Number of Partners

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-16-2003
Number of Partners
40
Wed, 09-29-2004 - 6:27am
How many is too many partners in a lifetime for women? Are there stats on the average number of partners per women versus men? Do the experiences (long term relationships vs. one night stands) make a difference in someone's perspective?

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Visitor (not verified)
anonymous user
Fri, 10-22-2004 - 5:52pm
life you said..<<<>>>> People ARE what they have done. We are a sum total of our experiences.Yes people can know a persons view on politics and such while engaging in sex with them ..But I prefer to know about the reason shes had 8 other exes that cheated on her before I try to get to know her intimately. I think recent past is way more important than 10 years ago. People can and do change, but personally I wouldnt want to get hooked up with a lady who had 20 sexual partners in the last year. Shes probably not my type.
Again ..not everyone who has many many sexual partners do it only because they are horney and want/need sex. It goes a LOT deeper than that in most of them who do so.
So many of those types have little respect for themselves nor others. (there are ,ofcourse, exceptions)Im in the majority here, just look at the lastest survey that was on tv. There is another post on this board that shows that the moral majority is well and alive in America in the survey.
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-18-2001
Fri, 10-22-2004 - 7:11pm

kat said:
>>This is a morality question, and we can't decide for anyone but ourselves how that's defined. For me, it's not so much a number but a way of thinking and a way of life.<<

I'd agree with that. I've certainly had a few partners over the years, about 25+, and some people view that as a very high number. Recently I was on holiday and talking over a few bottles of wine with a dozen or so people of varying ages. As often happens in situations like that the ol' "How many partners?" question was posed. Around the table it went - 2, 5, 7, 4, 5, and then me. Admittedly many of these people were much younger than me but all the same, I received some different looks after that.

I've never considered myself promiscuous. I certainly don't act or look like I am. I doubt that anyone could look at me and say to themselves "He's a womaniser!"
Certainly there were a handful of one night stands while I was in university. And there were a number of short-term partners - but always with the best intentions and the intention of a longer term relationship. I've never been a guy that can easily jump into bed with anyone unless a vast quantity alcohol has been involved. In recent years my attitude has relaxed and I'm sure that I could now jump into bed with someone for a one night stand and not agonise over it, but I'm in a serious relationship now so I doubt I'll ever know for sure.

So, cutting a long story short: I agree with kat. Numbers aren't necessarily a big deal. The morals and the intention behind the numbers is much more important.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-16-2004
Fri, 10-22-2004 - 7:30pm
ROAE, I am sure Diane would want the validity of her numbers accepted but explain how this works. Guys are shown as being way ahead on sex on the first date. If they don't have sex with single women, that would make them have the same number (men & single women) then they must be going out and having sex on the first date with married women. That would be considered an affair, the data that she has shows men again way ahead in this catagory, which doesn't make sense. Male/female sex requires at least one of each, so they have to be the same numbers. The only question is which group of women are these guys having sex with (single women or married women). The only other conclusion is the guys are dating a smaller group of highly sexual women that are racking up very high numbers of sexual encounters.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2004
Fri, 10-22-2004 - 7:33pm
We think alike. I too would assume that logic, but they explained it on the show that it must be that one woman is sleeping with several men. Would that ratio be 1:4?
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-16-2004
Fri, 10-22-2004 - 8:25pm
ROAE, I agree and I really think that the numbers are fishy but if they are true some 12% of women must have numbers of encounters in the 80's. I think that is just another good reason in knowing more about a potential mate before getting too serious. My wife had numbers like yours (I think, she didn't tell me much history) and it caused me some agony, but I couldn't deal with a number like 80. We would have been just too far apart on what we think about acceptable behavior.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2004
Fri, 10-22-2004 - 11:42pm
Wait a minute. Where did you get 12%? It was something like 42% men and 17% women have had sex on the first date. 42 - 17 = 25 which is more like 2 1/2:1 on "first date sex" ONLY. Average number of partners is 20(men); 6(women), I don't think that the two stats relate to one another, do they? In other words, let's take 100 men. All 100 men have an average of 20 partners. Of those 100 men 42 of them have had sex on the first date. Don't know how many of those 20 partners were first date sex. Same for the women. Out of 100 women, 17 of them have had first date sex. Some could have had sex with 1, some could have had sex with 4, since the ratio averages is 2 1/2:1. I might have this all wrong, because I can't figure out where you got 12% or 80. I made a mistake by applying a 4:1 ratio, could be why.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2004
Fri, 10-22-2004 - 11:52pm
Well...if you're going to go by the stats, then you really are probably going to have to look hard for a woman who has high numbers at all. The average woman has six partners as opposed to the male which is almost 3 times that. BTW, the show stated that the highest number they surveyed was a male at 400 partners. They do exist. ;-) Maybe he should enter the Guiness world record(don't know details about his age) for the only man in the world who can't say NO! lol
Visitor (not verified)
anonymous user
Sat, 10-23-2004 - 5:30am
Root the numbers are explainable. The men(many) who have very high numbers, push the average way up. The women who have had say, one, push their average way down. Dont forget the men who saw hookers in your equation. I agree with tx on this one...Its personal preference on what is acceptable behavior.To some, sex is too precious to cheapen it and just give it away to just anyone. Those that dont agree, well, thats their opinion. No ones perfect, but some at least make the attempt to respect the values of human sexuality, and not give in to primal instints.The people who do , have a different value system than the ones who dont.(where sex is concerned) May not make it right or wrong(for them) but it does elude to a different belief system, as far as sex goes.

