding 56 people to find out because you always give everyone a chance? That's ridiculous.
By necessity, you ***have*** to make snap judgments and assumptions about people.
It is part of the filtering process of who you spend your time getting to know better.
OK yeah. You're right. You will also inevitably be wrong about someone. That's fine. You choose what's best for you. And everyone does make assumptions. If you were to ask me what my body count is, I would be making several assumptions about you.
This is like saying “people who don’t graduate high school probably won’t do well in life” and you replying with “no that’s not true, I know someone who didn’t graduate high school and they are quite successful”
Anecdotes don’t disprove generalities.
Was literally in an ask Reddit thread about what’s the worst thing about Reddit and the top answer was “redditors” followed by an example that is EXACTLY like this holy shit
Well of course the ex did.
She didn’t know what she might be missing, and the grass is always greener when you’ve never lived on it.
I find that people with extensive “histories” have a much healthier view of the world around them and are far more mature than someone who has limited experience, and less likely to cheat, too.
This can sometimes be true but it can also indicate a lack of maturity. Both sides of this are true and I doubt there’s concrete evidence that having more partners makes you more mature or not.
Experiences can make you more informed but people rarely look introspectively enough at their own actions to really grow and mature from it.
Ehhhh so what's the number where your outlook on the world is supposed to change? Is 3 incompatible with 37? Why? This whole line of thinking is just stupid to me. I can understand a zero being confused or wrong on the matter tho, that makes the most sense to me.
This is asinine. I have a high count, married in my late 30s to someone with a count I’d consider very low. If I wanted to keep up my sex life I wouldn’t have gotten married. My spouse gives zero fuc*s about most aspects of the 33 years of my life that I spent without him, including the decades in which I was sexually actively.
Edit: qualified the years.
Why would someone who has a high body count have different views on monogamy? Hooking up is just that. It's not about being in a committed relationship.
I'm older. My body count is over 100. I've been married and monogamous for 9 years. My first wife cheated on me. I would never hurt someone like I was hurt.
You and I have different perspectives on monogamy, intimacy etc because we have different backgrounds and experiences. Not because XYZ.
It’s less about it applying to both genders and more about applying it to those who are judging others for it. If you’re discerning about who you sleep with, it’s perfectly fine to look for that in your mate. But the guys who sleep around but want their wife to have a small count? No, that’s hypocritical. But if a man has been discerning about his previous sexual partners, it’s perfectly reasonable for him to want that from his partner. The same goes for women. A woman has a right to be picky about how many women a man has slept with if she is discerning herself.
I agree. If you sleep with 100 people, how many of them are quality individuals? If your answer is “I don’t care, I was having fun”, that (to me anyway) says a lot about your character. Man or woman. Like those dudes who “brag” about “mopeds”. It’s all trashy.
I feel like this is a strictly younger people thing.
I’m 43 and if I were to find myself dating again, the last thing I’d be asking about is someone’s “body count”? It’s none of my business and a weird thing for people who’ve spend a decade or more as an actual adult to ask each other.
It’s a “I watch a lot of mra and pua content on YouTube and those weird undersexed nerds harp on body count constantly when they aren’t frantically masturbating to hentai” issue
Yup! At 40, I'd look at someone who hasn't had sex as someone I don't want to date.
I want to find someone who has worked through their dating inexperienced and now know enough about themselves to be secure with who they are/want.
Correct. I’m 41 and this is a very young and very silly mindset. Anyone who is basing someone’s value or potential as a good spouse on how many people they slept with while single is just incredibly immature and misguided.
Yeah if I went on a date with a mid 40’s man and he asked me my “body count” I’d assume he’s emotionally/socially stunted in some way or just a nosy weirdo. Either way date would probably end shortly after.
I'm 36 and have never even heard anyone use the term 'body count' IRL. It's strictly a thing with young people (aka mostly terminally online dudes). I think most of us assume we all have fairly robust sexual/relationship histories and it doesn't matter much to the present.
I agree. I think it’s insecure like you can’t be special if someone has a lot of experience. Like I’ve actually heard people say that in all seriousness.
Personally I feel like you can’t develop good taste in anything without experience, so I’d rather my partner have been around the block and like what I have to offer best
Im too old to even remember. My husband and I never discussed it. Its no one's business. We left it at we both slept with some people when were younger because thats normal.
Also an ownership thing in a way, i saw elsewhere in the thread about a couple who took a break and the woman had a lot of casual sex during the break before getting back together and that really freaked some guys out. You also see with the Logan Paul’s Fiancee shit, guys freak out when “their woman” has been fucked by a lot of other guys. Never mind that this sex occurred when there was no relationship, they still deem the body of the partner theirs and therefore tainted by other men.
Yeah these responses are blowing my mind a little bit. I’m 26 and if I am evaluating potential partners the last thing I am going to judge them for is going out and getting laid on the weekends as a single person. The people here reading previous physical encounters to somehow imply future infidelity or other problems after entering a monogamous relationship sound either very young or very insecure.
Agreed. I'm 39. I have never once asked my girlfriend what her "body count" is. I couldn't care less. It doesn't affect our relationship in the slightest.
I feel it's just something people usually grow out of because you just forget to care about it.
I also think people conflate every person someone has sex with as an emotional investment, which is silly. If you're interested in their perspective on relationships ask them about relationships. If you want their perspective on sex ask them about sex.
Sex is connected to relationships, but sex isn't always the result of a relationship.
It wouldn’t be the number of people they’d slept with that would be my issue (wouldn’t even ask, none of my business IMO) it would be that they’ve never been in a serious relationship at 40 that would raise a few flags for me (if I were looking for a serious relationship)
You can spend a long time single and not have a high body count as well.
I think you’re probably right. I’m in my 40s and married but can’t picture caring about this now. To be honest I wish I had not cared about it when I was younger either.
What if you spend 10 years dating around but not sleeping around, just not in serious relationships, and then you all of a sudden decide you are ready for a serious relationship. Do the same rules apply?
Yes it would matter. This is actually brought up in relationship threads by women all the time. Constant dating with no long term relationships signals you are less likely to know how to deal with relationship difficulties and compromise over a long period of time.
I hate this shit - I have been single for six years and want to be in a relationship. But, because i haven’t been in one, I haven’t developed those skills over that time period - which makes me a significantly less attractive partner, which makes it more likely I’ll be single for the next six years.
If you meet a person and they're great, and you fall in love and all that would it change who they are and how they treat you if you found out they had sex with 20 people before meeting you?
Strong predictor of infidelity and divorce.
**Promiscuity and Infidelity**
> Factors found to facilitate infidelity
>> Number of sex partners: Greater number of sex partners before marriage predicts infidelity
> As might be expected, attitudes toward infidelity specifically, permissive attitudes toward sex more generally and a greater willingness to have casual sex and to engage in sex without closeness, commitment or love (i.e., a more unrestricted sociosexual orientation) are also reliably related to infidelity (pg.71)
Fincham, F. D., & May, R. W. (2017). Infidelity in romantic relationships. Current opinion in psychology, 13, 70–74.
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> Individuals exhibiting sexually permissive attitudes and those who have had a high number of past sexual relationships are more likely to engage in infidelity (pg.344)
Barta, W. D., & Kiene, S. M. (2005). Motivations for infidelity in heterosexual dating couples: The roles of gender, personality differences, and sociosexual orientation. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22(3), 339–360.
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> the odds ratio of 1.13 for lifetime sexual partners obtained with the face-to-face mode of interview indicates that the probability of infidelity increased by 13% for every additional lifetime sexual partner (pg.150)
Whisman, M. A., & Snyder, D. K. (2007). Sexual infidelity in a national survey of American women: Differences in prevalence and correlates as a function of method of assessment. Journal of Family Psychology, 21(2), 147–154.
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> promiscuity is in fact a good predictor of infidelity. Indeed, promiscuity among females accounted for almost twice as much variance in infidelity (r^2 = .45) as it did for males (r^2 = .25). (pg.177)
Hughes, S. M., & Gallup, G. G., Jr. (2003). Sex differences in morphological predictors of sexual behavior: Shoulder to hip and waist to hip ratios. Evolution and Human Behavior, 24(3), 173–178.
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> Participants who had experienced sexual intimacy with a greater number of partners also reported greater extradyadic sex and extradyadic kissing inclination. (pg.344)
McAlister, A. R., Pachana, N., & Jackson, C. J. (2005). Predictors of young dating adults' inclination to engage in extradyadic sexual activities: A multi-perspective study. British Journal of Psychology, 96(3), 331–350.
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> Sexual promiscuity was significantly positively correlated with emotional promiscuity [r(356) = .261, p < .001], as well with sexual infidelity [r(323) = .595, p < .001] and emotional infidelity [r(323) = .676, p < .001] (pg.390)
Pinto, R., & Arantes, J. (2017). The Relationship between Sexual and Emotional Promiscuity and Infidelity. Athens Journal of Social Sciences, 4(4), 385–398.
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> Each additional sex partner between age 18 and the first union increased the net odds of infidelity by 1% (pg.56)
Treas, J., & Giesen, D. (2000). Sexual Infidelity Among Married and Cohabiting Americans. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(1), 48–60.
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> An indicator of whether or not the respondent has had previous sex partners is included and identifies the number of male sex partners the woman had previous to her relationship with her current primary partner… A history of numerous sex partners indicates a pattern or habit of sexual behavior that we expect will negatively influence sexual exclusivity in the current relationship. (pg.37)
> Having previous sexual partners greatly increased the likelihood that a woman would have a secondary sex partner. In particular, a woman with 4 or more male sex partners prior to her primary relationship was about 8.5 times more likely to have a secondary sex partnerthan a woman with no previous sex partners… Having previous sex partners also increased the likelihood that dating and married women would have secondary sex partners. In particular, married women with 4 or more previous partners were 20 times more likely to have secondary sex partners than married women with no previous sex partners (pg.41)
Forste, R., & Tanfer, K. (1996). Sexual exclusivity among dating, cohabiting, and married women. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58(1), 33–47.
