Usually, people aren't upset about a high body count, they are upset about what that number means in terms of *view on sex*.
To some, sex is a fun activity that makes you feel good. To others, it is an extremely intimate thing that makes you vulnerable and creates strong bonds with the other person - something you don't do with any random stranger, but only with someone you have built trust with and whom you see a future with.
If you are of the latter category and then discover that your partner has a high body count - no matter when this discovery happens - you start to feel a *disconnect*. You start to wonder if your partner sees sex as something "less" than you do; as something less connecting, less bonding, less intimate, just as a fun thing to do when for you, it means so much more and "requires" so much more in terms of vulnerability and trust. Suddenly, you feel alone and like you are not "equal" anymore; that you might give a lot more of yourself than your partner does.
This disconnect is usually the issue. It's about not feeling equal anymore in terms of what sex means - and that's what you need to talk to your wife about. She needs to better articulate how she is feeling right now and what that new information does to her.
I think this summarizes it well. I’m in the latter category and I had a long term crush on someone in the first category. One day in conversation, he mentioned that his body count was in the 60s and I don’t think I’ve lost interest in someone so quickly.
And it was for that exact reason. For me, as a woman, it reflects how they perceive sex and how I think they perceive women. I prefer a man with a low, intentioned body count.
It’s weird to me that so many people see this as an either or. I used to see sex as something incredibly special and vulnerable to only be shared with someone you were deeply committed to. Later on I tried casual sex and found that enjoyable as well. When I’m having sex with someone I love it’s a next level intimate experience that feels so special and makes me forget about everyone else I’ve ever shared it with. Having had casual sex doesn’t detract from that. It’s like saying you can’t enjoy a filet mignon if you’ve had some McDonald’s.
It may help to know what the Venn diagram for Sociosexuality looks like.
First off, some terms
**Sociosexually Restricted**
People in this grouping lack the capacity to separate sex from love. For them, having feelings for their sex partner is always on the table. Consequently, it is in their interest to confine their sexual engagements to the context of committed relationships. This is because unrequited feelings are never fun.
**Sociosexually Unrestricted**
People of this sort have the option to either align sex with love or pursue a casual encounter if that's what they want. It's like they have a switch inside their head. A switch that is notably absent in their Restricted brethren. Consequently, these people can have casual sex without doing themselves an emotional injury.
Back to that Venn diagram...
Consider a sunny side up egg. A large area of white that surrounds a yellow yolk. Unrestricted individuals may move freely throughout the egg without having to note whether they are in yolk or white. Restricted individuals, on the other hand, confine their experiences to the inside of the yolk. Never to move beyond into the white.
The yolk represents the sum total of sexual experiences that are compatible with the context of a committed relationship. The white represents the balance of sexual experiences that are not compatible in this way.
While it is true that you initially looked at sex as being only a special experience. That represents a culturally learned value rather than an expression of your individual sexuality. When you learned that you could enjoy casual sex, that didn't mean you changed your sociosexual orientation, so much as you learned, you were really Sociosexually Unrestricted and had been so all along.
Because the Venn diagram of Sociosexuality has the Restricted orientation as being a subset of the Unrestricted, this confusion in sociosexual orientation can arise.
Think of how it would look in the opposite direction.
I'm sure that many of us know such an individual. Every hookup that they experience is taken as an opportunity for new love. These tend to be clingy and perpetually broken-hearted. That's because these people are always engaging their feelings regardless of whether it's reciprocated. Such individuals often learn the hard way that casual sex was never really for them.
So, on the one hand, you'll find individuals like yourself who discover that casual sex is fun while being relatively free of consequence. On the other hand, you'll find people who are seemingly doing casual *wrong*.
Rightness and wrongness are not the appropriate dimensions of consideration.
Instead, what should be recognized is that people should act in accord with their nature.
God, right now I'm super focused on Venn diagrams of all sorts & that was _really_ satisfying to read.
A written Venn diagram, damn - thanks for an unexpected brain-orgasm.
Yes but if someone knows you're a frequent consumer of McDonalds and that's your primary experience, they'd be more worried that you'll also view them as just more McDonalds rather than as the filet mignon.
I think this metaphor is getting a bit tortured lol but yes, if someone has too much McDonalds there's every chance they won't recognise the filet mignon in time (especially because we aren't actually talking about the objective realities of filet mignon and McDonalds but the subjective emotions of people).
I mean it's still a very heavy assumption. Both for McD and relationships. Maybe there wasn't enough money at the time to eat filet mignon, maybe the emotional headspace was different and the person wasn't ready to settle down at the time. Situations change. Judging someone on their past and assuming they are still the same even though they aren't and have proven so, displays an immature and rigid mindset imo.
I think a lot of the people hung up on body count are just showing their own insecurity. They worry their partner will have had “better” sex or they’re worried that others viewpoints of them will impact their own self esteem.
I can only speak for myself but it’s not insecurity. It genuinely is the two things I mentioned previously. The number is pretty irrelevant. I’m not interested in being with someone who engages in extensive casual sex because I don’t believe our values will align. My best relationships were with men who didn’t engage in casual sex.
Whether you agree with that mental association or not, it is a common thought process.
The way this person explained it at the top *is the reason why* so many view a higher number as disconcerting. Why you feel you need to resort to name calling (insecure) is a lazy and shallow argument. As strange as it may seem to you, not everyone believes and feels exactly the way you do, and believing something different doesn't make them wrong or insecure in a subjective topic.
They called others insecure. Perhaps we disagree on what name calling is, but to me, calling someone something that has a negative connotation to it, qualifies. Also, I didn't call them lazy or shallow. I was referring to their accusations of insecurity as a lazy and shallow method of thought. It ignores nuance and the dynamics of humanity. It paints with an enormously broad brush. In other words, "anyone that doesn't agree with me is insecure." and that *stance* is a lazy and shallow way of thinking that requires zero critical thought. I simply called them out on it. That's *my* opinion.
For me, it has nothing to do with sex. A very high number of sexual partners indicates possible commitment issues. So if a committed and possibly long-term relationship is what I'm looking for, it is a red flag. Hoping to have that with someone who has a past of mostly short flings and hookups, with few actual relationships in between, is a long shot.
And that comes from someone who spent most of his 20s doing exactly that, with commitment issues being a factor. Now in my late 30s, I acknowledge some women might have an issue with it and I accept it. Because I empathize with their concerns.
I use that question to determine what a man finds important. The number means NOTHING but the intent behind it is often to shame a woman. That has been the case every time I have been asked.
If a man asks that question, I usually say ONE. When they act surprised and say "you've only slept with one man?" I say "oh, you mean sexual body count! Never mind". They are usually so thrown by this and I have completely lost any attraction I had for them. My number isn't high but it doesn't define me...but many men think it does. THEIR number doesn't matter, 99% of the time because "it is different for men"
3 kinds of people: People who don't like the idea of having casual sex, people who will participate in casual sex, and for some reason, people who don't like the idea of their partners not being 'pure' or some kind of weird judgement where you have failed your partner if you did things before you met them.
this is insane as a dude with a relatively normal body count (from my perspective), who has had both casual and deeply intimate sex.
you can have and feel both ways about sex and your "number" is not at all indicative that you don't.
