Kinda Dumb But Kinda Weird.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

OMG you are painfully insufferable. Rarely do I encounter a person who blabs on more without actually saying anything. How does a number of sexual encounters in your potential partner's past impact your future with that person (other than perhaps an STD which can and should be screened for)?

DP. Feminism went through this whole phase where an important rallying cry was that women did not have to justify their sexual or romantic preferences. Why are you so hung up on what preferences men have in potential mates? How does it impact you? They don’t want to date you and you don’t want to date these specific men. Why do you need to justify yourself to them or vice versa?

Nonetheless, to satiate your weird curiosity: research indicates that premarital sex with people other than your eventual partner is linked to higher rates of divorce. Sort of a U-shape, but once you get past ten partners there is a clear link to higher rates of divorce.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

OMG you are painfully insufferable. Rarely do I encounter a person who blabs on more without actually saying anything. How does a number of sexual encounters in your potential partner's past impact your future with that person (other than perhaps an STD which can and should be screened for)?

It says a lot about their approach to sexuality, which can play out in a host of ways over the course of the marriage. How monogamously inclined is the person? How likely is the person to have some former lover that they are still pining for without telling you? If, for example, she had a highly sexual relationship in the past, and you have a relatively bland one, that says a lot about how she views you and where the relationship is going. Since you can’t count on people to answer that question candidly, information about her past practices allows you to draw some inferences.

So, to sum up, it doesn't impact you at all except in your imagination due to your own insecurities and judgments. Got it.

Are you serious with that take-away? Let’s take the hypothetical where a woman has a body count of say 25 and her potential spouse is like 23 out of 25. First, no man wants to be that guy, and if she were honest about that fact, 99% of guys would bail. But you really think that isn’t going to affect her side of the marriage as well? When they are 10 years in and he’s wondering how to fix their dead bedroom, and he never gets the truth that she “just wasn’t that into him” from the get go. There are lots of posts here on DCUM outlining precisely that scenario, so it’s not a question of insecurity, it’s a question of wanting to understand reality.

It's a 1000% a question of insecurity. Does a guy have to have a high count? Or does his need to be as equally low?

Well, speaking for myself I don’t understand why this issue is so fraught. My DW and I talked about these sorts of issues during our early months of dating because we were curious about each other. I personally don’t understand why it’s “need to know” or a state secret for so many on this one particular topic.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

Simple. You can't trust a liar.

But how does it affect you if the number is 25 instead of two if she was honest?

Who said it did?

OK great. Glad we came to the same conclusion that it doesn't impact you at all and you don't need to know.

So say that. “You don’t need to know, and I am offended you would ask. In fact, you asking that question gives me some things I need to think about.” By all means, stand your ground.

But don’t lie.

I have repeatedly said exactly that. But men keep telling me that’s not acceptable (on this thread, not in real life).

My read was that OP’s SIL lied.

Your read is correct. The entire thread is 40 people saying OP's sister is a lying whore and one crazy lady yelling YOURE INSECURE!!!!!!

Nope, I’ve repeatedly said I’ve always told the truth but wanting to know the exact number is total insecurity on your part. You can keep calling me a whore. You just sound even more insecure when you do that though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

OMG you are painfully insufferable. Rarely do I encounter a person who blabs on more without actually saying anything. How does a number of sexual encounters in your potential partner's past impact your future with that person (other than perhaps an STD which can and should be screened for)?

It says a lot about their approach to sexuality, which can play out in a host of ways over the course of the marriage. How monogamously inclined is the person? How likely is the person to have some former lover that they are still pining for without telling you? If, for example, she had a highly sexual relationship in the past, and you have a relatively bland one, that says a lot about how she views you and where the relationship is going. Since you can’t count on people to answer that question candidly, information about her past practices allows you to draw some inferences.

So, to sum up, it doesn't impact you at all except in your imagination due to your own insecurities and judgments. Got it.

Are you serious with that take-away? Let’s take the hypothetical where a woman has a body count of say 25 and her potential spouse is like 23 out of 25. First, no man wants to be that guy, and if she were honest about that fact, 99% of guys would bail. But you really think that isn’t going to affect her side of the marriage as well? When they are 10 years in and he’s wondering how to fix their dead bedroom, and he never gets the truth that she “just wasn’t that into him” from the get go. There are lots of posts here on DCUM outlining precisely that scenario, so it’s not a question of insecurity, it’s a question of wanting to understand reality.