There are many reasons why people have lots of sexual partners.Hornyness, ego, esteem, attempts to cover up pain etc. Many people whom Ive known, who exhibit this behavior,come with lots of other baggage, and their sexual behavior is a mere symptom of that baggage.

Again Im sure there are exceptions.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2004
Sat, 10-23-2004 - 8:30am
I checked the site again, and luckily they gave more details than the show did....

"Overall, women report an average of six sex partners in their lifetimes; men, 20. But a better gauge of sexual activity for most people is the median, the midpoint between the high and low: Women report a median of three sex partners; men, a median of eight.

The averages are higher because a small number of individuals — especially men �� report a very large number of partners. Five percent of the men in this sample reported having had 99 or more sex partners, including four who reported 200, three who reported 300 and one who reported 400. Among women, one percent reported 99 or more partners; the high was 100 (reported by two women).

While there are differences between the sexes, the data are internally coherent; for example, people who report more sex partners, men and women alike, are more apt to describe themselves as adventurous sexually and to say they enjoy sex a great deal.

In another difference between the sexes, 42 percent of men report having had had sex on a first date; that drops to 17 percent of women. Again the data are coherent; women who report having had first-date sex also are much more likely to call themselves sexually adventurous, and they report many more sex partners across their lives — an average of 19, compared with an average of four for other women.

A third of adults would like to have more sex than they do now — but more men, about four in 10, than women, 28 percent. Men, as noted, are more apt to have cheated, much more apt to fantasize about it, and more than twice as likely as women to say it's acceptable to have casual sex without an emotional relationship — "just doing it for the sex." (That's OK with 35 percent of men, compared with 15 percent of women.)

Women also are about half as likely as men to say they've had sex in a threesome, unexpectedly with someone new, or at work; and they're less likely to fantasize about these. A third of men have fantasized about a threesome and 20 percent have fantasized about an unexpected encounter; it's nine and 10 percent of women, respectively.

Women are more conservative about sex in other ways. They're more apt than men to say there's too much sex on TV, 84 percent to 62 percent. They're less likely than men to condone sex before marriage, 54 to 68 percent. And 61 percent of sexually active women, compared with 50 percent of men, call themselves sexually traditional, not adventurous.

In other personal predilections, men are twice as likely as women to sleep in the nude (31 percent of men, 14 percent of women), and women are much more likely to prefer to have sex with the lights off (51 percent of women, 27 percent of men).

In the online realm, men are more than three times as likely as women to have looked at a sexually explicit Web site, and doing so spikes among men under 30. Relatively few — but 11 percent of young men — have participated in sex chat rooms. Women are much more likely to regard either of these activities as "being unfaithful."

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-13-2004
Sun, 10-24-2004 - 7:25am
OK...I'm only at post #7 and still have a long way to go reading the whole thread.

But I must say that I'm with humpdaddy. I'd want to know my man's past - and of particular interest would be his recent behaviour. If he'd been jumping from bed to bed, I'd not want a relationship with him. Most likely, he'd just jump in and out of my bed too.

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