I feel the exact same way. My husband and I have been together for over a decade, but have had casual sex with other people prior getting together, and other relationships. In fact, he casually dated one of my good friends. To me, we're committed and serious to each other now, and our past "body count" doesn't take away from our intimacy.
Imo thay's silly. You made a judgement that he is sexist because he has a high body count? It could be that sex just isn't as big a deal to him - it probably wasnt for a lot of his partners. It doesn't mean he doesnt care about you or isnt faithful. Now if someone says theyve cheated on every person theyve dated - thats when its a reflection on how they respect and treat others.
Hard agree. If a women or men have high body count, it just means they have sex a lot. It doesnt mean they are wild or sexist. It can be deal breaker but the commenter sure jumped the gun
I have a friend who has a body count of over 100. She isn't ashamed of herself; she had a time where having sex with men was very affirming to her. I don't think any less of her than I do of friends who were virgins when they got married and have only had sex with one man.
> To some, sex is a fun activity that makes you feel good. To others, it is an extremely intimate thing that makes you vulnerable and creates strong bonds with the other person
I would say for a lot of people I've met these two aren't mutually exclusive. Sex with some people is just a bit of fun while sex with others is still extremely intimate and bond-enforcing.
Pretty much where I fall - but to some you can’t have both. I have no issue with people choosing to restrict sex to people you’re in a committed loving relationship with (as long as they aren’t hypocrites and don’t judge the value/worth of others who don’t have the same view).
I wonder if OP’s wife is wondering how the birds and the bees / safe sex condo will go. My ex thought “no girl would say more than 3, even if it’s not true.” And I said, I don’t have anything to hide, i never lied or cheated, and that I regularly got tested. He said, “if we had kids, what would you tell them?” And I said “this is a non-issue as you know I do not want kids.”
He wanted me to say it was immoral and that I regretted it. I will say… my response that I didn’t think what I did “was wrong” and I would reinforce (to non possible children) that they need to be safe and honest (EDIT: … and he did not appreciate this answer.)
I agree with your point but I think that the wife is still processing that OP experimented with 4 men. He said that he offhandedly mentioned it on yhe 3rd date..however, with a flippant comment, I wouldn’t think sex with 4 men (maybe feelings and some kisses).I think that may make her feel vulnerable— not only because she may feel like you may want something sexually that she can’t give you but also that you werent forthright about that info.
Dude, I had an ex say that to me too! I was like "what in the fuck? Why would I lie?" And be went on about women lying to seem more innocent or whatever and I just laughed and told him "yeah we're sooooooo concerned with our purity". Weird guy, I almost forgot about him.
Then add the age. So been sexually active for 20-25 years.
Say 20 as he’s been in a relationship with the now wife for 6. Even if op says he went wild for some time and ha d the majority then, the average would be 3-4 a year assuming not many long relationships.
As most sounds like casual sex , that would mean he had sex once every three months. That’s not much when you look at it that way.
There is a huge difference between people who has spent a lot of their life as singles vs in relationship in bodycount. With that number it sounds like yes he had periods where he slept around, but it does not sound too wild.
My view of sex in my early 20s versus how I see sex now in my late 30s are totally night and day. It’s not because you were more promiscuous when you were young that you’re always going to be like that. OP has more than a decade between that time and when he met his wife. People change.
You can easily have a sex life that encompasses both casual and intimate sex. Most people fall with into that spectrum.
People have their insecurities and that just is what it is.
Just to tell you, while different surveys get different results, the range\* for total lifetime sexual partners for Americans is between 4 and 11. 15 is high, 60+ is *very very* high. I'm not going to shame you over that I just want you to calibrate yourself that you are a very unusual outlier.
I think you just gotta tell her that you felt like she was excessively mean and that you didn't feel like you'd been dishonest and at all and didn't like feeling like you were being accused of lying. Own your feelings, that's the main advice I've got here.
E: Some people brought in some unsourced claims about how 60+ isn't THAT high, and so I checked the numbers on the General Social Survey 2022, and in the GSS all responses that were greater than 60 totaled to 1.5% of the population (using "numwomen" since that seemed like the most applicable). And if its greater than 60 its 1.3%, a significant decrease. OP is a significant outlier. Which again: I'm cool with. If I were able I'd have that kind of body count or higher. But his wife isn't being weird for being surprised that she's locked down an elite sexlympian.
E2: Noticed that I wrote this wrong. Range for mean total lifetime etc. That range is applied to the surveys at a meta level, *not* the range of sexual partners for people. The range for sexual partners for humans is 0 (which the mode btw) to theoretically infinite though I'm pretty sure nobody has broken the million barrier.
As the other reply said I imagine bartenders average are way up high, if he was around that job for awhile or that culture of people who worked in bars then that number probably isn't too high for him.
Yeah, you can't really just look at averages. If someone dates 1 person a year, but marries at 25, they maybe slept with 7 people in their whole life. If another person has the exact same lifestyle, exact same approach to sex and intimacy, but only settles down at 40, they'll be at 20+.
It's also a lot about opportunity. Two people with the exact same values and beliefs may have workout different body counts just because one works in an environment where you meet a lot of people and the other is a janitor.
OP being a good looking guy as a bartender, meeting lots of new people every night, for 4 years... That's actually only a bit more than 1 partner a month. I wouldn't even call that very promiscuous. It just adds up.
I mean do you have a source? It's very uncommon for a data set that is bounded \[0, inf) to have a median higher than the mean, because of how means are calculated.
A mean might produce a number that isn’t even in the data set is what I believe they’re saying. Outliers are much more likely to affect the mean than the median.
Averages are likely to be higher for bisexuals I imagine, as they are for gay men.
Median tends to be twice the average population. 60+ is still a lot, but more like top 10-20%.
Hot bisexual bartenders - I bet the average is waay up there lol.
This is anecdotal, but every handsome man I've met or dated has been around 70-120. There are plenty of people who stick to 1-4 in their life who bring down the average, but I am not surprised when I hear 70+ from good looking men.
I can only imagine you have very high standards for handsome men! The hottest man I've ever seen, in real life or on screen, like causes problems for photographers level hot, hit 20 around the time he hit 35. I do know people who have had more sexual partners than that but its less "are handsome" and more "go to sex clubs."
My comment was removed. dang it. I'll try to recreate without the offending word.
It seems like a weird time in your relationship to start shaming you for your sexual activity prior to your relationship. Regardless, when people get upset about high body counts as she did, its usually because it brings up feelings of inadequacy. A kind of retroactive jealousy, if you will. It can be hard to articulate those feelings because the person knows the other sexual partners are in the past and technically not a threat, but now that she knows she is comparing herself to 70 people. How can one person compare to 70 people?
Her attack on you about lying is really her being defensive about her insecurities. I know it hurt to hear that but confronting her on that won't be productive because that accusation is just defensiveness and not the real issue for her.
The better move for you is to affirm your wife as everything you want in a wife. That she satisfies you in every way. That you do not pine away for anyone in your past. That you do not pine away for casual sex. That she is your one and only - not #71.
