Why? Why is this still a thing? Maybe I’m too progressive for my own sake, but I really don’t think the number of partners ANYONE has, not just women, really isn’t that big of a deal. It’s like admitting to how many times you’ve picked your nose and wiped it somewhere you shouldn’t have, somewhat embarrassing but not a total encompassing representation or judgement of your character.

Buzzfeed listed nine different opinions on presumably all “acceptable” numbers of sexual partners women should have, and guess what they figured out? Absolutely nothing, except the fact that there is no “should” when it comes to how many people you’ve brought home. There was some sweet calculations though.

Here’s how things were broken down:

Plus: 15 Post Coital .GIFS For Any Situation

10

According to a non-scientific, totally-worthwhile survey on the CHEATING website SeakingArrangement, the acceptable number for their partner to have under their belt is ten. That sentence just felt weird to write seeing as anyone’s opinion who actively seeks people online to cheat with loses all credibility when it comes to “acceptable” sexual prowess.

5

That’s the number given as the most popular (and the lowest) answer on a survey from AskMen. If I could find a better phrase than “guffaw”, I would use it to explain the utter hilarity of this statement but I can’t so…GUFFAW. Subsequently, we at The Date Report posted an insightful article about the ridiculousness of this.

20

Anna Faris had slept with 20 different people as the character Ally Darling in What’s Your Number. She then decided this meant she was a ghastly slut and HAD to stop sleeping with men. Her solution was to marry one of the previous ex-boyfriends/lovers in order to remain socially satisfactory. Yeah, right…Well, this spawned an existential crisis within women which lead to a study on the average sexual partners of women.

30

The blogger behind Naked With Socks On wrote a post depicting that there was no universal number of men a woman should sleep with but “”If a woman is in her mid-20s and already has 30+ partners I’m definitely going to give her the side-eye.”

Plus: What Men Love About Fifty-Year-Old Women

17

Heidi Muller of AskMen wrote a column in which she stated “No matter what people say, hearing that your girlfriend has bedded 17 men before you and she’s only 23 years old, yeah, that’s kind of a stretch (no pun intended)”, but then added that even an older woman sleeping with over 20 men is “horrible”.

5-10

Apparently this is the “comfort-zone” of Ed Housewright who pens Single Dad House. To him, if a woman who he wants to get serious with has slept with over 10 men, it’s unacceptable. He also used What’s Your Number as a reference about why women should care about this mystical number like it was stamped on their forehead.

25

When The Frisky conducted a poll on the issue, a woman named Liz commented that “More than 30 sexual partners for anyone is too many…actually maybe more than 25” which in her opinion, holds true for men AND women. GENDER-BIAS BE GONE!

100

Same poll, different number. Megan commented that “over 100” is excessive while showing that it’s possible to have a hump number in the double digits and not get burned at the stake.

Plus: How to Hook Up: A Guide For Women

1

One person is the obvious religious standard on the issue, and you’d better be married, or else! Glenn T. Stanton of Focus on the Family wrote that “having sex with someone who is not our spouse can have a real, measurable and harmful impact upon later relationships.” Uh, okay…

23.89

After some hefty calculations and sleepless nights of number-crunching, this is the incredibly difficult and completely-scientific (YAY SCIENCE!) average of all the “answers” and made-up numbers above.

[Buzzfeed]

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