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)?

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.

Total and utter BS. You don't need to know the number in order to establish trust in the relationship. My DH and I have a wonderful, loving, respectful marriage and neither one of us has ever asked or knows the other's "number." Neither one of us has ever cheated. You conflate sexuality with morals and integrity.

So you don’t think lying falls under morals and integrity?

You are the one full of BS.

[Anonymous]

I can't imagine breaking a family and divorcing, which is incredibly expensive, for such a stupid reason. OP, work on your self esteem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it very funny that the lady who keeps dismissing body count has yet to share hers.

Are you under the impression that’s on accident? I keep saying it’s none of your business and I mean it.

Please keep it to yourself. No one really cares. The thought of such an annoying person having sex is actually nauseating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband was a ho. I don’t judge him. Do not need details. No idea how many people he’s slept with. He’s never asked me for mine. We are committed to one another. That’s all that matters.

Do you know if or does it even matter to you if all of them were women?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband was a ho. I don’t judge him. Do not need details. No idea how many people he’s slept with. He’s never asked me for mine. We are committed to one another. That’s all that matters.

Do you know if or does it even matter to you if all of them were women?

Pretty sure they’re all women. He’s fairly binary. Not really a concern. He’s with me now. I trust him.

Why do you ask? It’s a very personal question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband was a ho. I don’t judge him. Do not need details. No idea how many people he’s slept with. He’s never asked me for mine. We are committed to one another. That’s all that matters.

Do you know if or does it even matter to you if all of them were women?

Pretty sure they’re all women. He’s fairly binary. Not really a concern. He’s with me now. I trust him.

Why do you ask? It’s a very personal question.

If he was a hoe like you say then he is open sexually so I think old habits die hard so I probably wouldn't be as trusting as you would but I like asking questions so I would probably be curious about his past and ask who he slept with was it a man was it a transsexual etc. but I'd have asked before marriage. Men are good at hiding stuff.

[Anonymous]

Your SIL should have been honest from the beginning……should not have admitted that she slept w/all the guys in her High School photos.

I do not blame your brother for being annoyed - - how is he to even trust anything that she tells him after this?? 😠

[Anonymous]

*or

[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.

Total and utter BS. You don't need to know the number in order to establish trust in the relationship. My DH and I have a wonderful, loving, respectful marriage and neither one of us has ever asked or knows the other's "number." Neither one of us has ever cheated. You conflate sexuality with morals and integrity.

So you don’t think lying falls under morals and integrity?

You are the one full of BS.

everyone lies to some extent. Some people lie all the time (Trump) so do it occasionally as white lies, but everyone lies.


In my teens, we didn’t think oral counted, but now some people do. Maybe she just kissed/made out with them. Maybe her number changed because the way she counting things changed.

The BIL will have to figure out if he is more upset about the number or the lying. Those are 2 different things and people are arguing them as if they are the same.

Being upset about the number is absolutely misogynistic and backwards. It is based upon standards that old Being upset about the lying is understandable and needs a discussion between the husband and wife.

[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.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10989935/

https://ifstudies.org/blog/counterintuitive-trends-in-the-link-between-premarital-sex-and-marital-stability

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-resilience/201606/do-women-more-premarital-partners-get-divorced-less/amp

It sounds like you and your spouse found a partnership that works for you. Great! Other people can and are free to seek out what they want and what works for them.

I don’t know why you are trying to turn matters of the heart into an intellectual exercise. Pursing the standards you chose to pursue doesn’t make you “smart” or unsmart. You were simply honest with yourselves about what you wanted.

You should not be implying that people who have different standards are not “smart”. The choice of partner is the single most intimate and important decision anybody can make. And beyond certain things like age, it isn’t for anybody to dictate what is or is not smart in choosing a partner.

Nobody is entitled to a partner, but everybody is entitled to what they respectively want in a partner (other than certain characteristics like age), no matter how other people’s choices may differ.

The studies you posted state that ANY premarital sex leads to higher rates of divorce. The one from the University of Utah states that women with 2 partners had the highest divorce rates, even more than those with 10 partners or more. So, I'm really confused as to what point you were trying to make. Are you saying that no sex before marriage is acceptable?

And yes, I think people who ask for a body count and discount potentially amazing partners based on that are dumb. I am free to think that.

I’m sure your opinion matters to…no one.
Nobody likes a smug jerk pp.