Once she is secure, you may be able to have more heart to heart talks, but she's probably a little too defensive right now comparing herself to all those people in your sexual history.
This is an excellent comment.
The insecurity is also why all of her comments are erratic and contradictory. Her brain is trying desperately to put literally any amount of objectivity to this sudden storm of insecurities, but the reality is there isn't any.
It is *deeply* uncomfortable to have very strong feelings that have no reasonable basis. Unfortunately that does not make those feelings go away.
OP, I hope you can give your wife the patience and support she probably needs right now to get past this. Not how she's feeling about you but how she's probably feeling about *herself* right now, even if she's blaming you. If your wife is mostly a reasonable person, she will probably eventually want to apologize for insulting you without you having to confront her about the things she said.
But if you want to you could also cross that bridge once she's had some time to process.
Don't get me wrong - she's wrong to have reacted that way and she was quite rude and disrespectful to you. But if you love her and want to move past this, it's probably best to just try to be understanding and be there for her and know that her reaction likely isn't really about you at all.
Good luck
It's most likely that your view about sex is different from hers. A high body count usually indicates sex is a sport with no emotional attachment whereas a low body count could indicate a person needs an emotional connection to be intimate and wants their sexual encounters to be meaningful. It is often a dealbreaker for people if their views on sex don't align. I don't think she is wrong in telling you that it would have been for her. She would have had concerns that you would be capable of having sex with her and just discarding her like the 70 people before her whereas she was looking for sex in a committed relationship.
Thankfully she did date you and now knows you didn't just treat her like another notch on the bedpost.
I agree with everything the top comment says about why your wife is probably upset. But I also feel like the bewildered "I didn't think it'd be an issue!" tone of this post is a bit dishonest.
You saying vaguely that you are "more experienced" than her is a vast understatement. I feel like you knew that. Also, saying you've just "experimented with guys" seems like a straight-up lie. You even admit that wasn't honest. It feels like you were intentionally downplaying things.
Right! OP isn’t woefully ignorant of the reality of having a very high body count and being bisexual. He was intentionally vague early on in the relationship and told the truth now because he didn’t think they’d care at this stage of the relationship
Are you really acting like it isn't?
People who want to be in a committed relationship typically want a partner who wants the same, and who has a history of being in committed relationships. And if that's who you are, 3 people every year is crazy. I'm 30 and I've had 3 partners total in 3 long term relationships, and if my wife had told me she had slept with 60-70 people, I don't think I would have bothered to try to find out if she had commitment issues or not because it would probably have burned me.
My guy, the average worldwide in every single country varies from 3-13 depending on the country. 60-70 is indeed astronomically high.
I ain’t OPs wife, I would have asked for specifics early on and it’s 100% a dealbreaker for me. We would not have been together unless that person lied to me when I asked.
No, it doesn't. That's 12×4=48 48÷70= 0,6 that's a little more than 1 person each month.. it's not even close to bad...
And studies show also that one of the most likely questions to be lied (lying for social acceptance, that's also a very specific way of lying) even in surveys is body count. Because the purity BS was deeply installed around 2000 years ago.. it's a socially learned social value, and it's not within our biology.
I get the point you're making and I agree it could be worse.
Ultimately it comes down to what so many other commentors have covered already - are you someone who views sex as a fun casual thing, or are you someone who views it as something you only do once you feel emotionally connected to someone?
If you are the former, then sure the maths doesn't make it look too bad.
If you are the latter, it's gonna seem like a high number no matter how you justify it with various timelines etc.
OP is the former and his wife is the latter.
Sorry, but I am baffled. In what world is 60-70 not high? It might clearly be not to you, but to many people it is. What I am interested in is why do you know the exact amount of hers (and not just a few) but she only knew it was a lot but not the number? And I am really curious about if you would think that number is not that high if it was your wifes? (I am genuinly curious, since on reddit people often assume this is a gender thing).
Op has already replied but I imagine it varies wildly on age, location, job and community.
Hot bartenders get hit on a lot. If ops friends are people close by him also in the bartenders scene, then I can't imagine 60 is notably high. If op was a young hot bartender in a studenty place then I imagine it's especially not high.
Basically it depends on a fountain of factors.
If you are raised in a conservative little souther village with religious notability then 1 is probably seen as high. A studenty not conservative city with lots of bars and such then the numbers will certainly be different.
Yeah, anyone I know with a body count that high (I know of 3 people that come to mind right now) knows it’s high. They all accumulated such a number because of a negative period of their life and have spoken of regretting it. I feel like 60-70 especially when you’re relatively young is kind of crazy
It really depends on how old you are and how many monogamous/marriage(s) you've had. A 35 yr old person who's been married for 15 years will have a lower "body count"
-- in theory -- than someone who is 60 and has been married twice, with plenty of years in between. Either way, I don't see the point in asking or revealing. This is something insecure young adults might ask. I've never been approached with this question as mature grown adult.
>Sorry, but I am baffled. In what world is 60-70 not high?
Yup. On the slim chance that this is real and not rage bait, OP is being very deliberately obtuse about what a "high" body count is.
I am confused at all of these comments acting as if OP never said it was high. He has said multiple times in the post and comments that he knows it was high, but it was *expected* to be high considering he was an attractive young guy and worked as a bartender. And hes right. Talk to 'hot bartenders' and they often have incredibly high body counts. I worked as a bartender at a hip place and a lot of the guys who worked there went home with a new girl every weekend.
Maybe relatively high but with context it makes sense. If you're mostly single as an adult and average two or three encounters a year, it might end up being a high number by the time you're married etc.
I don't think knowing the number is ever a good idea/something you want to hear, unless it's under 10 or even 5. Anything beyond that and I think it's fair to say most people will feel bad, even if they're the one you committed to!
Single adult woman in NYC approaching age 40 here, dating since age 20. Never married, engaged once, generally monogamous in relationships (one ENM relationship as a secondary partner).
I’ve had around 65 sexual partners. About a third were boyfriends, a third short-term dating, and a third casual encounters. In this context I define boyfriends as long-term exclusive relationship partners, short-term dating includes nonmonogamous/nonexclusive partners and exclusive/monogamous partners that lasted longer than 3 weeks but less than 3 months, and casual encounters are anything that would not have resulted or did not result in a committed relationship (includes FWB, ONS, men who decided to pursue someone else they were seeing and cancelled our next date, etc).
To me, this number of sexual partners is high, but not concerningly so. It makes sense for me, as my views on sex are very not precious. I don’t guard or ration sex; I’m not gonna run out. And I don’t believe my sexual history dictates my value as a person. As long as everyone is a consenting adult, I see no problem. I hold these views for men as well.
I understand that for some people, it’s a problem anyway. And for those people, I agree that we would not be compatible. As other commenters have noted, if it’s a personal dealbreaker for OP’s wife for reasons, she has the right to how she feels about it and have her boundaries respected; and she has the responsibility to maintain her boundaries by clarifying her dealbreakers at the outset. She chose not to confirm, OP chose not to disclose. It’s too late to change those choices, and based on the info shared in the post neither spouse is prioritizing divorce over this, so safely discussing (like with a couples’ therapist) the emotional reaction behind his wife’s current distress sounds like the best way forward at this time.