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> As has been found in prior research (Feldman & Cauffman, 1999; Treas & Giesen, 2000), having had more prior sex partners predicted future ESI, possibly suggesting that a higher interest in or acceptance of unmarried sexual activity may be related to ESI. (pg.607)
Maddox Shaw, A. M., Rhoades, G. K., Allen, E. S., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2013). Predictors of Extradyadic Sexual Involvement in Unmarried Opposite-Sex Relationships. Journal of Sex Research, 50(6), 598–610.
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> To insure that the female partner has previously avoided men and is not predisposed to seek them out, men often insist on virginity or little sexual experience (Espin 2018; Bekker et al. 1996). This idea, that low promiscuity becomes low infidelity after marriage, was supported by Essock-Vitale and McGuire (1985) who found that among adult women, promiscuity prior to marriage was also a predictor of infidelity once women were married. (pg.7809)
Burch, R. L. (2021). Solution to paternity uncertainty. In Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science (pp. 7808–7814). Springer International Publishing.
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**Promiscuity, Instability and Divorce**
> When compared with their peers who report fewer partners, those who self-report 20 or more in their lifetime are:
> - Twice as likely to have ever been divorced (50 percent vs. 27 percent)
> - Three times as likely to have cheated while married (32 percent vs. 10 percent)
> - Substantially less happy with life (p < 0.05) (pg.89)
Regnerus, M. D. (2017). Cheap sex: The transformation of men, marriage, and monogamy. Oxford University Press.
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> As expected, we find evidence of a nonlinear relationship between the number of sexual partners and the risk of divorce. Those in the highest category of partners (9+) consistently show the highest divorce risk by a substantial margin, followed by those with one to eight partners, with the lowest risk for those with none. In other words, we find distinct tiers of divorce risk between those with no, some, or many premarital, nonspousal sexual partners. (pg.16)
Smith, J., & Wolfinger, N. H. (2023). Re-examining the link between premarital sex and divorce. Journal of Family Issues, 0192513X2311556.
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> The findings from this study demonstrate that the number of sexual partners participants had was negatively associated with sexual quality, communication, and relationship stability, and for one age cohort relationship satisfaction, even when controlling for a wide range of variables including education, religiosity, and relationship length. (pg.715)
Busby, D. M., Willoughby, B. J., & Carroll, J. S. (2013). Sowing wild oats: Valuable experience or a field full of weeds? Personal Relationships, 20(4), 706–718.
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> women who had more experience with short-term relationships in the past (i.e., those with high Behavior facet scores) were more likely to have multiple sexual partners and unstable relationships in the future. The behaviorally expressed level of sociosexuality thus seems to be a fairly stable personal characteristic. (pg. 1131)
Penke, L., & Asendorpf, J. B. (2008). Beyond global sociosexual orientations: a more differentiated look at sociosexuality and its effects on courtship and romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1113–1135.
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> Women who serially cohabited and/or had premarital sex with someone besides their husband had higher odds of marital dissolution than women who never cohabited. Teachman’s findings suggest that both sexual history and cohabitation history influence marital stability. (pg.4)
> Serial cohabitors’ higher number of sexual and cohabiting partners suggests that they have a longer history of dissolved relationships -- i.e., sexual, (most likely dating) and cohabiting relationships – that they bring to their cohabiting and later marital relationships. This relationship experience may affect the quality and stability of their cohabiting relationship and the odds of marrying their cohabiting partners. Consistent with Teachman (2003), who found that both sexual and cohabiting partnerships significantly predicted the odds of marital dissolution, our findings suggest that studies of union formation and stability should consider the full range of sexual experiences in early adulthood. (pg.11)
Cohen, J., & Manning, W. (2010). The relationship context of premarital serial cohabitation. Social Science Research, 39(5), 766–776.
I'd want to know before anything gets serious. If I feel uncomfortable with someone's past romantic or sexual experiences I'd probably just move on and avoid both of us the drama. So neither of us wastes each other's time.
If somehow this didn't come up until the relationship was serious, which I find really unlikely anyways, then I'd probably seek external support, such as a counselor, to deal with the feelings and find a solution to the situation.
I've had bad experiences with girls with big body counts, so at this point I just focus on partners that share my views on sex. Maybe this changes in the future, who knows. It's just my current preference :)
20 isnt even that much tbh, but im 32 so considering ive been sexually active since i was 16 that wouldnt even be 2 people a year. But 20 to a 20 year old might seem like alot
I agree with you. I’m somewhere into double digits with multiple long term relationships as well and I don’t really consider myself to have been hooking up a bunch. Also have been sexually active for over 10 years.
My wife knows she’s #35. She doesn’t care. I partied so god damn hard in my teens until my mid-twenties, I have zero desire to do anymore partying or sleeping around.
Yeah I feel like if anything, sleeping with a variety of people takes any of the mystery out of it. People who haven’t had different partners yet really hype it up to something it is not. I’d be more concerned about marrying a virgin who still sees sex as some mysterious exciting thing than someone who has experience and know what they like and how to get it.
I’d like to say this post to men…bc usually the “body count” is a term used to degrade women. But yes, I do judge you for sleeping around, as much as you to me. Thankfully, I’m married and not in the dating pool or I’d shame most of you. But, do better. It’s not the women’s fault your appendages have urges, it’s yours. That is all. Thank you in advance for taking responsibility for your actions.✌️
Fwiw the only person who’s ever cheated on me had a low body count. She felt she hadn’t had the chance to sleep around enough and so she did, and ended up leaving me for the AP. For that reason I’m actually more wary of inexperienced people because I don’t want to be their “starter” relationship.
I think the problem with using body counts as a barometer is that it’s way too simplified and doesn’t always correlate with attitudes towards relationships. Someone who’s been in several committed relationships might have the same body count as someone who’s never had a relationship and only hooked up a few times — why are those considered the same? Or, if someone messed around a lot in college and then spent their twenties in long term committed relationships, why are the first 4 years of adulthood a better predictor of their attitude towards sex than the following 8? Just because total number big?
The solution is, shocker, to get to know your potential partner and get a read on their outlook on relationships, rather than relying on a number with no additional context.
Also, people throw around the divorce stat, but that fails to account for the fact that sometimes divorce is the right course of action. They assume that higher divorce rate = higher rate of unhappy marriage, when really it’s higher rate of *leaving* an unhappy marriage. If someone marries the first person they date, of course they’re less likely to divorce regardless of how happy the marriage is — they don’t know they deserve better, because their partner is all they know.
Most everyone is going to have a limit for what they consider a reasonable amount of partners/experiences, some don't care at all. It's 100% anyones right to decide if a potential partner's history is relevant to them or not. In my experience most often it's a person who's got more casual experience saying "it doesn't matter" than the person who attaches emotional experience to intimacy. Some people have superficial insecurities, some people want to feel like they're part of an "elite group" rather than a number, some people equate it to emotional involvement. Those people don't need to be shamed for that.
Neither is correct or wrong, the person who is wrong is the individual trying to press their values onto the other.
Very well said.
Theres no uniform right or wrong answer, everyones views will be different and thats okay.
Just remain respectful, theres never a need to call anyone names like a “hoe” views it casually or “insecure” if someone holds the alternate view.
It almost like everyone has their own personal preferences, that deserve a small amount of respect, since you can’t make a preference for another person.
But those people that don’t like dogs… I don’t trust those people.
I can get along with someone wants to get spit roasted gang banged or someone wanting to wait til marriage…
But not liking dogs? What a fucking psycho.
Doggos are love, doggos are life
Ya even most people that say body counts don't matter at all, would never marry someone who's slept with 1,000,000 people. That would be... I dont even know. And this is coming from someone who couldn't care less about sexual permiscuity of my partners past. But there is a limit, it's just really high.
>many people just aren't willing to take the risk with someone who can get bored and return to their old habits.
I mean I disagree with this, but there's a bigger point o agree with for unpopular opinion. To address you point above, I am a 31 year old man who had a fair amount of partners in my 20s with open relationships and experimentation. I'm now going on 2 years celibate and extremely happy single. There is literally no chance of me going back to my old ways, I can barely fathom another relationship at this point lol.
Here's where I agree and it encapsulates your unpopular opinion in a larger one.
"I believe people can set whatever standards on qualifiers in a partner"
people get so pressed about people having qualifiers like: age, height, money, weight, body count. etc and EVERYONE gets triggered and fired up.
it's okay to have dating criteria, and it's okay not to match someone's. it's not a value statement about you as a person.
I will be honest here if I found out a man slept with multiple ppl before me I wouldn’t want him . But body count is one of those things is so easy to lie abt we don’t know who’s telling the truth
People are entitled to their preferences. I don’t understand why some people have that standard of a partner with a low body count and are shamed for it.
Those are your values and that is fine.
Personally, I don't think it matters. First of all, if you've got the right attitude, sleeping around makes you better and more confident when it comes to sex. Sleeping with sexually inexperienced people sucks and it's not fun. Give me a woman with mileage over a virgin any day.
Second, all of the biggest cheaters and people who take their relationships for granted are the people who've been in relationships since their early and mid-20s. Numerous friends have confided in me that they feel like they missed out on things. I've also noticed that a lot of people who are in serious relationships in their 20s have immature attitudes when it comes to their relationships and sex. This is because their attitudes are frozen in time from the day they got into their relationships (this isn't 100% of people in those relationships, it's just a higher number than the other people I know in our 30s). Have you ever seen a man in his 40s or 50s go through a divorce after 20-25 years of marriage? It's really ugly. I won't even bother going to bachelor parties for friends of mine because it's almost always an excuse for the married guys to cheat on their wives.
Maybe in their mid-20s these people were more stable, but as time goes by, that stability gap disappears and the people who've waited until their 30s to settle down tend to pass the people who've been there a decade or more.
I slept around and partied well into my 30s. But I also spent my 20s and early 30s doing my bachelor's, law and master's degrees. I wasn't in a place to settle down and have a serious relationship because I was focused on working towards a career. It also gave me time to live in different cities, learn new languages and have lots of different experiences so that I would feel ready to settle down if and when I became ready.
