How Many People Have You Slept With? Why Does It Matter?

The Number -- One way or another, you'll be asked how many people you've slept with. But why does it matter to some people and what does it say about you? If girls sleep with a bunch of guys, they're considered sluts ...but why? To me, I see a deeper issue here. When a female has a high number of guys she's slept with, I start to question her emotional (in)stability. I think this is also is true for guys. Guys are stereo-typically not in touch with their emotions, yet many males I know are quite the opposite of what they're expected to be. On the other hand, girls seem to be evolving into what men used to be - less emotion and "casual" is no big deal.

Today, it's not uncommon for a female, in her early 20's, to have slept with 10-20 guys. This could either mean she's emotionally damaged and needs to force intimacy in order to boost her own self-esteem. Or it could also mean that a modern female is more in-tuned to her own sexual desires. And since women can get casual sex way easier than men can (don't try to dispute or challenge that proven theory), they might be secure enough to take advantage of those sexual opportunities.

But as a person's number continues to grow, I begin to wonder how they'd manage a one-on-one relationship. Would they get bored? Or would they be satisfied enough from their retired single-hood that they're ready for monogamy, more so than someone who has had significantly less partners. There are also those people who bounce around from one relationship to the next (aka "relationship hoppers"), which is transparently unhealthy and co-dependent.

So, what does this all mean? Are we becoming a culture who views sex as leisure fun? And if so, does this make a monogamous future difficult or easier to maintain? It seems many couples get divorced because they want to be free and explore their suppressed sexuality. I try not to judge a girl on her number but the truth is, my own insecurities and masculinity still comes into play on a subconscious level ...I wish I could change that! Sometimes I think sleeping with a bunch of females would help me feel better, but it never does. It wears off.

So the question still remains: is it in our blood to be promiscuous or are we having a lot of casual sex to combat a deeper issue?

(A response from guest writer, Spyro - 12/5/11)
Evolutionary biology suggests that men are hard-wired for promiscuity, and women for choosiness (see here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection). But the standards by which we judge sexual behavior may be based on a set of presumptions that were either false from the start or are artifacts from a much earlier period of human existence. For example, the notion that men think much more frequently about sex than do women seems to be false (see here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/11/28/do_men_really_think_about_sex_more_often_than_women_.html). My guess is that this piece of hearsay probably reflects more about each sex's stereotype of the other than about reality. The 20th century emancipation of women from subservience simply allowed the not-so-insignificant female sexuality to come to the forefront. Moreover, the concurrent destigmatization of sexual desire let humanity acknowledge what it has known to be true all along: humans are pleasure-seekers, and will always enthusiastically seek a good romp.