As hominem insults when you’re proved painfully wrong. How original 😂😂😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Total and utter BS. You don't need to know the number in order to establish trust in the relationship. My DH and I have a wonderful, loving, respectful marriage and neither one of us has ever asked or knows the other's "number." Neither one of us has ever cheated. You conflate sexuality with morals and integrity.

So you don’t think lying falls under morals and integrity?

You are the one full of BS.

Lying, of course. Sexually and how many partners you had, absolutely not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it very funny that the lady who keeps dismissing body count has yet to share hers.

Are you under the impression that’s on accident? I keep saying it’s none of your business and I mean it.

Please keep it to yourself. No one really cares. The thought of such an annoying person having sex is actually nauseating.

Apparently you care a whole lot. Again, personal insults because you’re not smart enough to craft a reasoned response is so tired.

[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.

Total and utter BS. You don't need to know the number in order to establish trust in the relationship. My DH and I have a wonderful, loving, respectful marriage and neither one of us has ever asked or knows the other's "number." Neither one of us has ever cheated. You conflate sexuality with morals and integrity.

So you don’t think lying falls under morals and integrity?

You are the one full of BS.

everyone lies to some extent. Some people lie all the time (Trump) so do it occasionally as white lies, but everyone lies.


In my teens, we didn’t think oral counted, but now some people do. Maybe she just kissed/made out with them. Maybe her number changed because the way she counting things changed.

Yeah, this is giving my ex who claimed up to the very end that it wasn’t cheating because it was a one-time thing that never happened again.

Liars lie.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:NP. People defending the wife are off base.

First, she lied about something that mattered to her husband. Sexual history is a pretty big subject before marriage. If you are one of those people who is all defensive and insists it's no one's business, then be clear before you sleep with someone and just don't sleep with or marry people who care to know. You have that choice. Lying is not acceptable. If there is a disconnect about what should or shouldn't matter, then you have to sort that out before marriage.

Second, we are talking about 25 people as a teen. Not talking about a full-grown adult woman and her choices. Talking about a teen. That kind of promiscuity as a teen suggest some major issues. It makes me wonder if she suffered abuse.

At the end of the day, she lied. Not cool, not excusable. What the DH does with that is up to him.

Pretty sure you are off base. When I was dating, if someone started grilling me about this kind of stupid shit, I'd drop them like a hot potato. Go work out your insecurities on someone else.

Ha, no. Having standards is not insecure. Work on your reading comprehension. Dropping them like a hot potato is your choice. Dropping YOU because you have shit to hide is also their choice. See, everybody wins in this scenario. You lying not acceptable.

Why is this so hard for promiscuous people to comprehend. Go do your thing and stick to your own kind. The promiscuous people on this thread are such judgy hypocrites.

I never said I lied. I simply refuse to answer dumb questions asked by misagonists like you. If you asked me what my number was I would laugh in your face and tell you to eff off. It's NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Learn how to value women and don't treat them like objects.

The *wife* lied, dummy. That is the whole point.

Caring about your partner's sexual history is not treating women like objects and it's not mysogyny. A woman can care about a man's sexual history. I don't think you even actually understand what you are writing. You're just blabbering.

Of course it is. I’m sorry you feel threatened by sexually free women. 😘

No one is threatened by sexually free women. Everyone, except you, is condemning liars.

[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.

Total and utter BS. You don't need to know the number in order to establish trust in the relationship. My DH and I have a wonderful, loving, respectful marriage and neither one of us has ever asked or knows the other's "number." Neither one of us has ever cheated. You conflate sexuality with morals and integrity.

So you don’t think lying falls under morals and integrity?

You are the one full of BS.

everyone lies to some extent. Some people lie all the time (Trump) so do it occasionally as white lies, but everyone lies.


In my teens, we didn’t think oral counted, but now some people do. Maybe she just kissed/made out with them. Maybe her number changed because the way she counting things changed.

Yeah, this is giving my ex who claimed up to the very end that it wasn’t cheating because it was a one-time thing that never happened again.

Liars lie.

Actually, what you give off is that you have a really black and white view of the world and are probably disgruntled a LOT.

PS. I still don’t know what my count is because I don’t know what counts. My husband doesn’t care, we never discussed it, but have discussed past important relationships which are more important in shaping your views of monogamy and what you want in a partner than anything.