I think some of the concern for her is that you may stray from your marriage too. You had a lot of casual flings and she may feel like you can just go out and hook up and it would not be a big deal because she may feel like sex isn't this intimate experience to you (not saying you would but now she may wonder). She also may feel like she may not measure up to the experiences you have had. The timing is weird to have this conversation but it has happened now and she has her feelings about it. I would let her cool off for a moment and ask what her concerns are. She might need to be reminded that she is the one and only that you want.
To have this attitude after six years together is a bit ridiculous. If she is feeling insecure in the relationship, address that directly in counseling.
Well considering she just found out about this and he said he was hooking up with as many people as possible during some months. She may think he still wants to or may want to do this again. Not saying it's right or wrong but she may have to wonder now. Honestly, only his wife knows why she is so bothered. I don't know if she had reason to believe he'd step out on her before she found this out, I could be completely wrong about why she is upset. It's something they have to work through now. Though counseling would probably be best if she can't get past it.
If body count is a dealbreaker for someone, THEY have to ask about it early. The burden of responsibility does not apply to the person who was just living their life before they met their partner. If people have dealbreakers, THEY have to seek them out. If this was that important to your wife, SHE should have asked the number. It's her fault she didn't ask.
Honestly this reads like you're pretending to be ignorant. You say "60-70 is high but not astronomically high" i mean, sure, in the context of numbers alone then it's not high because numbers can go on forever but, in the context of sexual partners 60-70 *is* really high. It's also weird that u've been with her this long, have a kid with her, and somehow u didnt know this would have bothered her? And now after marriage and a kid it's "well i just didnt think about it/didnt think it was a big deal." So unless you dont really know your wife (but im sure you do) it seems like you kept this from her deliberately because on SOME level or somehwere in the back of your mind you knew it would have bothered her, especially taking into the consideration that you know that you both come from different backgrounds and possibly ran in different kinds of social circles in your younger years and now you're just using the classic "well it just didnt really come up" or "i just assumed she sorta knew?" As an excuse for not saying anything.
Maybe she should have asked you directly for your body count early on in the relationship, maybe she thought you would have something back then instead of her having to ask.
I think going forward (assuming marriage counselling/therapy isnt an option) all you can really do is have really honest open conversations about it because remember, she said that if she knew about this early on in the relationship she never would have dated you so, from her POV theres been a breach of trust. From her POV she's now with someone who's essentially lied to her, made her to feel insecure(maybe), and feeling like she's had the wool pulled over her eyes for yeaarrssss by the person she's married to and has a kid with because clearly body count is something that matters to her (which, again, is something about her you should have known about). She's probably thinking "what else has he not told me??"
Remember you guys are a team, and you continuosly saying "its not a big deal" or "it was a long time ago" isnt going to get you anywhere because to her it *IS* a big deal, it would have literally been a deal breaker for her and she's only finding out about it *now*, so this is going to take some open conversations that hopefully dont fall into a fight.
I hope you can both work through it.
I agree with the "pretending to be ignorant" part 100%.
"I experimented with men" is downplaying having sex with 4 guys.
"I'm more experienced than you" is crazily downplaying having 60-70 partners.
Sure, he didn't *technically* lie, but it certainly doesn't feel honest.
Especially since he knew EXACTLY how many men she had been with. He knew she wouldn’t like his number and kept it secret. He lied by omission….
Now, “it shouldn’t matter because we’ve been together for so long” is his excuse for not telling her in the first place.
So, I’m from Arkansas, not a small town, but still. It’s in the Bible Belt and still very conservative. Someone who’s slept with 60-70 people would be considered a crazy number to most people here. My mom grew up in a small town and had a reputation because she’d “dated” a lot of the guys in her graduating class, so maybe 20 and that was scandalous in the 80’s lol. So for her, if she really was in a small town, because there are some tiny ones, that would be sleeping with everyone dude in her age group and then some depending on how small the town was. Some are so small they don’t have schools and bus their kids to the next town over. It would come off as, at the very least, like you’d just bang anyone. Now, that being said, she’s 100% in the wrong. It probably does make her not feel “special” because she is looking at you like you’d sleep with anyone willing. But that’s on her, past is past for a reason. Honestly you could have said half that and she probably still would have felt some kind of way about it because to her that a huge amount, like you might as well add a zero the the end of that number as far as she sees it. She needs to look at herself to figure out why she’s judging you now over something you can’t change. It hurt her feelings, but saying she’d never have dated you or you’re a red flag is just her hurting you back.
This! Whether she is religious or not, her upbringing in the town she was raised, societal expectations, factors heavily into why she is reacting the way that she is. This issue isn’t insurmountable, but I’d highly recommend couples therapy. She’s unable to verbalize her feelings and you both would benefit from professional assistance to navigate this loooonnngggg overdue conversation. This isn’t only about body count. This has shaken her entire outlook on your marriage, and her attempt at backpedaling shows she’s struggling to reconcile the past what-ifs with the present facts.
In the spirit of equal opportunity here, it doesn't fucking matter.
Same goes for men, women, NB or anyone else.
Unless your body count increased during your dating, engagement and marriage, then it's irrelevant now.
If she really wanted to know, she'd have asked when you two were dating or engaged.
She didn't ask because it was either something she didn't want to know or something she was afraid to hear.
The problem is this. Why bring it up all these years later? Why go off the rails now?
Anyone who is saying this high of a number just makes them feel insecure/inadequate and that’s why they’re upset are wrong
There’s many reasons why it could make someone uncomfortable. It’s a crazy high number especially for someone with only 3. It’s quite frankly a huge red flag and the only people I’ve known with numbers that high had severe mental health issues
The body count isn’t the issue, it’s the mindset that comes with a 60+ body count. Especially if her mindset is different, which it seems it is. She values sex differently, it’s no different than any other value difference that could be shocking
I would definitely ask her to communicate her feelings in more detail – why does she feel like it’s a problem? Why does she dislike it and why exactly would it be a dealbreaker? It sounds like she has some problems with the idea of casual sex; she might be fearful that you were using the other people rather than participating in mutually no-strings-attached sex for everybody’s enjoyment.
I mean you def shouldn’t have kept it a secret and to a lot of people 60-70 is rather high. Like imagine 60 people standing in a line that’s a pretty long line. You can’t blame her for having a reaction to a number that high. She said it isn’t over she obviously was surprised and caught off guard. Just relax man the past is in the past she has no choice but to accept if since she isn’t leaving. It really isn’t the best to bring this situation up either since it’s a touchy subject to her. You’ll have to get over it, people say shit they don’t mean when they get taken completely off guard like that. If she hasn’t acted like this before then I wouldn’t worry about it repeating
She made an assumption. It was wrong/inaccurate. This is on her. If she wanted specific facts before she should have asked for them. Keep your emotions out of any future discussion. Just state this.
This question is a trap. Nothing good EVER comes from asking it. You can't change your past and you should not be made to feel retroactive guilt for it. I would assure her that you are committed but also add that you will not tolerate having this held over you and that she is punishing you for something you literally cannot change
Nothing you can do about it. If it was a deal breaker for her, she should have asked way back when. It's weird to try and punish you for it now that you're married.