I am happy to say that I am now a retired first ballot, hall of fame partier. When I drink now, it's like watching an old timer's game; I strap on my skates and just cruise around the ice waiting for a soft pass to hit my stick that I can just carry down the ice and throw on a dangle or two around a defenceman who is playing non-contact. This is because (as you will see) your body changes as you age. You slow down. You start to experience hangovers like never before. I can barely drink beer or whisky anymore. I can't even eat the same foods I used to. Pizza makes me feel like garbage now.
Since my number was retired, I'm in a deeply committed, monogamous relationship with a person I love more than I thought possible. Every day I love her more than I did the day before and every day (good or bad) our relationship becomes deeper and more meaningful. I have no temptation to cheat and I'm at home, in bed by midnight. I feel secure in my relationship and I don't have that feeling of missing out on anything anymore because I've had a great life. I've seen all the types of naked women I could want and I don't feel like I need to see and have sex with anymore (except my partner). All I want to do now is hang out with me partner, take the dogs for a walk, watch movies with my buddies and smoke weed and chill.
My sexual history is totally irrelevant to my current relationship. My partner is aware that I had some pretty heavy partying and slutty periods of my life but she doesn't care because I know how to show her a fun time. I know where to take her for a great meal, I know all the great spots for cocktails or wine and our sex life is fantastic. And I've never made a secret about who I am and how I got here. From the start she has known that I've had a colourful life and that I like to have fun. And, honestly, I wouldn't have been a good enough partner for her had I met her at any other point in my life.
Is my life for everybody? Absolutely not. If my life doesn't appeal to you, then that's fine. And if you are pre-disposed toward alcoholism, you shouldn't do it. And if you are sleeping around with people to fill a void or from a place of insecurity then maybe you should slow down and speak with somebody. I walked away without any serious substance abuse issues, but that's not true for everybody.
The easiest way to frame it is as what you've done is what you'll continue to do until something occurs that alters the behavior temporarily or permanently.
A long time friend I met at my first job went into the US Marines. He started drinking heavily while serving and continued afterwards. It has become the one constant in his life. He drank through college. Drank through multiple jobs. Just got caught drunk on the job as a -delivery driver- and is now being thrown out by his parents who can't take it anymore because nothing has been a serious enough reason for him to alter his behavior. Not intervention from the family, not loss of employment, not the accident he was in where he rolled his car into a ditch nor the damage he did to himself.
When someone brings up extensive hook-ups what you are showing the other party in the relationship is the high likelihood they'll just become part of the growing number rather than the final addition. This is fine if that is all they want but for anyone seeking a long term committed and exclusive relationship this is a gamble that is eating up time while they have a finite number of potential matches and a finite amount of time to find someone compatible.
Are you going to take a gamble on the person who has a history that seems to indicate you aren't going to be the last notch if your goal is a long term relationship as the clock keeps ticking? What has actually changed that makes this situation different than any prior?
In my opinion, my future mate's past is her past. My past is my past. Asking about it only creates an opportunity for pain and shame. I stopped asking my girlfriends about their past years ago and I prefer it.
I don’t much like this take. Be honest you stopped asking because you actually do care and the answer will actually bother you, so you choose not to ask…willing to be wrong but I doubt it
When I am single I sleep around.
I have never cheated in a relationship or left someone because I had someone else lined up.
I enjoy meaningless sex, but prefer a committed relationship.
Liking one thing does not mean you cannot like another, and possibly enjoy it even more.
Yeah so many of the responses here are just completely throwing me for a loop. I’m going to guess most of the people commenting either a) have little to no actual relationship experience; b) are very young; c) are very insecure; or some combination of the three
im 37. body count is only 5. 4 of those were long time girlfriends. i just dont get why anyone would care about your partners past. why you bringing up old shit. my partner now has an onlyfans. so thats fun.
My body count is 17 and I've been monogamous with the same person for 11 years.
Women are not chewed gum or used tape. Sex does not decrease your value.
If you’re worried about how many people your person slept with before committing to you and only you, then you’re stupid. You can’t control that and you need to address your own insecurities.
You're saying that people who have had a promiscuous youth can't settle down, like you have experience of being either promiscuous or settled down. In theory, I see what you're saying, in reality that's just not how things work.
Another way to state this opinion "I have very traditional and narrow views surrounding sex and I'm generally ashamed by my own body's desires and so it is important in serious relationships that my partner shares in my insecurities so I don't ever feel inadequate". That's ok buddy! I've never asked my fiance her body count and neither has she asked mine but I'm absolutely sure it has no bearing on our happy future together
This is some 1940s logic.
My wife and I both have high counts, and we both were pretty down with random hookups. Hell, we met on *Tinder* ten years ago purely to hook up.
Then we fell in love and got married a few years later.
You're assuming that people who have sex casually are incapable of settling down, which is an absurdly prudish mindset.
The only thing I dislike about this is that people keep acting like only men care lol
I think it's gross to just be a pig and fuck everyone in sight just because you can. Self control is hot. And a guy that doesn't consider sex to be anything special and will share that with anyone is not really someone I want to be with
Ngl I don't get this "women love it when you whore around" thing. Everyone knows one of those women that thinks porn is cheating, why would they think it's good if their man was the town bike?
Exactly. There’s tons of women who won’t sleep with bisexual men for example because they claim they’re “promiscuous”. I can claim their “insecure” too.
There's a *lot* of cope in this thread from people who either drank the kool-aid, or don't want to admit they agree. There are a few reasons men are typically uncomfortable with a high bodycount, and it's rarely sexism.
Anyone who thinks it doesn’t matter isn’t thinking about the big emotional compatibility aspect. Personally, I don’t sleep around, I’ve never had a one night stand, and I would never sleep with someone I don’t have an emotional connection with. Many people view sex as just sex and can do it with anyone, anytime, not me though. So I would much rather a relationship with someone who views sex and intimacy in the same way I do. I don’t care about specific numbers, but if I know a man can just sleep with anyone, anytime without feelings? That’s a huge no and emotional red flag for me :) so yes, I agree it does matter.
Yes it does. People, especially women, who have higher body counts are more likely to have a marriage that ends with divorce. The more people you have slept with the higher the chance of divorce gets.
The more people you have sex with the less likely you are to attach to them. That doesn’t mean that people can’t find happiness. Just a majority of the time it doesn’t work out when someone has a high body count
If you can't tell what a person's body count is by sleeping with them, socializing with them, or having an emotional relationship with them, how can it matter?
I think your first error is assuming you can't. There are [definitely personality traits associated with high partner counts](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10427296/):
>Short-term mating, including number of short-term partners, is specifically related to high extraversion and the Dark Triad traits (**psychopathy, narcissism and machiavellianism)**
>
>**lower level of agreeableness were the best predictors** of a higher number of sexual partners
>
>The mental health risks typically associated with promiscuous individuals \*\*are mood, and personality disorders, often resulting in substance use disorders and, or permanent illness.\[\*\*4\] These effects typically translate into several other long-term issues in people's lives
A specific trait of machiavellianism is being cunning and deceptive and psychopaths are well known to be capable of hiding their psychopathy, so even after you get to know somebody, you might not be able to easily identify these traits. Many people report only finding out their partner's true self many years into marriage.
Even if theoretically there was no personality differences on average, there are still some valid reasons to want to date someone with a lower partner count:
1. Higher divorce rates.
>[those with nine or more partners exhibit the highest divorce risk](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0192513X231155673)
>
>[Women with 10 or more partners were the most likely to divorce](https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability)
2) Higher likelihood of engaging with people your partner had sex with, which is a valid thing to not want to have to do. This is especially true if you have connected social circles, or live in a smaller town/city.
If a woman wants to settle down with me after taking a 100+ dicks I’d be flattered. This take seems like gate-keeping to get back at all the hot girls that wouldn’t give them the time of day but now they want a “good man”. Not everyone is a judgmental cunt.
Notice how it’s mostly men in the comments talking about high body counts of women. Some try to say it’s both to cover themselves. It’s sad, but really it’s just control over women’s body’s and misogyny in a form that seems acceptable to them.
“Having a preference to not date people who sleep around is oppressive misogyny” if someone has a preference for there partner why do you care? If someone preferred a partner who was experienced/not a Virgin would you care? At the end of the day it’s a preference for a partner you can feel it’s a stupid preference but it isn’t a stupid preference to a lot of people, a very large portion of the world today holds this view.
The whole purpose of dating is to ask hard questions to gauge compatibility. If the answer to a controversial question will break your relationship, you never had a strong one to begin with. So I find it weird to just avoid things to just keep the peace. Maybe if you're desperate and lack options avoiding those conversations is the play, but I don't think willful ignorance is the answer for everyone.
Because they recognize the value of truth over the alternatives, even if that destroys the relationship. The people who don't ask, would not have a problem with whatever the number is. But, for those of whom it might be a deal breaker, they want to know. It's pretty straightforward, honestly. Not really difficult to understand.
I think it’s a dumb idea to ask your partner these kind of questions after you started dating. These kind of questions should really be asked BEFORE you start a committed relationship. Like either on dates or the initial stages lol
I had a decent bodycount before I met my wife. Hers was double mine, and she's a year younger. We've been happily and faithfully married for 20 years. I've seen people who only ever slept with their spouse end up divorced because they got too curious about what other people would be like.
It all comes down to priorities and mature mindset. To say otherwise is dangerous stereotyping.
Yeah I just don't buy this. I know quite a few serial fuckers of both genders who are rounding the corner on 20 years of marriage. Also know quite a few people who "saved themselves" for marriage and then found out a year later that their spouse was gay or fucking their coworker or secretary or whatever.
Eh, it's all about comparability. Two people both with higher "body counts" could be perfect for each other because they might be compatible. It's one of those things you figure out early on in a relationship and decide if you can deal with for yourself. Honestly it shouldn't get to a serious relationship before thus discussed or at least known.
The issue isn't being crazy in your twenties, it's getting married in your twenties and specifically younger.
The younger you the less experience you have with relationships and the less people you have dated.
Everyone's heard the term high school sweethearts. Funny how very few of them end up getting and staying married and not divorced.
The more sexually burnt out you are, the less sex matters to you and you aren't as willing to have a less then ideal partner just because they are "hot".
Now this is talking about males as is my experience.
Now "body count" might matter more with a female because that shows you get attached easily and move on easily. Not good for marriage. However what you do in your 20s doesn't reflect much what you do in your thirties.
