This post was originally inspired by a Maureen Dowd column titled “Taming of the Slur.”
The column was mainly about what women think of the word “slut” these days. There was the usual mainstream recitals of too tight clothes at work or whatever and how it’s unfair that promiscuous men get to be called players while comparable women get called sluts. (Plus an interesting distinction I hadn’t heard of before of “Wednesday night dates” vs. “Saturday night dates” which, Dowd points out, is fairly confused and non-specific anyway.) Something towards the end really caught my eye.
That men are counting those spins around the block is a fact that’s not lost on women. The late-night comic Craig Ferguson dryly observed that women often get back with their exes because they don’t want their total number to go up.
One 24-year-old Washington reporter agreed that “redos” of previous partners can keep your number below the slut threshold, defined by two of her male friends as “less than 20.” She thinks she is “chaste’‘ with a number of six, but admits she sometimes subtracts one or two when telling a guy her romantic history. She said she kept dating Mr. Six after she’d lost interest simply because she didn’t want to up the number to Mr. Seven.
One 25-year-old writer in D.C. said his ideal girl’s number is one or two fewer than his. When he had “the numbers talk’‘ with one date, she gave him an answer that he found both satisfactory and sexy: “Enough to know what I’m doing.”
I pulled the quote from this randomly Google’d source but it looks like the column appeared first in the subscription-only NYTimes.com.
Ok. So what’s the deal with this number thing?
I know men learn somewhere that they’re supposed to brag about how many women they’ve had sex with. And that women learn somewhere that they’re supposed to brag about how few. I even know that at least one researcher (sorry no source) says men and women exaggerate so consistently that the accurate number for men tends to be one third partners as they claim while women’s tends to be three times higher.
But this afternoon as I was drifting off into a heat-induced nap I started wondering…
Exactly why do men think more partners indicate greater prowess?
Exactly why do women think fewer partners indicates greater virtue?
A) I mean, do we imagine men are more attractive if we think they’re just really dreadful poor at relationships? And do we imagine women are more attractive if we think they’re dreadfully inexperienced?
B) Oh wait, no, of course we don’t think that! Oh right, we’re supposed to think men are more manly studs if they’ve had lots of partners, and that women are icons of propriety if they’ve had few or none.
Oh yeah, right, right. B, above, is correct. A, above, is just wrong.
And that justifies why our numbers are so important everyone just assumes we fudge, respectively, up or down.
No really!
That’s why.
(It’s just so obvious I shouldn’t have to ask.)
(And so manifestly true I’m not struggling, hard, to sound convincing.)
Anyway, exactly how much longer do we want to maintain this sort of accounting? I mean, really, at the end of the day, the only number that really matters is… 1-on-1.
Submitted by 843 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-07-23 17:11.
I was asked about my "romantic history" by M the other day. I decided to only include the ones that I deemed to be romantic relationships. Which brings the number from about, um, 20-odd (the number in the current post on my blog is wrong even, because I forgot a few) to about 5. But he's only ever told me about his "long term" relationships too. So I think it's fair.
Also a thought, women are expected to be looking for relationships, men for conquests.
[Yup. I know that's what men and women are supposed to be looking for. What baffled me as I was falling asleep, and what baffles me still now that I'm awake, is why, exactly, those are the expectations. Thanks, Colette. --fl]
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 2006-07-23 17:28.
Ha. I've done re-do's though not exactly with the intention of keeping my number lower.
Interesting.
[EXACTLY!!!! I mean, I've had sex with an ex because we still liked each other, and we were still attracted to each other even though we didn't make good long-term partners, and because we were both wicked horny after a weekend outing where everyone else was in couples. But to keep one's flipping "number" below some threshhold you'd go back and sleep with someone old? I mean, assuming the whole idea behind keeping a low number really is that you're trying to appear virtuous enough not to have random sex for dumb reasons, then how, exactly, is arbitrarily boffing people you don't even like well enough to stay involved with supposed to demonstrate that? And all to preserve some arbitrary (and evidently constantly changing) number that's really no one else's business in the first place. (And, to complete my rant, not *really* any of your business either since the goal in life isn't to *count* your partners but to find satisfaction and companionship and, well, *partnership* with. So where does counting come in to that?) Thanks, A. --fl]
Submitted by 843 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-07-23 17:40.
I've always believed the "numbers talk" is BS. Why does it matter who went before, unless one has kids with them? I have no idea how many women my husband was with. I've never asked because I'm not interested. Likewise my husband has never asked. Past relationships have come up in conversation, of course--both of us had major long-termers--but not the one-offs. It just seems to be that every time someone has the numbers talk someone gets pissed off. Like I said, unless you have kids or a communicable disease, just be quiet about it. You can't change the past.
