They say that size doesn’t matter, but when it comes to the number of relationships you have had in the past, it does. It counts even more when it comes down to the number of people you had sex with, especially to your partner.
For most couples this topic can be a tricky part of the relationship. From personal experience, and from talking to others, the magic number has the power make or break the relationship. Often, in the early stages, people tend to hide or lie about the true number of sexual partners they have had, and hope it never comes up…
Like that scene in Gossip Girl where Lily and Rufus try to compare their lists of exes, when Rufus tells the truth about the number he has had, while Lily plays down her tally to save his feelings. This doesn’t just happen on TV; it also happens in real life.
Relationships are competitions. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are always in a competition with our significant other to be the superior one. It can be who is the biggest earner or who is the most popular, and more often than not, sex can be a competition.
Conventional wisdom has it that people are lying to protect, or enhance, their reputations. Men jack up their numbers to look like studs; women slash theirs to avoid being perceived as promiscuous. But then why do men and women give identical answers when asked about the past year?
Cole*, a Durban businessman says that at the beginning of a new relationship you have to “feel out” your partner when it comes to disclosing your number of partners.
“You have to get a sense of what your partner is into. If she seems to like a player, then you can play around with it, if she seems more conservative and might be freaked by too many then you have lie and maybe lower it. The truth is, your real number will come out eventually,” he says.
Lily*, 23, from Durban says that she prefers the truth to having her feelings hurt.
“I haven’t slept with many people but I would prefer to hear the truth. If a person has slept around, but is always safe, then there isn’t anything wrong with it. Liking sex isn’t a crime.” she said.
But does the lying about how many people you have had relationships with in the past save your partner’s feelings, or make things worse? A year down the line, when you are having one of your Jersey Shore-esque Ronnie and Sam blowouts and the truth comes out, doesn’t that do more damage than being upfront?
Sky*, who is in her late 20s, says that honesty is the best policy.
“If you can’t be honest about how many relationships you have had in the past, it sets the foundation about not being honest about other things. It’s best to be upfront with it; if they don’t like it and want to leave you, then maybe it’s for the best. If they are willing to make a relationship work and want to be with you, then they will get over it.”
So, just how many sexual partners is too many? In general, there is no “correct” number one is “supposed” to have in a lifetime.
According to Larry, a Durban writer in his 40s, the answer is a personal matter and is based on emotional comfort and personal values.
“Having had 20 sexual partners for one man or woman, may not be a lot, for another, it may be unimaginable. How one views the past plays an important role in how one enjoys the present,” he says.
“You can choose to view the number as shameful and embarrassing or to look at it in a different light and bring about a healthier perspective. People engage in sex for many reasons; having an unhealthy attitude about sex and low self-esteem can lead to sexual activities which will later be regretted, some just have it for the sake of f***ing.”
Often men have had more partners than their female companions; however there are cases where the roles are reversed.
*John, a young artist from Durban, has been with a woman who has had more experience than him but it does not bother him.
“I’m open to answering this question when it comes, and I’ve been with women whose quantity of paramours reaches fairly high in the double digits, easily dwarfing my numbers, but it’s never really been threatening to me,” John says.
“Do I have concerns? Sure for STDs, but no concern for if I’ll perform better or not. It’s not an ego thing, like I’m God’s greatest gift; it’s more of a focus thing. Sure, she’s been with X number of guys, but now she is with me and it’s with her help that we learn how to please and tease each other in bed,” he adds.
Does the number of partners really matter? It depends on what you’re looking for, on what you know of that person already.
Is it right for you to hold something against your partner that happened in the past? It would boil down to your own personal feelings at the end of the day.
“Personally, if a guy has had more than 10 in a certain number of years, I think that would be my limit, but the truth is that it all depends on you and if you want the relationship to work,” says Lily.
The elusive number that you want to know is just that, a number, how you use it is up to you.
*Not real names
More than 20 000? Really? A look at celebrities’ “numbers”....
Wilt Chamberlain
Basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain claimed to have slept with 20 000 women, the highest number to date. Although many would think this was him boasting as a “love machine”, Chamberlain actually looked at it differently.
“It would have been better for me to have one woman 1 000 times,” he later said. “I wasn’t bragging that I was a great lover. Actually, if you look at it, you can say that I had so many women because I was such a bad lover, they never came back a second time.”
Janice Dickinson
The 55-year-old former model has admitted to sleeping with more than 1 000 men, saying: “I was the wildest model ever. Famous people wanted to sleep with me.”
Janice, who regularly boasts of her affairs with stars including Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and Mick Jagger, now claims she had a threesome with singer Grace Jones and actor Dolph Lundgren.
She says: “People ask me what it was like… but I don’t remember. We were all so high.”
Of another famous conquest Sylvester Stallone, she says: “Sly was a great lover. He once dressed up as an army officer for sex and he shot his gun off in the back yard a lot. He was weird.”
Charlie Sheen
The notorious bad boy has always had a penchant for the ladies, and his claim that he has slept with 5 000 woman is not hard to believe. He has had relationships with models, actresses and porn stars although it is believed that the majority of his conquests came from “hired services”.
Gene Simmons
The aged glam-rock star claimed that he rocked the world of 4 600 women. All I have to say is that Kiss has been around for 30-odd years. That is a ton of groupie love. He has claimed to have calmed down over the past 10 years, but let’s be honest; a leopard never changes its spots.
Jack Nicholson
The Oscar-winning actor who has always lived on the wild side, says the has bonked over 2 000 women. Despite his 15-year relationship with actress Angelica Huston during the 1970s and 1980s, there have always been claims by women to have had flings with the actor. He now lives a notoriously single life.
Warren Beatty
Probably the most notorious playboy in the history of Hollywood, Warren has had famous relationships with singers such as Madonna, Cher, Carly Simon, Michelle Phillips, Natalie Wood, her sister Lana Wood, Julie Christie, Leslie Caron, Goldie Hawn, Joan Collins, Diane Keaton, Mary Tyler Moore and Isabelle Adjani, and supermodels Elle MacPherson and Stephanie Seymour. A biographer recently claimed he had slept with almost 13 000 women,but he denied this. Maybe this has to do with his 19- year marriage to Anette Benning.
Hugh Hefner
The creator and publisher of Playboy magazine has said that he has had sex with over 1 000 women. If you count the number of Playboy bunnies he has featured and that he has claimed to have had sex with most of them then his claim is believable. Then again, this is the same 85-year-old who claims to have sex without any performance enhancers. - Sunday Tribune