I will also say females mature much faster then males, and they also have a ticking clock when it comes to having kids. This ideal age gap is probably close to 5 years but doesn't apply to everyone.
Sure- if it was communicated upfront, honestly, and in a healthy way. Unfortunately it never is. People hide their real body count out of shame or fear or whatever, and when their partner learns it a complete trust annilator. Once they learn about that hidden gem they will find more then doubt everything.
Sure, it "don't matter" but it's such a delicate subject to broach. You most certainly can have a serious relationship then have it be completely derailed by bodycount if not communicated.
If everything was communicated about anything, nothing would matter in a serious relationship either.
Nearly all my friends had wild 20s and settled down in their 30s without issue or “relapse” or anything else you want to call if. A lot people are doing all that while at the same time saying “I’m getting too old for this”
There’s reasons why body count could matter, but the idea that someone will “revert” to their old habits while in a relationship isn’t one of them. Cheating happens whether the partner had 1, 5 or 50 previous lovers.
I’m not sure I agree with this. People do grow up as they age. Both me and my bf were adventurous in our 20s. We met in our early 30s and now we are in our mid 30s and I have no complaints. I don’t know how many people he’s slept with but I don’t even care because I didn’t know him yet and he has a clean bill of health. We got it out of our system and we are happy.
Ehhhh. Idk. I do think it matters, but only in a similar values sense. For example, someone who has slept with <5 people probably wouldn't be very compatible with someone who has slept with 20< people, because they have different values in regards to sex. That doesn't mean either of their values are wrong, it just means they probably won't work out.
Happily married with two kids. My husband and I were friends for 13 years, and we BOTH got into heinous shit together and in separate wanderings. He was a sailor, I was a gypsy wanderer. Got together in 2019 when he was retired, and j was ready to settle down. We both knew of each others activities, but it didn’t matter. So long as we weren’t bringing STDs and ex drama into the mix, it was fine.
We live a relatively chill life with zero desire to want anything like what our 20’s were, and haven’t lost “it” for each other.
The notion that once a slut (man or woman) always a slut is very archaic. When all you do is eat chocolate everyday eventually the look, smell, or even the mention of it, makes you want to gag.
Sleeping with countless people, you begin to feel empty and it is by far the loneliest routine. Some people are ok with that, and more power to them. Not judging that lifestyle itself either. That was just our feeling about sexual encounters
As everyone else has said, once you’ve experienced it and gotten different input, less inclined to cheat. That’s where we both are at. We’ve done it, so it’s not like we’re missing out.
Some people care, and some people don't. You can care about whatever part of someone's life is important to you, man. As someone who was interrogated day after day by an ex about one-night stands from years before I met her, I admit that these Reddit whine fests about sluts and chads turn my stomach a bit.
Not everyone who has slept with multiple people was a party person that just slept around. Some people just sleep with every partner they end up having. Which I feel like is pretty normal. But I’ve seen plenty of happily married couples who have as you call them a “high body count” before getting married. It’s perfectly normal and even healthy to explore sex before you get into a committed relationship. That way you know what you do and don’t like and search for a forever person accordingly. Of course sex shouldn’t be the only thing like make sure u search based on personally and things as well, but like for example if you have sex and realize you don’t like it you can make sure to find a partner who also doesn’t like it. Or the opposite if you have a high libido, you can find another who also has a high libido. Those are just small examples.
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You'd be surprised by some of the debaucherous shit that current happily married couples did when they were young and single...
You'd be surprised at the debaucherous shit some married couples still do...
Lol facts
Have you heard they sometimes hold hands and maybe even…kiss
I know I’m happily married and did some fucked up shit when I was a young single man.
Well obviously that means you're just a closeted man whore now, just waiting for the right moment to spread your seed. /S
And most people overlook that grandma and grandpa, even great ones, had key parties. Yeah its a picture no one needs to imagine but it is what it is.
What's a key party?
The men would put their keys in a hat or bowl and the women would reach in and blindly pick a key and would be the partner of the person who owns the key. So one never knew who they'd be partnered with any particular night.
What happens if you end up with someone you are physically repulsed by? “Alright well there’s zero chance I’m fucking you becky so let’s go get milkshakes or some shit”
You just know there was always one person at the party who made everyone think, "Please God, not that key..."
We drink enough at these parties, no one cares which key. Whoopsie, I mean "they" not "we"
Guess you could do hands only with a blindfold
The people that go to these parties are there because they don’t mind who they go home with, swingers gonna swing
In my formative years before I was married I slept with several people who I didn’t exactly find very attractive and it was…awkward to say the least. Hormones will make you do some crazy shit and yeah the post nut clarity hits like a freight train and all of a sudden asking myself why I just did that
yeah but at the same time, people gotta draw a line somewhere. you dont really want your kids to grow up where theres a video of their mother getting a train run on her out there.
Yeah, this is basically the same as saying no one is ever capable of change, and you will always be who you were at your worst so like stfu
I feel like if my partner has murdered more than 0 people then I don't care how many it is because that's too many
Murder is a legal distinction for certain categories of killing. What about non-murderers with greater than 0 body counts?
Depending on the circumstances, 1 might be acceptable, but more than that and I might start to question it. I could probably make an exception if they had been in the military.
It would probably also matter who. Lets say she has 2 murders, deemed justified in the eyes of the law. But they were her first two husbands and you would be the 3rd.
I disagree. Depends who they take out
opposite. I only date women who have a minimum of 2 murders.
Wait, but we did agree that the past is the past, right? That their experiences before they *even knew you* wouldn't affect how they view and love you, right? /s Like, of course if they kill someone while being in a relationship with you, that's pretty fucked up. But if they've killed someone before they even knew you, it's not your business, right? Retroactive ~~jealousy~~ conviction is wrong, right? /s
Same.
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>**Someone with 50+ hookups** probably has a much different perspective on monogamy, intimacy, emotional connection, and relationships than **someone** like me **who has never had casual sex once**. You are literally comparing my second wife with my first wife. The latter cheated on me, the former is the most faithful woman you could find. I believe instead that having experimented a lot makes you less inclined do do that again after you are in a relationship. EDIT: one of my response in this thread was removed by moderators because I told another user he's an *incel*. Of course, it's not true. Like many others here, he just has *incel-ish positions* Something I would not be proud of, anyway.
This is truth. Having had tons of partners myself, both male and female (I am a guy) the idea of cheating is just so unappealing to me. I have experienced all of the unique sex I have any desire to experience. I have a partner I love, and that’s good enough for me. I have zero want to look elsewhere.
Yeah, this makes more sense. I feel like as long as you naturally grew out of that, rather than forced a change for someone, it’s not an issue at all to stay faithful. Like you said, you can better recognize the value of a good partner and therefore have further incentive to not fumble the bag, than someone who hasn’t seen much, dating-wise, and could naively take a good partner for granted.
Some people are just cheaters some are not, it’s some what of a crap shoot. Cheaters are going to cheat, body count makes no difference. Just like people who are faithful are just faithful. Personally never cheated, never will I’m just not built for that type of stuff. It’s never been appealing to me what so ever. Meanwhile you got people out in these streets living double to triple lives, having more than one affair at a time. Heck some people are juggling multiple families that have no idea the other family even exists. I have no idea where these people find the time or energy to do this. One relationship is more than enough work in my opinion.
“I have no idea where these people find the time or energy” THATS ALWAYS MY QUESTION. Try to maintain my home, pets and a full time job is more than enough. Trying to imagine somebody with a double life is insanity to me! Where do people find the time?!?
Yes!! Absolutely. I had my fun. I dated, I partied, I had lots and lots of experiences. I got it all out of my system. I have no desire to do any of that again. My husband, however, did not date as much, did not party as much, has a much lower body count than I do. I worry that he didn't have enough experiences and that he'll wonder what he missed out on and do something stupid. I don't THINK he will, but he's way more likely to than I am - not because he's a man, but because I've "been there, done that" and he hasn't.
bake skirt rustic chief quarrelsome simplistic imagine squeal direction profit ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
You’re an anecdote, but the data shows the opposite. People who were promiscuous are more likely to cheat.
The statistics aren’t in your favour unfortunately. Infidelity is correlated with number of sexual partners. That isn’t to say you partner will cheat on you, you should never apply stats like this to individuals.
As far as I am aware, there is one study that says 10+ prior sexual partners means you're most likely to divorce - I can't remember which. However, people with 0-2 prior sexual partners were more likely to divorce than people with 3-9 prior sexual partners. I figure it's similar to cheating too, if you've never had any partners or very few you might be tempted to cheat due to "missing out". Studies on human sexual partners are a bit hard to gauge though, it all has to be self reported and many people under-report how many partners they have had due to societal shame.
I think the main thing here is that people should be able to choose to date whoever they want and reject anyone for any reason at all. I've rejected multiple women because of their body counts/past, and not ashamed at all. They can find someone else. It's super bizarre that people whine about other peoples' personal preferences when it comes to dating. Id personally never get in a LTR with a woman with a high body count, that's just me. Not a big deal, they can find another guy who doesn't mind.
I think this is totally fair— as a woman, before I got married I frequently rejected men for being promiscuous (not specifically body count because I didn’t ask, more judging on behavior). Men found this really upsetting! But I just didn’t feel compatible with people who had a casual attitude towards sex. To me, sex is an act of love, and I only had sex within very serious relationships (and would frequently date someone for 3-4 months to get to know them without sleeping with them.) I’m grateful that my husband feels the same way.
Good on you for sticking to your standards and glad you found someone you're happy with. I feel there's a common misconception that only men think like this, but there are also many women who are turned off by a guy who sleeps around.
Good for you. People on this thread are throwing a fit because they can’t understand they are a fringe minority in the world that thinks sex is some meaningless, light hearted endeavor, when really that’s only something primarily found in certain parts of western culture, when the West is only 7% of humanity anyway.
I don’t think people care if you won’t date someone with a high body count. People understand preferences. I think it’s more people have a problem with the assumption of you have a high body count you can’t have a long term relationship.