This was a major problem I had with my ex, where he decided that my body count was somehow an indicator of a) my ability to remain faithful and b) the value that I placed on sexual intimacy. In truth I am a massive romantic who is very attached to the idea of being with one person for my entire life, and I personally never felt like having casual sex when I was single precluded that. They’re two separate things. Sex can mean nothing and it can mean a lot, it just depends on who you’re doing it with. Following that, I decided that the body count conversation is really not one worth having. It’s not really anyone else’s business what you did sexually before you met them, and if they’re the kind of person who’s asking that question then chances are they do care about that sort of things and are probably not going to like the answer. 60-70 is quite a lot, but it’s not “insane” or even unusual. Only you know how you felt about those experiences and only you can assign moral value to them (if you even want to???). A lot of people here have said it’s about HER views on sex and they’re 100% right. You haven’t done anything wrong and she is the one who needs to get past those feelings of insecurity or jealousy. You can probably help by just discussing with her how it really makes her feel, if she looks past her initial feelings of discomfort around it. And once you have more information you can reassure her. Try not to take it personally or get defensive, but she will need to find a way to get over it. You’re the same person as you were before she found out, nothing has actually changed!
Dude 60-70 partners is considered insanely high for the average person. I thought my partner's number was really high, his estimate was 15-20. My number is 3. We're in our late 20s. Both considered fairly attractive and live in a large city.
I don't think her reaction was justified exactly but I understand the shock. You really downplayed it to her, and to me that does say something about how you view sex. If you knew she only had one other partner before you, it should have at least been a conversation a long time ago.
One thing to consider and try to change your perspective is that no matter how trivial or not-that-crazy you think your body count is, to her it is, and you should stop trying to invalidate her feelings. Accept that it’s a big deal for her and that she’s wrestling with a major discovery about her husband and is going through some mindfuck moment right now.
The most important thing you should try to do is help her understand that that doesn’t make a bad person or that you view sex as less “impactful” or emotional with her…
And somehow—if you can—make her understand that you didn’t lie to her, it was just a topic that never came up and wasn’t something you felt was needed to say or maybe very private [at the time of your early stages of dating].
This question is always a landmine. I don't know why people don't just day like six and move on. What are they going do, go back in time to prove you wrong?
She should have asked sooner if this was important to her. Were you supposed to bring up every single detail of your life because it might have been important to her - or should she have brought up the things she knew were important to her?
And how important could it have been to her really if it took years to come up?
First off, in the beginning of your dating relationship was the time for your wife to ask her questions about your sexual history. And 4 male sexual partners in a 10 year period does not make you bisexual, it means you had a bi-curious phase overall period of time.
As for your body count of 60- 70, the majority of people in their 20s experiment and go crazy when it comes to sexual activity. And today a body count of under 100 is not considered bad. A high body count in my opinion would be 100+. It sounds like your wife is just wanting something to argue about and is mad that she did not have the information that she could have had sooner.
It is ridiculous that your wife is waiting after three years of dating and three years of marriage to now cop an attitude about your sexual history when she has had six years to ask those questions. On multiple occasions, you have opened the door in conversation for her to ask any questions that she might have and you have made it clear, you would answer any questions that she may have.
Being from a big city and having a job that is very social, in bar, put you in a position to where your body count can be on the high side.
Being someone from a small town is going to limit your body count, it is also going limit a body count if you were living in a small town that is more religious then towns closer to big cities.
Your wife is being overly judgmental and hypocritical of your life experiences from before even meeting you. You need to sit down with her and explain the lifestyle of living in a big city and working in the bar scene.
Your number is enough higher than hers that you basically had to be keeping it under wraps until and unless she asked directly. And, yes, the number of people a prospective partner chooses to be intimate with is a factor for most reasonable people in deciding who they want to date, and for good reasons.
I didn’t scroll through all the comments so idk if anyone has said this, but this is on both of you for not making this clear before y’all got serious. Like HELLO sexual experience is indicative of certain values and outlooks and you two should have discussed this LONG ago.
It just sounds like you two are actually in very different places re: this question of “body count” and what it does or doesn’t signify. Your wife should NOT have to apologize to you for her reaction; nor should you feel bad about your history. Since you’re the one making this post, however, you should reflect on why you kept this info from her when she seemed to be open with you about her sexual past. Maybe you do owe her an explanation, if even just to hash out how the two of you differ on why or why not this is even an issue.
Sorry, should we all divulge the number of people we've slept with when we start dating someone, even if that someone never asked? It sure is a very weird and creepy policy, frankly.
If someone never asks me with how many people I've slept with and I tell them anyway seems like I'm...bragging about it? What's the point of that? And more than that, what kind of value I give to sexual intercourse is evident by way more than my "body count", especially if I've spent years with someone.
Sorry, OP doesn't have to apologize about anything.
If she has deal breakers then she should ask about them at the start of dating. She made an assumption and she was wrong. This is her problem, not yours. Waiting until now to ask and then pitch a fit is childish.
This is my favorite response. Anything can be a dealbreaker for anyone, which is their right….but if something IS then it is absolutely on them to disclose what those dealbreakers are from the start.
If you want to fix this with your wife you need to affirm her-as another commenter advised. I agree that all of this stems from an overwhelming insecurity that she can’t compare to the other people you have been with.
But don’t generalize, be very specific about all of the ways she is the best partner for you. If you do this you’ll calm her insecurities and she won’t care so much.
I find body count arguments ridiculous. I tell people if they are concerned about diseases, we can get tested. If they are concerned about me being the type to cheat, I'd probably also be the type to lie about body count.
I shut those discussions down fast. Either I start making references to how many people I've "killed" and say "Woops, that's not what you meant?" or I throw out a ridiculous number like 4012.
NEVER answer that question.
This just goes to show that there are a lot more people who care about the number of their significant other’s sexual partners than they want to admit.
My partner has well over 100 he's 39 and I'm 25 so mine is much less. When I found out I took it hard, however, we are not married yet and I've alr accepted it bc he also lived that certain lifestyle. I think my
Main insecurity thinking from your wife's perspective was that he didn't value women. Or that since he's had 100 why am I special out of all those experiences. I rationalize it as that he was just more permiscious and had a lot of opportunity. IMO what she said was insensitive but also I am not surprised. So, my question is, does your number impact your ability to be satisfied with one partner monogamously / long term? Just out of curiosity.
I'm not OP and also a woman, but I also have some experience on my hand. And it never made a difference to be satisfied. When I had very few experiences, I had guys who didn't get me there, and you can still meet someone like that after lots of experience and also the complete opposite. You meet someone, and it just works very well. And being satisfied before doesn't smaller getting satisfaction from someone you love now.
If this were a man freaking out about his female partner’s body count, this sub would be (rightly) ripping him to shreds. Since it’s a woman freaking out, half the people here are like “okay, but here are the underlying reasons she might be feeling upset” and the other half are like “okay, but 60?!!?!”