It's a 1000% a question of insecurity. Does a guy have to have a high count? Or does his need to be as equally low?

Well, speaking for myself I don’t understand why this issue is so fraught. My DW and I talked about these sorts of issues during our early months of dating because we were curious about each other. I personally don’t understand why it’s “need to know” or a state secret for so many on this one particular topic.

Because that one crazy slu is ashamed of her past and tries to make it the problem of others.

[Anonymous]

This whole thread is off the rails, but its very strange that your brother would be so upset about this after 13 years of marriage that he would share it with you. The slut shaming exhibited here makes it pretty obvious why a woman would lie about this. I would think that after the initial surprise, your brother should quickly get over this if he loves and values his wife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

OMG you are painfully insufferable. Rarely do I encounter a person who blabs on more without actually saying anything. How does a number of sexual encounters in your potential partner's past impact your future with that person (other than perhaps an STD which can and should be screened for)?

DP. Feminism went through this whole phase where an important rallying cry was that women did not have to justify their sexual or romantic preferences. Why are you so hung up on what preferences men have in potential mates? How does it impact you? They don’t want to date you and you don’t want to date these specific men. Why do you need to justify yourself to them or vice versa?

Nonetheless, to satiate your weird curiosity: research indicates that premarital sex with people other than your eventual partner is linked to higher rates of divorce. Sort of a U-shape, but once you get past ten partners there is a clear link to higher rates of divorce.

I am not hung up on what preferences men have. I am hung up on the double standard and being called a whore when I freely express my sexuality. So as long as men feel they can have as many partners as they please without scrutiny, and can freely call women who are behaving the same way whores, I will continue to be private about how many partners I've had. Just look at this thread alone. I never even mentioned how many partners I had. It's irrelevant. But it's not stopping men from calling me a slut and a whore simply for defending the choice to have many partners.

Secondly, I would really like to see that "research." I'm not at all convinced by your claim. And again, is the same true for men?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

You haven't answered how it would actually affect anyone if they've slept with 2 or 25. I mean, the dude obviously couldn't tell from her equipment. He didn't get a disease. He didn't guess based on her skill. So it didn't affect him at all until she told him, and now he's wringing his hands and rending his clothes...over stuff that happened more than 20 years ago. Weak. Very weak.

[Anonymous]

Married 13 years and fighting about dudes she slept with in high school. Do they have otherwise good marriage? Is it working out? Then everybody needs to count their blessings and move the hell on. I swear, people like this that look for trouble need a second job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

OMG you are painfully insufferable. Rarely do I encounter a person who blabs on more without actually saying anything. How does a number of sexual encounters in your potential partner's past impact your future with that person (other than perhaps an STD which can and should be screened for)?

It says a lot about their approach to sexuality, which can play out in a host of ways over the course of the marriage. How monogamously inclined is the person? How likely is the person to have some former lover that they are still pining for without telling you? If, for example, she had a highly sexual relationship in the past, and you have a relatively bland one, that says a lot about how she views you and where the relationship is going. Since you can’t count on people to answer that question candidly, information about her past practices allows you to draw some inferences.

So, to sum up, it doesn't impact you at all except in your imagination due to your own insecurities and judgments. Got it.

Are you serious with that take-away? Let’s take the hypothetical where a woman has a body count of say 25 and her potential spouse is like 23 out of 25. First, no man wants to be that guy, and if she were honest about that fact, 99% of guys would bail. But you really think that isn’t going to affect her side of the marriage as well? When they are 10 years in and he’s wondering how to fix their dead bedroom, and he never gets the truth that she “just wasn’t that into him” from the get go. There are lots of posts here on DCUM outlining precisely that scenario, so it’s not a question of insecurity, it’s a question of wanting to understand reality.

Stop with the ridiculous "body count" terminology. Unless you're actually knowingly sleeping with a female serial killer, in which case, why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

OMG you are painfully insufferable. Rarely do I encounter a person who blabs on more without actually saying anything. How does a number of sexual encounters in your potential partner's past impact your future with that person (other than perhaps an STD which can and should be screened for)?