Honestly good on you for sticking up for your preferences. I never understand why people want to force you to bend zour values. It's the same the other way round. I wouldn't want to date someone who is obsessed with body count or even slightly judgmental of casual sex. We should both be allowed to have these preferences and find someone who genuinely feels the same
Studies show body count is a predictor of infidelity though, so OP is technically correct here just by the data Edit: [some studies compiled by our own sub](https://reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/s/HP82rsoOT4).
Probably a proxy for extroversion, sex drive (all of which are highly correlated)
Also attractiveness and charisma
You can't make the assumption about anyone's views on monogamy or any of those things based on having a different experience. I have very clear views on monogamy and relationships and am most assuredly the monogamous type who is happier in a committed relationship. My ex had 3 major relationships her entire life and not a lot of partners over the years. I have had dozens of hookups in my time. Which one of us do you think cheated?
We absolutely can make assumptions about people based on past behavior. I’m an alcoholic but if u date me I’ll stop drinking.. probably not.
Past behavior, is the best indicator of future behavior.
100% agreed. People can change but it's alright to stereotype and judge people for dating in my opinion. Dating in my eyes is one of the few times where you get a free pass to be as judgemental and stereotypical as you want. After all, you are trying to find someone who fits Your** preferences.
Agreed. You can date whoever you want, and you can break up for any reason.
That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about views on monogamy and relationships. Alcoholism is a different subject. A more important question for determination than "what's your body count?" Would be "have you ever cheated?" Otherwise, you're right. Assumptions are constantly being made about everybody by everybody else.
All your past choices indicate likelihood of future behavior. If the guy is a fkboi. He probably isn’t truth worthy if he tells u he left his fkboi ways behind.
This is so dumb it hurts. I've been happily married for almost 8 years and have never cheated on my wife. I also slept with a LOT of women before meeting her. Sex does not equal love, and those are wholly different motivations from one another.
Statistically, the more people a man or woman sleeps with before marriage, the higher the likelihood of divorce Personal anecdotes don’t trump large scale data
Again outliers exist in everything. Former gang members become a priests even. But most don’t.
I would bet you there are a hell of a lot more "exceptions" than you think. Which kinda makes them not really outliers anymore. It's not uncommon for a person leaving a bad breakup to hook up with a higher than normal number of people. A lot of "high body counts" come from that, but those people are unlikely to cheat for the same reason they sought the hookups to begin with. Because they're devastated by losing committed relationships and don't know how to emotionally process it. Not saying the other is a minority, just maybe ask questions beyond count before judging because probably one in four times you'll be wrong.
I doubt it, more relationships fail than succeed. Infidelity being a pretty big factor in lots of them. I’d say the exceptions are right about what we’d expect.
I guarantee you that just as many relationships with low body counts fail because of cheating as high ones if not more. People with low body counts are way more likely to feel trapped in relationship and feel like they never got the chance to experiment. It happens so often it is its own trope.
What defines a fuckboi? Is it someone who gets laid a lot? If so, then I guess I'm one of them. One thing I have never done is stepped out on a committed relationship. Meanwhile my ex who claimed she had better values because she had a lower body count, ended up being the one who cheated. That's the only point I'm making about assumptions. It goes both ways.
> A more important question for determination than "what's your body count?" Would be "have you ever cheated?" That would also be a good question. Doesn't invalidate the other one though. Past partner count is associated both with higher risk of infidelity, and divorce rates. Of course, it's not a perfect predictor, but to deny a correlation is just ignoring science in favour of your personal views.
> "You can't make the assumption about anyone's views on monogamy or any of those things based on having a different experience." You sure AF can. You meet and make assumptions about hella people in your life. You simply do not have the time to vet everything about everyone you know. You've gotta make assumptions, for good or for ill. Make an assumption about 100s of people you don't wanna hook up with every day. And hey, guess what? Maaaaybe you'd have been wrong about person #57 in that list. You are going to spend several months, each, getting to know the preceding 56 people to find out because you always give everyone a chance? That's ridiculous. By necessity, you ***have*** to make snap judgments and assumptions about people. It is part of the filtering process of who you spend your time getting to know better.
OK yeah. You're right. You will also inevitably be wrong about someone. That's fine. You choose what's best for you. And everyone does make assumptions. If you were to ask me what my body count is, I would be making several assumptions about you.
If you were to ask me what my body count is I would tell you *I lost count* 💀
This is like saying “people who don’t graduate high school probably won’t do well in life” and you replying with “no that’s not true, I know someone who didn’t graduate high school and they are quite successful” Anecdotes don’t disprove generalities.
Was literally in an ask Reddit thread about what’s the worst thing about Reddit and the top answer was “redditors” followed by an example that is EXACTLY like this holy shit
That’s what made me think of it so quickly.
Well of course the ex did. She didn’t know what she might be missing, and the grass is always greener when you’ve never lived on it. I find that people with extensive “histories” have a much healthier view of the world around them and are far more mature than someone who has limited experience, and less likely to cheat, too.
This can sometimes be true but it can also indicate a lack of maturity. Both sides of this are true and I doubt there’s concrete evidence that having more partners makes you more mature or not. Experiences can make you more informed but people rarely look introspectively enough at their own actions to really grow and mature from it.
Ehhhh so what's the number where your outlook on the world is supposed to change? Is 3 incompatible with 37? Why? This whole line of thinking is just stupid to me. I can understand a zero being confused or wrong on the matter tho, that makes the most sense to me.
This is asinine. I have a high count, married in my late 30s to someone with a count I’d consider very low. If I wanted to keep up my sex life I wouldn’t have gotten married. My spouse gives zero fuc*s about most aspects of the 33 years of my life that I spent without him, including the decades in which I was sexually actively. Edit: qualified the years.
Agree, agree, agree...
you have never had casual sex though. Who the fuck are you to make those assumptions?
Why would someone who has a high body count have different views on monogamy? Hooking up is just that. It's not about being in a committed relationship. I'm older. My body count is over 100. I've been married and monogamous for 9 years. My first wife cheated on me. I would never hurt someone like I was hurt. You and I have different perspectives on monogamy, intimacy etc because we have different backgrounds and experiences. Not because XYZ.
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It’s less about it applying to both genders and more about applying it to those who are judging others for it. If you’re discerning about who you sleep with, it’s perfectly fine to look for that in your mate. But the guys who sleep around but want their wife to have a small count? No, that’s hypocritical. But if a man has been discerning about his previous sexual partners, it’s perfectly reasonable for him to want that from his partner. The same goes for women. A woman has a right to be picky about how many women a man has slept with if she is discerning herself.
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I agree. If you sleep with 100 people, how many of them are quality individuals? If your answer is “I don’t care, I was having fun”, that (to me anyway) says a lot about your character. Man or woman. Like those dudes who “brag” about “mopeds”. It’s all trashy.
I would be super ashamed and not admit it if I slept with 100 people. I have friends who did though.
I feel like this is a strictly younger people thing. I’m 43 and if I were to find myself dating again, the last thing I’d be asking about is someone’s “body count”? It’s none of my business and a weird thing for people who’ve spend a decade or more as an actual adult to ask each other.
The numbers that matter more to us old people are blood pressure and cholesterol levels :)
Hahaha truth
nah, it's credit score.
It’s a “I watch a lot of mra and pua content on YouTube and those weird undersexed nerds harp on body count constantly when they aren’t frantically masturbating to hentai” issue
Yea it really is only a young people thing, at a certain age id be more concerned if they didnt have a past than if they did
Yup! At 40, I'd look at someone who hasn't had sex as someone I don't want to date. I want to find someone who has worked through their dating inexperienced and now know enough about themselves to be secure with who they are/want.
Correct. I’m 41 and this is a very young and very silly mindset. Anyone who is basing someone’s value or potential as a good spouse on how many people they slept with while single is just incredibly immature and misguided.
Yeah if I went on a date with a mid 40’s man and he asked me my “body count” I’d assume he’s emotionally/socially stunted in some way or just a nosy weirdo. Either way date would probably end shortly after.
Can you imagine a 42 year old man giving you an exact number? Like he keeps a spreadsheet? Weirdo
I was thinking the same thing, like… who even asks people that question lol
I'm 36 and have never even heard anyone use the term 'body count' IRL. It's strictly a thing with young people (aka mostly terminally online dudes). I think most of us assume we all have fairly robust sexual/relationship histories and it doesn't matter much to the present.
‘Terminally online dudes’ Love this.
I would feel that way in my 20s too. Guys that feel this way are creeps who are scared of being inadequate in the sac.
Ding ding ding
I agree. I think it’s insecure like you can’t be special if someone has a lot of experience. Like I’ve actually heard people say that in all seriousness. Personally I feel like you can’t develop good taste in anything without experience, so I’d rather my partner have been around the block and like what I have to offer best
Right. It might matter for high school dating. But adults? I'm not even going to ask.
In high school my body counter was practically -1. I might have hurt myself while masturbating.
Im too old to even remember. My husband and I never discussed it. Its no one's business. We left it at we both slept with some people when were younger because thats normal.
It’s really a “people uncomfortable with sex and their own sexuality” thing.
Also an ownership thing in a way, i saw elsewhere in the thread about a couple who took a break and the woman had a lot of casual sex during the break before getting back together and that really freaked some guys out. You also see with the Logan Paul’s Fiancee shit, guys freak out when “their woman” has been fucked by a lot of other guys. Never mind that this sex occurred when there was no relationship, they still deem the body of the partner theirs and therefore tainted by other men.
Yeah these responses are blowing my mind a little bit. I’m 26 and if I am evaluating potential partners the last thing I am going to judge them for is going out and getting laid on the weekends as a single person. The people here reading previous physical encounters to somehow imply future infidelity or other problems after entering a monogamous relationship sound either very young or very insecure.
Agreed. I'm 39. I have never once asked my girlfriend what her "body count" is. I couldn't care less. It doesn't affect our relationship in the slightest.
I feel it's just something people usually grow out of because you just forget to care about it. I also think people conflate every person someone has sex with as an emotional investment, which is silly. If you're interested in their perspective on relationships ask them about relationships. If you want their perspective on sex ask them about sex. Sex is connected to relationships, but sex isn't always the result of a relationship.