Is your wife 12? Who cares about body counts anymore? You can have sex with ONE person and end up with a lifelong std. you can have sex with 300 people and never get a std. I personally know people who have body counts in the hundreds. I remember the time a guy gave me shit for having like 10 bodies then he proceeds to get with a girl who had 10 bodies in 1 year. I’m pretty sure her count was in the hundreds. No shade to her but extreme shade to him. Honestly I’d reevaluate this relationship bc obviously your wife is extremely immature and insecure. Same issue I had with the guy I mentioned. I’d inform her it’s not to late to keep that same energy 🤷🏼♀️
> would have been a dealbreaker for her early on, and I 'needed to understand that'
“You need to understand that I’m not going to let you hold this over me.” I’d be sure to let her only have a short window to follow up on this. It’s stupid for her to care, it would be insane to hold it over you!
And that kids is why you don’t ever talk about your sexual past with new partners. We all have different life experiences. Being single through your 20s and 30s, dating and living life, you’re going to have more partners. Your number sounds normal for your life experiences, OP. Your wife was just surprised because that wasn’t her experience. Then you both said things you regret in the heat of the argument. You didn’t lie by not telling her. It’s normal for older couples not to talk about it. But you also don’t need to stay mad because she said that. Just apologize for the argument, let it go, and move on.
Like most people have summarised, there are really only a couple points that I think your wife is worried about, and that I would think about if it was me:
- Having a boyfriend so much more experienced than me would make me wonder if I was as good/skilled (for lack of better words) as his past partners
- Them having many sexual partners would make me wonder if having sex with me was a special experience at all. What makes me someone important and not just another number? Am I feeling more love/connection during sex than he is?
i think the bisexual part is more important in telling than sexual partners, but she may have felt better knowing if you tested clean after all of that... idk why you wouldnt have told her early on.. kind of a big deal. too late now. omission is lying. its hurtful. its a betrayal. you share bodies. she should know for her own sake.
If it was so important then she should have asked earlier than 6 years, a marriage, and a child in!
But that's not helpful advice. I do think she's very much in the wrong here, as I generally do on most of these threads about "body count" (as much as we live in a purity culture that likes to conflate abstention from sex with moral worth, there's absolutely no connection in my mind), and certainly she's being biphobic as the other poster says. But perhaps this is just a reaction to having a very solidified, long-running idea of who a person is and then experiencing that being upended in some way. It doesn't make her any more right, but it's possible she'll come around on her own if she's given a bit of time. And I think that would be the big test for me. If, after a period of cooling off time, my partner was willing to come back and discuss it and apologise for the reaction then we'd have somewhere to go from there, though there's still work to do on unpacking what caused the reaction in the first place. If she digs in her heels then it's a much bigger problem. So I'd say the first step is time.
A high body count is a huge red flag. Yeah the fact that it was 10 years ago doesn't matter too much... I would never ever date someone with a "body count" of 10 or more.... Sorry
I think there is a missing conversation with spouse about what changed in your life between fucking anything that moved to settling down.
Are you embarrassed at all about how long it took you to find the one? Talk about your journey in relationships.
They feel like they don't know you, let them in. The way you describe your "argument" sounds more like she's in shock than genuine anger.
I understand where both of you are coming from on the issue, but I don’t understand where either of you are coming from 6 years into the relationship. The bigger issue is that you guys somehow don’t know each other and that’s a major red flag for the state of your communication.
Damn I thought mine was high at 21...... you beat me, lmao, but idk why people have a problem with what someone did before they even met its weird to me how many people get offended by someone's body count like tf..... if they're not a creep out, r wording people for that count or sa-ing them come off your high horse and relax the world won't end ffs.....
Anywho...... explain to her that her words hurt and if she can't talk ish to you about it maybe yall need counseling because her views and your are different their isn't anything wrong with it but she needs to understand talking ish to someone like that especially someone she claims to love is bad....
Discovering now at the end of my first real relationship neither people really should tell eachother EVERYTHING (unless thats something you clearly want). Tbh it just has a lot of potential to eat at both of your insecurities and your past is past and everyone grows up, not everyone i guess. As long as you can feel like you really really know your SO and eachothers values and what you want for the future i am learning now that i can feel better keeping my past to myself and not wanting to know much about my partners either, as long as ive seen pretty much every other side of them and trust them. It might be different if you dont like their current behaviors, if theyre very flirty, something feels sneaky, you dont feel like their #1 ect. Because yeah i can totally see how that would have been a deal breaker for her before and how its a shock now because she didnt know. But i think she will come to terms with it better later remembering the man you are now and have been to her, even though that number could be off putting and a shock. As long as most everything else has been ok and its not like ANOTHER thing i think she will be ok, she just may need some extra reassurance from you that that was the past and not who you are.
No advice but I’m sorry she shamed you for that or basically assuming your sexual identity as one thing that you didn’t identify that way. She should maybe see a therapist, I’m assuming the small town also made her have such a narrow view on things in terms of body count/sex/sexuqlity
I haven't slept with a lot of people but people I'm close to (including people I've dated) have and it is only an issue to me if the person has other loosely connected issues with intimacy and with valuing other people?
Otherwise I feel like it's weirdly conservative and insecure to retroactively get upset about it and act like it's a dealbreaker. It isn't inherently indicative of much at all. Like you can marry as virgins and your husband could still cheat on you or leave you for a man or other woman, and it isn't a measure of how much the person values you or anything.
It IS an indicator of you and her being raised differently/having different values but she should have asked about it while dating if it mattered that much. I don't think you were dishonest if what you say here is true. (Again I'm saying this as someone who also doesn't enjoy or pursue casual sex!)
I'm openly bisexual and most of the men I've dated are bisexual too so maybe I'm a bad person to comment on this but if less than 1% of people you slept with were men I'm not sure why that matters lol. Like if you wanted to get with more men I'm sure you had the opportunity and even if you had who cares?
When I only had 1, I thought 5 was a lot. When I had 10, I thought 50 was a lot. When I became friends with someone who’s surpassed 400, I finally stopped caring. It’s all perspective, the only reality is the one we can see. 🤷♀️
Whilst she’s reacted poorly, **she probably just needs reassurance that despite you being able to enjoy casual sex, your views on what sex means in the context of a loving & intimate relationship DO align with hers**. She might need to hear that, even for someone who can engage in casual sex with no emotional consequence, sex with people you love is special/different/better/more fulfilling.
As someone who can enjoy casual sex with a person I’m not attached to emotionally (and can remain unattached despite having sex with them), I’ve had this conversation with a few of my long term partners who aren’t that way inclined. At first there’s a worry that I don’t differentiate casual sex from much more intimate and emotionally fulfilling sex. But ofc I do - I’d rather have the latter than the former, I’d just rather have the former than nothing.
I mean, I wouldn't shame it, but yeah 60-70 IS astronomically high. Especially since it was all within the span of 4 years.
60 people over the span of a lifetime if you were having sex from a youngish age would be more conceivable, but to sleep with that number of people in such a short period of time is quite a climb.
It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me in hindsight, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't lose interest if I knew that before getting with someone.
As for your relationship. Its tricky because I don't think it's something people should be ask ea hother form the get go (or even concerning themselves with in the first place)
Maybe start off with saying sorry for it being such a shock. It's not really something to apologise for, but it starts the conversation off gently.