It says a lot about their approach to sexuality, which can play out in a host of ways over the course of the marriage. How monogamously inclined is the person? How likely is the person to have some former lover that they are still pining for without telling you? If, for example, she had a highly sexual relationship in the past, and you have a relatively bland one, that says a lot about how she views you and where the relationship is going. Since you can’t count on people to answer that question candidly, information about her past practices allows you to draw some inferences.

So, to sum up, it doesn't impact you at all except in your imagination due to your own insecurities and judgments. Got it.

Are you serious with that take-away? Let’s take the hypothetical where a woman has a body count of say 25 and her potential spouse is like 23 out of 25. First, no man wants to be that guy, and if she were honest about that fact, 99% of guys would bail. But you really think that isn’t going to affect her side of the marriage as well? When they are 10 years in and he’s wondering how to fix their dead bedroom, and he never gets the truth that she “just wasn’t that into him” from the get go. There are lots of posts here on DCUM outlining precisely that scenario, so it’s not a question of insecurity, it’s a question of wanting to understand reality.

It's a 1000% a question of insecurity. Does a guy have to have a high count? Or does his need to be as equally low?

Well, speaking for myself I don’t understand why this issue is so fraught. My DW and I talked about these sorts of issues during our early months of dating because we were curious about each other. I personally don’t understand why it’s “need to know” or a state secret for so many on this one particular topic.

Because women are judged harshly. Have you read this thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

OMG you are painfully insufferable. Rarely do I encounter a person who blabs on more without actually saying anything. How does a number of sexual encounters in your potential partner's past impact your future with that person (other than perhaps an STD which can and should be screened for)?

It says a lot about their approach to sexuality, which can play out in a host of ways over the course of the marriage. How monogamously inclined is the person? How likely is the person to have some former lover that they are still pining for without telling you? If, for example, she had a highly sexual relationship in the past, and you have a relatively bland one, that says a lot about how she views you and where the relationship is going. Since you can’t count on people to answer that question candidly, information about her past practices allows you to draw some inferences.

So, to sum up, it doesn't impact you at all except in your imagination due to your own insecurities and judgments. Got it.

Are you serious with that take-away? Let’s take the hypothetical where a woman has a body count of say 25 and her potential spouse is like 23 out of 25. First, no man wants to be that guy, and if she were honest about that fact, 99% of guys would bail. But you really think that isn’t going to affect her side of the marriage as well? When they are 10 years in and he’s wondering how to fix their dead bedroom, and he never gets the truth that she “just wasn’t that into him” from the get go. There are lots of posts here on DCUM outlining precisely that scenario, so it’s not a question of insecurity, it’s a question of wanting to understand reality.

It's a 1000% a question of insecurity. Does a guy have to have a high count? Or does his need to be as equally low?

Well, speaking for myself I don’t understand why this issue is so fraught. My DW and I talked about these sorts of issues during our early months of dating because we were curious about each other. I personally don’t understand why it’s “need to know” or a state secret for so many on this one particular topic.

Because women are judged harshly. Have you read this thread?

He doesn't get it. His wife probably told him a very low number, like so many women do, just to make him happy. It probably doesn't have anything to do with reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

OMG you are painfully insufferable. Rarely do I encounter a person who blabs on more without actually saying anything. How does a number of sexual encounters in your potential partner's past impact your future with that person (other than perhaps an STD which can and should be screened for)?

DP. Feminism went through this whole phase where an important rallying cry was that women did not have to justify their sexual or romantic preferences. Why are you so hung up on what preferences men have in potential mates? How does it impact you? They don’t want to date you and you don’t want to date these specific men. Why do you need to justify yourself to them or vice versa?

Nonetheless, to satiate your weird curiosity: research indicates that premarital sex with people other than your eventual partner is linked to higher rates of divorce. Sort of a U-shape, but once you get past ten partners there is a clear link to higher rates of divorce.