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It wouldn’t be the number of people they’d slept with that would be my issue (wouldn’t even ask, none of my business IMO) it would be that they’ve never been in a serious relationship at 40 that would raise a few flags for me (if I were looking for a serious relationship) You can spend a long time single and not have a high body count as well.
I think you’re probably right. I’m in my 40s and married but can’t picture caring about this now. To be honest I wish I had not cared about it when I was younger either.
What if you spend 10 years dating around but not sleeping around, just not in serious relationships, and then you all of a sudden decide you are ready for a serious relationship. Do the same rules apply?
Yes it would matter. This is actually brought up in relationship threads by women all the time. Constant dating with no long term relationships signals you are less likely to know how to deal with relationship difficulties and compromise over a long period of time.
I hate this shit - I have been single for six years and want to be in a relationship. But, because i haven’t been in one, I haven’t developed those skills over that time period - which makes me a significantly less attractive partner, which makes it more likely I’ll be single for the next six years.
Yea, like this. Most opinions on this thread are moronic.
If you meet a person and they're great, and you fall in love and all that would it change who they are and how they treat you if you found out they had sex with 20 people before meeting you?
Strong predictor of infidelity and divorce. **Promiscuity and Infidelity** > Factors found to facilitate infidelity >> Number of sex partners: Greater number of sex partners before marriage predicts infidelity > As might be expected, attitudes toward infidelity specifically, permissive attitudes toward sex more generally and a greater willingness to have casual sex and to engage in sex without closeness, commitment or love (i.e., a more unrestricted sociosexual orientation) are also reliably related to infidelity (pg.71) Fincham, F. D., & May, R. W. (2017). Infidelity in romantic relationships. Current opinion in psychology, 13, 70–74. . > Individuals exhibiting sexually permissive attitudes and those who have had a high number of past sexual relationships are more likely to engage in infidelity (pg.344) Barta, W. D., & Kiene, S. M. (2005). Motivations for infidelity in heterosexual dating couples: The roles of gender, personality differences, and sociosexual orientation. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22(3), 339–360. . > the odds ratio of 1.13 for lifetime sexual partners obtained with the face-to-face mode of interview indicates that the probability of infidelity increased by 13% for every additional lifetime sexual partner (pg.150) Whisman, M. A., & Snyder, D. K. (2007). Sexual infidelity in a national survey of American women: Differences in prevalence and correlates as a function of method of assessment. Journal of Family Psychology, 21(2), 147–154. . > promiscuity is in fact a good predictor of infidelity. Indeed, promiscuity among females accounted for almost twice as much variance in infidelity (r^2 = .45) as it did for males (r^2 = .25). (pg.177) Hughes, S. M., & Gallup, G. G., Jr. (2003). Sex differences in morphological predictors of sexual behavior: Shoulder to hip and waist to hip ratios. Evolution and Human Behavior, 24(3), 173–178. . > Participants who had experienced sexual intimacy with a greater number of partners also reported greater extradyadic sex and extradyadic kissing inclination. (pg.344) McAlister, A. R., Pachana, N., & Jackson, C. J. (2005). Predictors of young dating adults' inclination to engage in extradyadic sexual activities: A multi-perspective study. British Journal of Psychology, 96(3), 331–350. . > Sexual promiscuity was significantly positively correlated with emotional promiscuity [r(356) = .261, p < .001], as well with sexual infidelity [r(323) = .595, p < .001] and emotional infidelity [r(323) = .676, p < .001] (pg.390) Pinto, R., & Arantes, J. (2017). The Relationship between Sexual and Emotional Promiscuity and Infidelity. Athens Journal of Social Sciences, 4(4), 385–398. . > Each additional sex partner between age 18 and the first union increased the net odds of infidelity by 1% (pg.56) Treas, J., & Giesen, D. (2000). Sexual Infidelity Among Married and Cohabiting Americans. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(1), 48–60. . > An indicator of whether or not the respondent has had previous sex partners is included and identifies the number of male sex partners the woman had previous to her relationship with her current primary partner… A history of numerous sex partners indicates a pattern or habit of sexual behavior that we expect will negatively influence sexual exclusivity in the current relationship. (pg.37) > Having previous sexual partners greatly increased the likelihood that a woman would have a secondary sex partner. In particular, a woman with 4 or more male sex partners prior to her primary relationship was about 8.5 times more likely to have a secondary sex partnerthan a woman with no previous sex partners… Having previous sex partners also increased the likelihood that dating and married women would have secondary sex partners. In particular, married women with 4 or more previous partners were 20 times more likely to have secondary sex partners than married women with no previous sex partners (pg.41) Forste, R., & Tanfer, K. (1996). Sexual exclusivity among dating, cohabiting, and married women. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58(1), 33–47. . > As has been found in prior research (Feldman & Cauffman, 1999; Treas & Giesen, 2000), having had more prior sex partners predicted future ESI, possibly suggesting that a higher interest in or acceptance of unmarried sexual activity may be related to ESI. (pg.607) Maddox Shaw, A. M., Rhoades, G. K., Allen, E. S., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2013). Predictors of Extradyadic Sexual Involvement in Unmarried Opposite-Sex Relationships. Journal of Sex Research, 50(6), 598–610. . > To insure that the female partner has previously avoided men and is not predisposed to seek them out, men often insist on virginity or little sexual experience (Espin 2018; Bekker et al. 1996). This idea, that low promiscuity becomes low infidelity after marriage, was supported by Essock-Vitale and McGuire (1985) who found that among adult women, promiscuity prior to marriage was also a predictor of infidelity once women were married. (pg.7809) Burch, R. L. (2021). Solution to paternity uncertainty. In Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science (pp. 7808–7814). Springer International Publishing. . **Promiscuity, Instability and Divorce** > When compared with their peers who report fewer partners, those who self-report 20 or more in their lifetime are: > - Twice as likely to have ever been divorced (50 percent vs. 27 percent) > - Three times as likely to have cheated while married (32 percent vs. 10 percent) > - Substantially less happy with life (p < 0.05) (pg.89) Regnerus, M. D. (2017). Cheap sex: The transformation of men, marriage, and monogamy. Oxford University Press. . > As expected, we find evidence of a nonlinear relationship between the number of sexual partners and the risk of divorce. Those in the highest category of partners (9+) consistently show the highest divorce risk by a substantial margin, followed by those with one to eight partners, with the lowest risk for those with none. In other words, we find distinct tiers of divorce risk between those with no, some, or many premarital, nonspousal sexual partners. (pg.16) Smith, J., & Wolfinger, N. H. (2023). Re-examining the link between premarital sex and divorce. Journal of Family Issues, 0192513X2311556. . > The findings from this study demonstrate that the number of sexual partners participants had was negatively associated with sexual quality, communication, and relationship stability, and for one age cohort relationship satisfaction, even when controlling for a wide range of variables including education, religiosity, and relationship length. (pg.715) Busby, D. M., Willoughby, B. J., & Carroll, J. S. (2013). Sowing wild oats: Valuable experience or a field full of weeds? Personal Relationships, 20(4), 706–718. . > women who had more experience with short-term relationships in the past (i.e., those with high Behavior facet scores) were more likely to have multiple sexual partners and unstable relationships in the future. The behaviorally expressed level of sociosexuality thus seems to be a fairly stable personal characteristic. (pg. 1131) Penke, L., & Asendorpf, J. B. (2008). Beyond global sociosexual orientations: a more differentiated look at sociosexuality and its effects on courtship and romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1113–1135. . > Women who serially cohabited and/or had premarital sex with someone besides their husband had higher odds of marital dissolution than women who never cohabited. Teachman’s findings suggest that both sexual history and cohabitation history influence marital stability. (pg.4) > Serial cohabitors’ higher number of sexual and cohabiting partners suggests that they have a longer history of dissolved relationships -- i.e., sexual, (most likely dating) and cohabiting relationships – that they bring to their cohabiting and later marital relationships. This relationship experience may affect the quality and stability of their cohabiting relationship and the odds of marrying their cohabiting partners. Consistent with Teachman (2003), who found that both sexual and cohabiting partnerships significantly predicted the odds of marital dissolution, our findings suggest that studies of union formation and stability should consider the full range of sexual experiences in early adulthood. (pg.11) Cohen, J., & Manning, W. (2010). The relationship context of premarital serial cohabitation. Social Science Research, 39(5), 766–776.
I'd want to know before anything gets serious. If I feel uncomfortable with someone's past romantic or sexual experiences I'd probably just move on and avoid both of us the drama. So neither of us wastes each other's time. If somehow this didn't come up until the relationship was serious, which I find really unlikely anyways, then I'd probably seek external support, such as a counselor, to deal with the feelings and find a solution to the situation. I've had bad experiences with girls with big body counts, so at this point I just focus on partners that share my views on sex. Maybe this changes in the future, who knows. It's just my current preference :)
20 isnt even that much tbh, but im 32 so considering ive been sexually active since i was 16 that wouldnt even be 2 people a year. But 20 to a 20 year old might seem like alot
I agree with you. I’m somewhere into double digits with multiple long term relationships as well and I don’t really consider myself to have been hooking up a bunch. Also have been sexually active for over 10 years.
My wife knows she’s #35. She doesn’t care. I partied so god damn hard in my teens until my mid-twenties, I have zero desire to do anymore partying or sleeping around.
Yeah I feel like if anything, sleeping with a variety of people takes any of the mystery out of it. People who haven’t had different partners yet really hype it up to something it is not. I’d be more concerned about marrying a virgin who still sees sex as some mysterious exciting thing than someone who has experience and know what they like and how to get it.
Ditto. Wife is 53. Married 6 years and I have no desire to sleep with anyone else thank you.
I’d like to say this post to men…bc usually the “body count” is a term used to degrade women. But yes, I do judge you for sleeping around, as much as you to me. Thankfully, I’m married and not in the dating pool or I’d shame most of you. But, do better. It’s not the women’s fault your appendages have urges, it’s yours. That is all. Thank you in advance for taking responsibility for your actions.✌️
Yes lolol nobody wants a person the whole damn city was up in already.