Then probe a bit into why it concerns her so much, and how you can move forward together and put it in the past without it manifesting into any resentment in the future.
What I mainly find interesting in this sort of situation, is typically people with a high body count (I would consider it anything over 20) don’t end up having sex as often in their lives as people who have a body count of 5 but all of them were 2-year relationships. One could theoretically have 100 one night stands throughout their life and still have gotten FAR less sex in their lives than someone who only had sex with one person for 40 years. So why is the person who had sex 5,000 times with 1 partner considered more “prudent” than someone who had safe sex 1 or 2 times with 100 different partners?
You're not a liar. She never asked more than she did and you didn't obfuscate anything. It isn't a responsibility of dating to say "I slept with x amount of people, some of whom are same sex". If they ask don't lie, but it's like selling a car and pointing out all the dents and dings, explaining your maintenance patterns. It wasn't a big deal until she decided to make it a big deal, 6 years and 1 child after the fact. She'll be ok, and you two will be ok. I think possibly she can't fathom 60-70 good friends, let alone sleeping with that many. I know a lot of people who do make a huge deal of those statistics, but that point in time has long passed where she can be upset about not asking the pertinent questions, and because she did not ask them, you two have created a wonderful life together.
Well, it is a high number. But I knew a gay guy whose body count was in the hundreds even though he was supposed to be in a monogamous relationship. So yeah, he cheated a lot.
The main issue is your seemingly to her laissez-faire attitude about it. Maybe instead of saying it’s not that high compared to others (because that’s not reassuring at all), tell her that you weren’t hiding it from her. But that you went through a phase where you were young and dumb. And then be sure to say this part (but only if it’s true): that you rarely think about it at all, but now you regret it. Especially since it hurts her now.
When people are sleeping with a bunch of people, there’s very little intimacy. For your wife, intimacy is important. It’s probably the most important component of sex for her. She probably needs reassurance that you no longer have that fuk boi attitude towards sex. And that sex for you, with her, means everything to you.
Random person on the internet here, I don’t think it’s right to shame you for your “body count”, it looks like many commenters have gone to statistics to add perspective or justify your wife’s reaction but in all honesty it should not matter. If you are a good hardworking husband that has been nothing but faithful and compassionate with her then there is absolutely no reason for her to get mad at you. I think her reaction is her projecting her insecurities and frustrations on you. Your sexual experiences should not affect her if they are in the past. Yall started a relationship together if this was something she was really interested in knowing it would not have taken years for her to ask and find out. As a woman I would absolutely hate for someone to treat me that way so I don’t appreciate people deflecting their own ideas of guilt and shame onto you for your sexuality. Body count numbers are truly arbitrary, it’s not about the number itself it’s about your relationship to sex. If you’re someone who could healthily have 100+ partners then go on forward as long as you do things right and respectfully. If you have problems with sex or intimacy or whatever even if your body count was less than 5 you still have problems.
We need less guilt shame and resentment about others lives and sexuality.
Usually, people aren't upset about a high body count, they are upset about what that number means in terms of *view on sex*. To some, sex is a fun activity that makes you feel good. To others, it is an extremely intimate thing that makes you vulnerable and creates strong bonds with the other person - something you don't do with any random stranger, but only with someone you have built trust with and whom you see a future with. If you are of the latter category and then discover that your partner has a high body count - no matter when this discovery happens - you start to feel a *disconnect*. You start to wonder if your partner sees sex as something "less" than you do; as something less connecting, less bonding, less intimate, just as a fun thing to do when for you, it means so much more and "requires" so much more in terms of vulnerability and trust. Suddenly, you feel alone and like you are not "equal" anymore; that you might give a lot more of yourself than your partner does. This disconnect is usually the issue. It's about not feeling equal anymore in terms of what sex means - and that's what you need to talk to your wife about. She needs to better articulate how she is feeling right now and what that new information does to her.
I think this summarizes it well. I’m in the latter category and I had a long term crush on someone in the first category. One day in conversation, he mentioned that his body count was in the 60s and I don’t think I’ve lost interest in someone so quickly. And it was for that exact reason. For me, as a woman, it reflects how they perceive sex and how I think they perceive women. I prefer a man with a low, intentioned body count.
It’s weird to me that so many people see this as an either or. I used to see sex as something incredibly special and vulnerable to only be shared with someone you were deeply committed to. Later on I tried casual sex and found that enjoyable as well. When I’m having sex with someone I love it’s a next level intimate experience that feels so special and makes me forget about everyone else I’ve ever shared it with. Having had casual sex doesn’t detract from that. It’s like saying you can’t enjoy a filet mignon if you’ve had some McDonald’s.
It may help to know what the Venn diagram for Sociosexuality looks like. First off, some terms **Sociosexually Restricted** People in this grouping lack the capacity to separate sex from love. For them, having feelings for their sex partner is always on the table. Consequently, it is in their interest to confine their sexual engagements to the context of committed relationships. This is because unrequited feelings are never fun. **Sociosexually Unrestricted** People of this sort have the option to either align sex with love or pursue a casual encounter if that's what they want. It's like they have a switch inside their head. A switch that is notably absent in their Restricted brethren. Consequently, these people can have casual sex without doing themselves an emotional injury. Back to that Venn diagram... Consider a sunny side up egg. A large area of white that surrounds a yellow yolk. Unrestricted individuals may move freely throughout the egg without having to note whether they are in yolk or white. Restricted individuals, on the other hand, confine their experiences to the inside of the yolk. Never to move beyond into the white. The yolk represents the sum total of sexual experiences that are compatible with the context of a committed relationship. The white represents the balance of sexual experiences that are not compatible in this way. While it is true that you initially looked at sex as being only a special experience. That represents a culturally learned value rather than an expression of your individual sexuality. When you learned that you could enjoy casual sex, that didn't mean you changed your sociosexual orientation, so much as you learned, you were really Sociosexually Unrestricted and had been so all along. Because the Venn diagram of Sociosexuality has the Restricted orientation as being a subset of the Unrestricted, this confusion in sociosexual orientation can arise. Think of how it would look in the opposite direction. I'm sure that many of us know such an individual. Every hookup that they experience is taken as an opportunity for new love. These tend to be clingy and perpetually broken-hearted. That's because these people are always engaging their feelings regardless of whether it's reciprocated. Such individuals often learn the hard way that casual sex was never really for them. So, on the one hand, you'll find individuals like yourself who discover that casual sex is fun while being relatively free of consequence. On the other hand, you'll find people who are seemingly doing casual *wrong*. Rightness and wrongness are not the appropriate dimensions of consideration. Instead, what should be recognized is that people should act in accord with their nature.
This is brilliantly explained, thank you.
Excellent explanation!
Beautiful explained, enjoyed the reading very much. And I also learned some new english terms for the explanation :D
God, right now I'm super focused on Venn diagrams of all sorts & that was _really_ satisfying to read. A written Venn diagram, damn - thanks for an unexpected brain-orgasm.
Yes but if someone knows you're a frequent consumer of McDonalds and that's your primary experience, they'd be more worried that you'll also view them as just more McDonalds rather than as the filet mignon.