I am not hung up on what preferences men have. I am hung up on the double standard and being called a whore when I freely express my sexuality. So as long as men feel they can have as many partners as they please without scrutiny, and can freely call women who are behaving the same way whores, I will continue to be private about how many partners I've had. Just look at this thread alone. I never even mentioned how many partners I had. It's irrelevant. But it's not stopping men from calling me a slut and a whore simply for defending the choice to have many partners.

Secondly, I would really like to see that "research." I'm not at all convinced by your claim. And again, is the same true for men?

I don’t agree with the name calling. So not me.

Studies have been conducted with NIH funding that show more partners is associated with higher divorce rate. Some studies suggest the effect is more pronounced with women, others show no gender differences. As I said, the priced effect is u-shaped. But once you get to ten partners the effect is clear. Easy to google for yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

OMG you are painfully insufferable. Rarely do I encounter a person who blabs on more without actually saying anything. How does a number of sexual encounters in your potential partner's past impact your future with that person (other than perhaps an STD which can and should be screened for)?

It says a lot about their approach to sexuality, which can play out in a host of ways over the course of the marriage. How monogamously inclined is the person? How likely is the person to have some former lover that they are still pining for without telling you? If, for example, she had a highly sexual relationship in the past, and you have a relatively bland one, that says a lot about how she views you and where the relationship is going. Since you can’t count on people to answer that question candidly, information about her past practices allows you to draw some inferences.

So, to sum up, it doesn't impact you at all except in your imagination due to your own insecurities and judgments. Got it.

Are you serious with that take-away? Let’s take the hypothetical where a woman has a body count of say 25 and her potential spouse is like 23 out of 25. First, no man wants to be that guy, and if she were honest about that fact, 99% of guys would bail. But you really think that isn’t going to affect her side of the marriage as well? When they are 10 years in and he’s wondering how to fix their dead bedroom, and he never gets the truth that she “just wasn’t that into him” from the get go. There are lots of posts here on DCUM outlining precisely that scenario, so it’s not a question of insecurity, it’s a question of wanting to understand reality.

It's a 1000% a question of insecurity. Does a guy have to have a high count? Or does his need to be as equally low?

Well, speaking for myself I don’t understand why this issue is so fraught. My DW and I talked about these sorts of issues during our early months of dating because we were curious about each other. I personally don’t understand why it’s “need to know” or a state secret for so many on this one particular topic.

Because women are judged harshly. Have you read this thread?

That doesn’t make sense. People judge about all kinds of stuff. No woman would want to be with a guy for whom the truth would be a dealbreaker, either way. So why not be honest either in rejecting the question or with the response?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Married 13 years and fighting about dudes she slept with in high school. Do they have otherwise good marriage? Is it working out? Then everybody needs to count their blessings and move the hell on. I swear, people like this that look for trouble need a second job.

Yeah, I suspect this is just another log on a fire that’s been smoldering for awhile.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My brother is out west helping his wife move their father from her childhood home into a nursing home. She is also collecting her HS memorabilia that has been sitting there for 25 years. She found a photo album with the usual pics of prom, homecoming, beach week, etc.

There are, according to him, about 25 pictures of her with different guys. He jokingly asked if she'd slept with all of them. She got angry at the question but eventually admitted she had.

They have been married for 13 years and both shared their 'numbers' but he now realizes this is a complete lie. He is quite upset, really not so much about the number, but more that she's been lying for years and years. He feels like he doesn't really know here now.

Why would she lie about sex from HS?

Honestly, if my brother asked me this, I would ask him if he was upset about the lie or upset about the number. Either way my brother answers, I’d still tell him he’s sexist. The whole conversation about numbers is sexist - women are judged for their number in a way that a man would not be. Your brother feels like it is his role to investigate and question his wife about her sexual history that happened a decade before your brother met and married her - that is bananas sexist and controlling. Who his wife slept with prior to him is actually none of his business. If he was worried about STDs, then the thing to do is get tested and negotiate monogamy. If he was worried about sexual fidelity, then the thing to do is talk about that and negotiate it explicitly, not guess whether fidelity will won’t happen because of past sexual history.

The conversation about numbers also doesn’t include any thought to the ways in which women are taught about their sexuality by the culture - ways that encourage them to sleep with men (gatekeeping sex and childbirth are still a woman’s main power even in these modern times) or ways in which they are sexually abused which encourages a cycle of sleeping with people to soothe or act out abuse, and then there’s the whole aspect of figuring out your sexuality and what you do and don’t like in people.