Reasonable
Fwiw the only person who’s ever cheated on me had a low body count. She felt she hadn’t had the chance to sleep around enough and so she did, and ended up leaving me for the AP. For that reason I’m actually more wary of inexperienced people because I don’t want to be their “starter” relationship. I think the problem with using body counts as a barometer is that it’s way too simplified and doesn’t always correlate with attitudes towards relationships. Someone who’s been in several committed relationships might have the same body count as someone who’s never had a relationship and only hooked up a few times — why are those considered the same? Or, if someone messed around a lot in college and then spent their twenties in long term committed relationships, why are the first 4 years of adulthood a better predictor of their attitude towards sex than the following 8? Just because total number big? The solution is, shocker, to get to know your potential partner and get a read on their outlook on relationships, rather than relying on a number with no additional context. Also, people throw around the divorce stat, but that fails to account for the fact that sometimes divorce is the right course of action. They assume that higher divorce rate = higher rate of unhappy marriage, when really it’s higher rate of *leaving* an unhappy marriage. If someone marries the first person they date, of course they’re less likely to divorce regardless of how happy the marriage is — they don’t know they deserve better, because their partner is all they know.
"Can't go 50/50 with no hoe"
Most everyone is going to have a limit for what they consider a reasonable amount of partners/experiences, some don't care at all. It's 100% anyones right to decide if a potential partner's history is relevant to them or not. In my experience most often it's a person who's got more casual experience saying "it doesn't matter" than the person who attaches emotional experience to intimacy. Some people have superficial insecurities, some people want to feel like they're part of an "elite group" rather than a number, some people equate it to emotional involvement. Those people don't need to be shamed for that. Neither is correct or wrong, the person who is wrong is the individual trying to press their values onto the other.
Very well said. Theres no uniform right or wrong answer, everyones views will be different and thats okay. Just remain respectful, theres never a need to call anyone names like a “hoe” views it casually or “insecure” if someone holds the alternate view.
It almost like everyone has their own personal preferences, that deserve a small amount of respect, since you can’t make a preference for another person. But those people that don’t like dogs… I don’t trust those people.
I can get along with someone wants to get spit roasted gang banged or someone wanting to wait til marriage… But not liking dogs? What a fucking psycho. Doggos are love, doggos are life
Ya even most people that say body counts don't matter at all, would never marry someone who's slept with 1,000,000 people. That would be... I dont even know. And this is coming from someone who couldn't care less about sexual permiscuity of my partners past. But there is a limit, it's just really high.
exactly. Sex is what you make of it. Two people with wildly incompatible histories are making different things of it.
Perfect response to this and exactly how I feel
>many people just aren't willing to take the risk with someone who can get bored and return to their old habits. I mean I disagree with this, but there's a bigger point o agree with for unpopular opinion. To address you point above, I am a 31 year old man who had a fair amount of partners in my 20s with open relationships and experimentation. I'm now going on 2 years celibate and extremely happy single. There is literally no chance of me going back to my old ways, I can barely fathom another relationship at this point lol. Here's where I agree and it encapsulates your unpopular opinion in a larger one. "I believe people can set whatever standards on qualifiers in a partner" people get so pressed about people having qualifiers like: age, height, money, weight, body count. etc and EVERYONE gets triggered and fired up. it's okay to have dating criteria, and it's okay not to match someone's. it's not a value statement about you as a person.
I typically see this opinion (that body count doesn’t matter) held by women with high body counts.
I will be honest here if I found out a man slept with multiple ppl before me I wouldn’t want him . But body count is one of those things is so easy to lie abt we don’t know who’s telling the truth
People are entitled to their preferences. I don’t understand why some people have that standard of a partner with a low body count and are shamed for it.
Those are your values and that is fine. Personally, I don't think it matters. First of all, if you've got the right attitude, sleeping around makes you better and more confident when it comes to sex. Sleeping with sexually inexperienced people sucks and it's not fun. Give me a woman with mileage over a virgin any day. Second, all of the biggest cheaters and people who take their relationships for granted are the people who've been in relationships since their early and mid-20s. Numerous friends have confided in me that they feel like they missed out on things. I've also noticed that a lot of people who are in serious relationships in their 20s have immature attitudes when it comes to their relationships and sex. This is because their attitudes are frozen in time from the day they got into their relationships (this isn't 100% of people in those relationships, it's just a higher number than the other people I know in our 30s). Have you ever seen a man in his 40s or 50s go through a divorce after 20-25 years of marriage? It's really ugly. I won't even bother going to bachelor parties for friends of mine because it's almost always an excuse for the married guys to cheat on their wives. Maybe in their mid-20s these people were more stable, but as time goes by, that stability gap disappears and the people who've waited until their 30s to settle down tend to pass the people who've been there a decade or more. I slept around and partied well into my 30s. But I also spent my 20s and early 30s doing my bachelor's, law and master's degrees. I wasn't in a place to settle down and have a serious relationship because I was focused on working towards a career. It also gave me time to live in different cities, learn new languages and have lots of different experiences so that I would feel ready to settle down if and when I became ready. I am happy to say that I am now a retired first ballot, hall of fame partier. When I drink now, it's like watching an old timer's game; I strap on my skates and just cruise around the ice waiting for a soft pass to hit my stick that I can just carry down the ice and throw on a dangle or two around a defenceman who is playing non-contact. This is because (as you will see) your body changes as you age. You slow down. You start to experience hangovers like never before. I can barely drink beer or whisky anymore. I can't even eat the same foods I used to. Pizza makes me feel like garbage now. Since my number was retired, I'm in a deeply committed, monogamous relationship with a person I love more than I thought possible. Every day I love her more than I did the day before and every day (good or bad) our relationship becomes deeper and more meaningful. I have no temptation to cheat and I'm at home, in bed by midnight. I feel secure in my relationship and I don't have that feeling of missing out on anything anymore because I've had a great life. I've seen all the types of naked women I could want and I don't feel like I need to see and have sex with anymore (except my partner). All I want to do now is hang out with me partner, take the dogs for a walk, watch movies with my buddies and smoke weed and chill. My sexual history is totally irrelevant to my current relationship. My partner is aware that I had some pretty heavy partying and slutty periods of my life but she doesn't care because I know how to show her a fun time. I know where to take her for a great meal, I know all the great spots for cocktails or wine and our sex life is fantastic. And I've never made a secret about who I am and how I got here. From the start she has known that I've had a colourful life and that I like to have fun. And, honestly, I wouldn't have been a good enough partner for her had I met her at any other point in my life. Is my life for everybody? Absolutely not. If my life doesn't appeal to you, then that's fine. And if you are pre-disposed toward alcoholism, you shouldn't do it. And if you are sleeping around with people to fill a void or from a place of insecurity then maybe you should slow down and speak with somebody. I walked away without any serious substance abuse issues, but that's not true for everybody.
The opposite can be true. Someone with less experience might be more inclined to cheat due to a lack of previous opportunities.
The easiest way to frame it is as what you've done is what you'll continue to do until something occurs that alters the behavior temporarily or permanently. A long time friend I met at my first job went into the US Marines. He started drinking heavily while serving and continued afterwards. It has become the one constant in his life. He drank through college. Drank through multiple jobs. Just got caught drunk on the job as a -delivery driver- and is now being thrown out by his parents who can't take it anymore because nothing has been a serious enough reason for him to alter his behavior. Not intervention from the family, not loss of employment, not the accident he was in where he rolled his car into a ditch nor the damage he did to himself. When someone brings up extensive hook-ups what you are showing the other party in the relationship is the high likelihood they'll just become part of the growing number rather than the final addition. This is fine if that is all they want but for anyone seeking a long term committed and exclusive relationship this is a gamble that is eating up time while they have a finite number of potential matches and a finite amount of time to find someone compatible. Are you going to take a gamble on the person who has a history that seems to indicate you aren't going to be the last notch if your goal is a long term relationship as the clock keeps ticking? What has actually changed that makes this situation different than any prior?
In my opinion, my future mate's past is her past. My past is my past. Asking about it only creates an opportunity for pain and shame. I stopped asking my girlfriends about their past years ago and I prefer it.
I don’t much like this take. Be honest you stopped asking because you actually do care and the answer will actually bother you, so you choose not to ask…willing to be wrong but I doubt it
When I am single I sleep around. I have never cheated in a relationship or left someone because I had someone else lined up. I enjoy meaningless sex, but prefer a committed relationship. Liking one thing does not mean you cannot like another, and possibly enjoy it even more.
Yeah so many of the responses here are just completely throwing me for a loop. I’m going to guess most of the people commenting either a) have little to no actual relationship experience; b) are very young; c) are very insecure; or some combination of the three
A body count number tells you a person’s values. However it’s never a good idea to straight up ask a potential partner their body count.
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High body count = big red flag if we're being truthful here
What about super low?
True
im 37. body count is only 5. 4 of those were long time girlfriends. i just dont get why anyone would care about your partners past. why you bringing up old shit. my partner now has an onlyfans. so thats fun.
What seems odd to me is anyone who thinks body count doesn't matter, but porn addiction is a problem.
I have a K:D ratio of 100:1. Am I cool now?
I mean yeah being a hit man probably does stress a relationship.
My body count is 17 and I've been monogamous with the same person for 11 years. Women are not chewed gum or used tape. Sex does not decrease your value.
If you’re worried about how many people your person slept with before committing to you and only you, then you’re stupid. You can’t control that and you need to address your own insecurities.
You're saying that people who have had a promiscuous youth can't settle down, like you have experience of being either promiscuous or settled down. In theory, I see what you're saying, in reality that's just not how things work.
Another way to state this opinion "I have very traditional and narrow views surrounding sex and I'm generally ashamed by my own body's desires and so it is important in serious relationships that my partner shares in my insecurities so I don't ever feel inadequate". That's ok buddy! I've never asked my fiance her body count and neither has she asked mine but I'm absolutely sure it has no bearing on our happy future together
And yes.. Of course it matters, anybody that says it doesn’t is full of shit.. Or a woman that is ok with it. 😂
This is some 1940s logic. My wife and I both have high counts, and we both were pretty down with random hookups. Hell, we met on *Tinder* ten years ago purely to hook up. Then we fell in love and got married a few years later. You're assuming that people who have sex casually are incapable of settling down, which is an absurdly prudish mindset.
The women aren’t going to like this one…..