[Yup, if you're involved with someone who has children you're likely going to meet the other parents, and yeah, if someone winds up with an STD it matters who else you've been with *since your last negative checkup.* But otherwise....? Thanks, Mandalay. --fl]
Submitted by 843 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-07-23 18:55.
I hate the words slut and whore; as if women were inherently immoral. That's what the numbers game is and it is ever constantly changing. With more acceptable sexuality; it still how many degrees from a virgin.
Submitted by 843 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-07-23 19:43.
I have no number so that makes the talk very interesting, as in something is wrong with me or the like.
[Heh! No, there's nothing wrong with you no matter how large or small your number might be. All that really matters is that you make your choices -- choices to, or choices not to -- consciously and consensually. Thank you, J. --fl]
Submitted by 843 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-07-24 07:51.
My response to a partner who asked me how many people I'd had sex with before him was, "Sugah, don't worry about HOW I got good at it, just be glad I AM!" He never asked me that foolish question again.
[That sounds pretty effective. Thanks, WH. --fl]
Submitted by 843 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-07-24 22:31.
Brag about how few or hesitant to admit to more than a few.
I would never admit to the correct # to anyone, (except in an anonymous [hopefully] blog).
More than 3 or 4 sounds sluttish even to me. And that's my gut reaction to if it's a guy or a gal.
Which is ironic, coming from me... a couple in college, a couple after, a couple of marriages, ... a couple in the between times, a couple of one night stands,
It adds up pretty fast....
But asking about a person's past,
achieves nothing.
Asking if they have a disease to share with you...
probably achieves nothing.
Oh, I am so glad I'm not a teenager these days.
["Which is ironic, coming from me... " Which is sort of my point! I sort of assume both men and women tend to have roughly the same number of lifetime partners, even though what they *say* may vary. If this is so then having more than three or four partners isn't what's "sluttish" it's *admitting* it! I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't think you should hold yourself to a standard that a) relatively few people mee and b) doesn't reliably predict the kind of person you are in the first place. (And of course if we stopped holding ourselves to artificial standards we wouldn't have to hold others to them either... and *then* I think we'd *really* lose interest in keeping track.) Thanks, KJ. --fl]
Submitted by 843 (not verified) on Tue, 2006-07-25 07:31.
More than 3 or 4 sounds sluttish even to me. And that's my gut reaction to if it's a guy or a gal.
yeah, see, that's the problem for me too, kj: my gut feelings don't coincide with my actual life experience. in reality, my number is hovering somewhere around 10. because it's a lot, and because it's only going to go up from here on in, i feel pretty obligated to share it if i'm in any kind of a genuine relationship -- one night stands and fuckbuddies don't have any "number rights," sorry.
but i have known people for whom it was a problem, one way or the other. and i can't say i blame them. that isn't because i think, consciously, that women should be virtuous (at least not more so than men); it's because i've got an ingrained idea of how many is "too many" and i know other people do too.
i wish we had a zapper-thing to get those ideas out of our heads.
["...because it's only going to go up from here on in, i feel pretty obligated to share it if i'm in any kind of a genuine relationship..." You raise a good point, A, and it's something I've actually been thinking about posting about. It *is* worth mentioning that you've had multiple partners if you intend to keep having them. (It just seems to me that I'd be way more comfortable if my partner wanted to have sex with ten other people than if she only wanted to have it with one other person, and I'm curious if others would see it that way too.) Thanks, A. --fl]
Submitted by 843 (not verified) on Sun, 2006-07-30 12:24.
i wish we had a zapper-thing to get those ideas out of our heads.
Yes, a, I wish we did, too. And if it was available, I would point it towards the heads of the PBS folks who decided that Melanie Martinez had just been too raunchy in her early years to even cyber-tuck toddlers for a good night's sleep.
Chris Hall of Literate Perversions wrote about the firing of Ms. Martinez in a post entitled Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due, and reminded us that male comedians who ventured into the same risque territory did not meet the same fate.
So to answer your question, fl, Anyway, exactly how much longer do we want to maintain this sort of accounting?, it seems like PBS is still keeping score.
[Yeah, that decision would be fairly incomprehensible... if we didn't remember that the President appoints the directors of public agencies. And if it comes to a choice between the most highly qualified and a crony or his (it's almost always a he) offspring... And that actually gets to the point I was talking about it this post. Just as "everybody" thinks you're a slut if you *say* you've slept with as many people as most people sleep with, so do we think "everybody" will be offended if it becomes known that a role model for kids has a pee-pee. In fact *very few* people feel that way but we all pretend everybody does. %#!$!!$ Thanks, Kochanie. --fl]