Honestly, if a guy asked me for my number, I would dump him. Your brother is lucky she didn’t do that to him.

Dumping him for asking the question is of course principled, and I respect your view there; lying instead is not. You don’t get to decide what other people should and should not care about in selecting a spouse, and if she knew the information was material to his decision and she lied anyway, that’s an act of profoundly low character. This idea that there are certain things that are “none of your business” in selecting a spouse seems entirely indefensible to me, when considering making a lifetime commitment to someone it is reasonable to be interested in basically everything about that person, and if you want someone to commit to you for a lifetime, you should be willing to be honest. It should not be a high-stakes poker game where you conceal information to get the result you want.

Even “that’s none of your business” is fine. That makes everyone’s boundaries clear, and everyone gets to make decisions both based on the fact that the question was asked (and what that says about the asker) and the answer that was given.

Choosing to answer and intentionally lying in an effort to deceive someone to whom you are making lifelong promises purportedly on a foundation of trust is something else entirely.

It doesn’t even have to be such a stark “none of your business.” One could say “I’m uncomfortable talking about that.” And, to be clear, I’m not saying that getting super granular about these issues is a necessary or healthy thing to do, but getting a general sense of one’s partner’s sexual past is a reasonable thing to want to do when settling down, and if someone is materially deceptive about it that’s not cool. There’s nuance. Obviously I think we can all agree that claiming to be a virgin when your body count is 200 is materially deceptive; saying it’s high single digits when actually it’s low teens does not seem to me materially deceptive; but if—as I read OPs post—you imply the number is like three when it’s actually like 25, I do think that’s not fair to your partner.

Why? How does that actually affect them? Name concrete ways that it affects them.

What do you mean by concrete? I think that if a man has expressed interest in that question and is given a misleading answer in return, that kind of deception is itself harmful and unfair. Leaving aside quibbling over what counts as concrete, I would say that a person’s sexuality is inherently of interest to their potential spouse, as in general you are contemplating sexual exclusivity for life, and a fair amount of transparency is reasonable to expect. So the idea that it should be treated as a “need to know” topic that is illegitimate to inquire about starts from a false premise. Sex is a big deal to men.

OMG you are painfully insufferable. Rarely do I encounter a person who blabs on more without actually saying anything. How does a number of sexual encounters in your potential partner's past impact your future with that person (other than perhaps an STD which can and should be screened for)?

DP. Feminism went through this whole phase where an important rallying cry was that women did not have to justify their sexual or romantic preferences. Why are you so hung up on what preferences men have in potential mates? How does it impact you? They don’t want to date you and you don’t want to date these specific men. Why do you need to justify yourself to them or vice versa?

Nonetheless, to satiate your weird curiosity: research indicates that premarital sex with people other than your eventual partner is linked to higher rates of divorce. Sort of a U-shape, but once you get past ten partners there is a clear link to higher rates of divorce.

I am not hung up on what preferences men have. I am hung up on the double standard and being called a whore when I freely express my sexuality. So as long as men feel they can have as many partners as they please without scrutiny, and can freely call women who are behaving the same way whores, I will continue to be private about how many partners I've had. Just look at this thread alone. I never even mentioned how many partners I had. It's irrelevant. But it's not stopping men from calling me a slut and a whore simply for defending the choice to have many partners.

Secondly, I would really like to see that "research." I'm not at all convinced by your claim. And again, is the same true for men?

I don’t agree with the name calling. So not me.

Studies have been conducted with NIH funding that show more partners is associated with higher divorce rate. Some studies suggest the effect is more pronounced with women, others show no gender differences. As I said, the priced effect is u-shaped. But once you get to ten partners the effect is clear. Easy to google for yourself.

Well since you made the claim twice now, it would be nice if you included the study you're referencing.

Also, it doesn't matter that you personally don't name call. As evidenced here very clearly the overwhelming majority still does. I married a man who understands that he had a sexual past and so did I. We aren't in the game of playing semantics and counting the number of bodies. We are smart enough to ascertain, based on so many other things whether we have integrity and would be committed and loyal to each other.