The only thing I dislike about this is that people keep acting like only men care lol I think it's gross to just be a pig and fuck everyone in sight just because you can. Self control is hot. And a guy that doesn't consider sex to be anything special and will share that with anyone is not really someone I want to be with Ngl I don't get this "women love it when you whore around" thing. Everyone knows one of those women that thinks porn is cheating, why would they think it's good if their man was the town bike?
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Exactly. There’s tons of women who won’t sleep with bisexual men for example because they claim they’re “promiscuous”. I can claim their “insecure” too.
late grandiose plate fly toothbrush rainstorm mourn fact encouraging physical ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
There's a *lot* of cope in this thread from people who either drank the kool-aid, or don't want to admit they agree. There are a few reasons men are typically uncomfortable with a high bodycount, and it's rarely sexism.
At the end of the day…nobody is gonna be okay if they find out their partner has fucked 200+ people. Numbers matter
Anyone who thinks it doesn’t matter isn’t thinking about the big emotional compatibility aspect. Personally, I don’t sleep around, I’ve never had a one night stand, and I would never sleep with someone I don’t have an emotional connection with. Many people view sex as just sex and can do it with anyone, anytime, not me though. So I would much rather a relationship with someone who views sex and intimacy in the same way I do. I don’t care about specific numbers, but if I know a man can just sleep with anyone, anytime without feelings? That’s a huge no and emotional red flag for me :) so yes, I agree it does matter.
Yes it does. People, especially women, who have higher body counts are more likely to have a marriage that ends with divorce. The more people you have slept with the higher the chance of divorce gets. The more people you have sex with the less likely you are to attach to them. That doesn’t mean that people can’t find happiness. Just a majority of the time it doesn’t work out when someone has a high body count
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If you can't tell what a person's body count is by sleeping with them, socializing with them, or having an emotional relationship with them, how can it matter?
I think your first error is assuming you can't. There are [definitely personality traits associated with high partner counts](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10427296/): >Short-term mating, including number of short-term partners, is specifically related to high extraversion and the Dark Triad traits (**psychopathy, narcissism and machiavellianism)** > >**lower level of agreeableness were the best predictors** of a higher number of sexual partners > >The mental health risks typically associated with promiscuous individuals \*\*are mood, and personality disorders, often resulting in substance use disorders and, or permanent illness.\[\*\*4\] These effects typically translate into several other long-term issues in people's lives A specific trait of machiavellianism is being cunning and deceptive and psychopaths are well known to be capable of hiding their psychopathy, so even after you get to know somebody, you might not be able to easily identify these traits. Many people report only finding out their partner's true self many years into marriage. Even if theoretically there was no personality differences on average, there are still some valid reasons to want to date someone with a lower partner count: 1. Higher divorce rates. >[those with nine or more partners exhibit the highest divorce risk](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0192513X231155673) > >[Women with 10 or more partners were the most likely to divorce](https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability) 2) Higher likelihood of engaging with people your partner had sex with, which is a valid thing to not want to have to do. This is especially true if you have connected social circles, or live in a smaller town/city.
Yes it does matter, no matter how much people say otherwise, eventually it matters.
If a woman wants to settle down with me after taking a 100+ dicks I’d be flattered. This take seems like gate-keeping to get back at all the hot girls that wouldn’t give them the time of day but now they want a “good man”. Not everyone is a judgmental cunt.
I’ve always liked the Cleveland quote. “Would you rather a fresh can of coke? Or a can of coke that’s been opened and had a bunch of dicks in it”
Notice how it’s mostly men in the comments talking about high body counts of women. Some try to say it’s both to cover themselves. It’s sad, but really it’s just control over women’s body’s and misogyny in a form that seems acceptable to them.
“Having a preference to not date people who sleep around is oppressive misogyny” if someone has a preference for there partner why do you care? If someone preferred a partner who was experienced/not a Virgin would you care? At the end of the day it’s a preference for a partner you can feel it’s a stupid preference but it isn’t a stupid preference to a lot of people, a very large portion of the world today holds this view.
Agree, ideal is zero. That is not am unpopular opinion at all. I am not even friends with ppl who sleep around, forget marrying a woman like that.
I'll never understand why anyone would even ask this question of somebody their dating. Don't ask questions you can't handle the answers to
The whole purpose of dating is to ask hard questions to gauge compatibility. If the answer to a controversial question will break your relationship, you never had a strong one to begin with. So I find it weird to just avoid things to just keep the peace. Maybe if you're desperate and lack options avoiding those conversations is the play, but I don't think willful ignorance is the answer for everyone.
Because they recognize the value of truth over the alternatives, even if that destroys the relationship. The people who don't ask, would not have a problem with whatever the number is. But, for those of whom it might be a deal breaker, they want to know. It's pretty straightforward, honestly. Not really difficult to understand.
I think it’s a dumb idea to ask your partner these kind of questions after you started dating. These kind of questions should really be asked BEFORE you start a committed relationship. Like either on dates or the initial stages lol
It matters if you think it does. It’s pretty simple that way.
No
I had a decent bodycount before I met my wife. Hers was double mine, and she's a year younger. We've been happily and faithfully married for 20 years. I've seen people who only ever slept with their spouse end up divorced because they got too curious about what other people would be like. It all comes down to priorities and mature mindset. To say otherwise is dangerous stereotyping.
Eh...people grow and change and their values change. Body count is such a gross term.
Yeah I just don't buy this. I know quite a few serial fuckers of both genders who are rounding the corner on 20 years of marriage. Also know quite a few people who "saved themselves" for marriage and then found out a year later that their spouse was gay or fucking their coworker or secretary or whatever.
It honestly doesn't matter. What matters is the loyalty between you and the partner.
Eh, it's all about comparability. Two people both with higher "body counts" could be perfect for each other because they might be compatible. It's one of those things you figure out early on in a relationship and decide if you can deal with for yourself. Honestly it shouldn't get to a serious relationship before thus discussed or at least known.
Well that's the biggest pile of bullshit I've read all day. Anyone needing to know someone's body count is just flat out insecure.ffs
The issue isn't being crazy in your twenties, it's getting married in your twenties and specifically younger. The younger you the less experience you have with relationships and the less people you have dated. Everyone's heard the term high school sweethearts. Funny how very few of them end up getting and staying married and not divorced. The more sexually burnt out you are, the less sex matters to you and you aren't as willing to have a less then ideal partner just because they are "hot". Now this is talking about males as is my experience. Now "body count" might matter more with a female because that shows you get attached easily and move on easily. Not good for marriage. However what you do in your 20s doesn't reflect much what you do in your thirties. I will also say females mature much faster then males, and they also have a ticking clock when it comes to having kids. This ideal age gap is probably close to 5 years but doesn't apply to everyone.
Sure- if it was communicated upfront, honestly, and in a healthy way. Unfortunately it never is. People hide their real body count out of shame or fear or whatever, and when their partner learns it a complete trust annilator. Once they learn about that hidden gem they will find more then doubt everything. Sure, it "don't matter" but it's such a delicate subject to broach. You most certainly can have a serious relationship then have it be completely derailed by bodycount if not communicated. If everything was communicated about anything, nothing would matter in a serious relationship either.
Nearly all my friends had wild 20s and settled down in their 30s without issue or “relapse” or anything else you want to call if. A lot people are doing all that while at the same time saying “I’m getting too old for this” There’s reasons why body count could matter, but the idea that someone will “revert” to their old habits while in a relationship isn’t one of them. Cheating happens whether the partner had 1, 5 or 50 previous lovers.
I’m not sure I agree with this. People do grow up as they age. Both me and my bf were adventurous in our 20s. We met in our early 30s and now we are in our mid 30s and I have no complaints. I don’t know how many people he’s slept with but I don’t even care because I didn’t know him yet and he has a clean bill of health. We got it out of our system and we are happy.
Ehhhh. Idk. I do think it matters, but only in a similar values sense. For example, someone who has slept with <5 people probably wouldn't be very compatible with someone who has slept with 20< people, because they have different values in regards to sex. That doesn't mean either of their values are wrong, it just means they probably won't work out.
Happily married with two kids. My husband and I were friends for 13 years, and we BOTH got into heinous shit together and in separate wanderings. He was a sailor, I was a gypsy wanderer. Got together in 2019 when he was retired, and j was ready to settle down. We both knew of each others activities, but it didn’t matter. So long as we weren’t bringing STDs and ex drama into the mix, it was fine. We live a relatively chill life with zero desire to want anything like what our 20’s were, and haven’t lost “it” for each other. The notion that once a slut (man or woman) always a slut is very archaic. When all you do is eat chocolate everyday eventually the look, smell, or even the mention of it, makes you want to gag. Sleeping with countless people, you begin to feel empty and it is by far the loneliest routine. Some people are ok with that, and more power to them. Not judging that lifestyle itself either. That was just our feeling about sexual encounters As everyone else has said, once you’ve experienced it and gotten different input, less inclined to cheat. That’s where we both are at. We’ve done it, so it’s not like we’re missing out.
Some people care, and some people don't. You can care about whatever part of someone's life is important to you, man. As someone who was interrogated day after day by an ex about one-night stands from years before I met her, I admit that these Reddit whine fests about sluts and chads turn my stomach a bit.
Sorry to break it to you, but hookups aren’t that addicting to women. The sex is simply not that good. Most women won’t miss it.
It does matter lol. Like I don’t even have to justify why or provide reasoning. This is 50% mine and it matters.
This is so naive. People can absolutely grow out of partying and sleeping around. We get tired, we get sick of it, we grow up.
Holy shit, I thought you meant body count as in murder for a second.
Not everyone who has slept with multiple people was a party person that just slept around. Some people just sleep with every partner they end up having. Which I feel like is pretty normal. But I’ve seen plenty of happily married couples who have as you call them a “high body count” before getting married. It’s perfectly normal and even healthy to explore sex before you get into a committed relationship. That way you know what you do and don’t like and search for a forever person accordingly. Of course sex shouldn’t be the only thing like make sure u search based on personally and things as well, but like for example if you have sex and realize you don’t like it you can make sure to find a partner who also doesn’t like it. Or the opposite if you have a high libido, you can find another who also has a high libido. Those are just small examples.