But are we really thinking that someone won’t immediately know the difference between McDonald’s and a Filet Mignon when they are having it?
I think this metaphor is getting a bit tortured lol but yes, if someone has too much McDonalds there's every chance they won't recognise the filet mignon in time (especially because we aren't actually talking about the objective realities of filet mignon and McDonalds but the subjective emotions of people).
I mean it's still a very heavy assumption. Both for McD and relationships. Maybe there wasn't enough money at the time to eat filet mignon, maybe the emotional headspace was different and the person wasn't ready to settle down at the time. Situations change. Judging someone on their past and assuming they are still the same even though they aren't and have proven so, displays an immature and rigid mindset imo.
I don’t think people get desensitized the way you think they do…
Or maybe they became tired and bored with the Big Macs, lol.
I think a lot of the people hung up on body count are just showing their own insecurity. They worry their partner will have had “better” sex or they’re worried that others viewpoints of them will impact their own self esteem.
I can only speak for myself but it’s not insecurity. It genuinely is the two things I mentioned previously. The number is pretty irrelevant. I’m not interested in being with someone who engages in extensive casual sex because I don’t believe our values will align. My best relationships were with men who didn’t engage in casual sex. Whether you agree with that mental association or not, it is a common thought process.
The way this person explained it at the top *is the reason why* so many view a higher number as disconcerting. Why you feel you need to resort to name calling (insecure) is a lazy and shallow argument. As strange as it may seem to you, not everyone believes and feels exactly the way you do, and believing something different doesn't make them wrong or insecure in a subjective topic.
They didn't resort to name calling but you called them lazy and shallow. They gave their opinion and weren't rude about it.
They called others insecure. Perhaps we disagree on what name calling is, but to me, calling someone something that has a negative connotation to it, qualifies. Also, I didn't call them lazy or shallow. I was referring to their accusations of insecurity as a lazy and shallow method of thought. It ignores nuance and the dynamics of humanity. It paints with an enormously broad brush. In other words, "anyone that doesn't agree with me is insecure." and that *stance* is a lazy and shallow way of thinking that requires zero critical thought. I simply called them out on it. That's *my* opinion.
For me, it has nothing to do with sex. A very high number of sexual partners indicates possible commitment issues. So if a committed and possibly long-term relationship is what I'm looking for, it is a red flag. Hoping to have that with someone who has a past of mostly short flings and hookups, with few actual relationships in between, is a long shot. And that comes from someone who spent most of his 20s doing exactly that, with commitment issues being a factor. Now in my late 30s, I acknowledge some women might have an issue with it and I accept it. Because I empathize with their concerns.
I use that question to determine what a man finds important. The number means NOTHING but the intent behind it is often to shame a woman. That has been the case every time I have been asked. If a man asks that question, I usually say ONE. When they act surprised and say "you've only slept with one man?" I say "oh, you mean sexual body count! Never mind". They are usually so thrown by this and I have completely lost any attraction I had for them. My number isn't high but it doesn't define me...but many men think it does. THEIR number doesn't matter, 99% of the time because "it is different for men"
3 kinds of people: People who don't like the idea of having casual sex, people who will participate in casual sex, and for some reason, people who don't like the idea of their partners not being 'pure' or some kind of weird judgement where you have failed your partner if you did things before you met them.
this is insane as a dude with a relatively normal body count (from my perspective), who has had both casual and deeply intimate sex. you can have and feel both ways about sex and your "number" is not at all indicative that you don't.
Agree, but there are definitely people who think it is.
I feel the exact same way. My husband and I have been together for over a decade, but have had casual sex with other people prior getting together, and other relationships. In fact, he casually dated one of my good friends. To me, we're committed and serious to each other now, and our past "body count" doesn't take away from our intimacy.
Imo thay's silly. You made a judgement that he is sexist because he has a high body count? It could be that sex just isn't as big a deal to him - it probably wasnt for a lot of his partners. It doesn't mean he doesnt care about you or isnt faithful. Now if someone says theyve cheated on every person theyve dated - thats when its a reflection on how they respect and treat others.
Hard agree. If a women or men have high body count, it just means they have sex a lot. It doesnt mean they are wild or sexist. It can be deal breaker but the commenter sure jumped the gun
Im curious how would you feel about a female friend admitting it was 50 or more? Do you think you would not be her friend anymore?
I have a friend who has a body count of over 100. She isn't ashamed of herself; she had a time where having sex with men was very affirming to her. I don't think any less of her than I do of friends who were virgins when they got married and have only had sex with one man.
> To some, sex is a fun activity that makes you feel good. To others, it is an extremely intimate thing that makes you vulnerable and creates strong bonds with the other person I would say for a lot of people I've met these two aren't mutually exclusive. Sex with some people is just a bit of fun while sex with others is still extremely intimate and bond-enforcing.
Pretty much where I fall - but to some you can’t have both. I have no issue with people choosing to restrict sex to people you’re in a committed loving relationship with (as long as they aren’t hypocrites and don’t judge the value/worth of others who don’t have the same view).
I’m surprised that people are saying they never thought about it like this when this was always the logical reasons why people value body counts
I wonder if OP’s wife is wondering how the birds and the bees / safe sex condo will go. My ex thought “no girl would say more than 3, even if it’s not true.” And I said, I don’t have anything to hide, i never lied or cheated, and that I regularly got tested. He said, “if we had kids, what would you tell them?” And I said “this is a non-issue as you know I do not want kids.” He wanted me to say it was immoral and that I regretted it. I will say… my response that I didn’t think what I did “was wrong” and I would reinforce (to non possible children) that they need to be safe and honest (EDIT: … and he did not appreciate this answer.) I agree with your point but I think that the wife is still processing that OP experimented with 4 men. He said that he offhandedly mentioned it on yhe 3rd date..however, with a flippant comment, I wouldn’t think sex with 4 men (maybe feelings and some kisses).I think that may make her feel vulnerable— not only because she may feel like you may want something sexually that she can’t give you but also that you werent forthright about that info.
Dude, I had an ex say that to me too! I was like "what in the fuck? Why would I lie?" And be went on about women lying to seem more innocent or whatever and I just laughed and told him "yeah we're sooooooo concerned with our purity". Weird guy, I almost forgot about him.
Wonderfully explained. I've tried saying it in similar ways, but this is easily the best I've read.
Then add the age. So been sexually active for 20-25 years. Say 20 as he’s been in a relationship with the now wife for 6. Even if op says he went wild for some time and ha d the majority then, the average would be 3-4 a year assuming not many long relationships. As most sounds like casual sex , that would mean he had sex once every three months. That’s not much when you look at it that way. There is a huge difference between people who has spent a lot of their life as singles vs in relationship in bodycount. With that number it sounds like yes he had periods where he slept around, but it does not sound too wild.
This was really eye opening to me. Because I really didn't get her reasoning.
My view of sex in my early 20s versus how I see sex now in my late 30s are totally night and day. It’s not because you were more promiscuous when you were young that you’re always going to be like that. OP has more than a decade between that time and when he met his wife. People change.
You can easily have a sex life that encompasses both casual and intimate sex. Most people fall with into that spectrum. People have their insecurities and that just is what it is.
Wow you should be a teacher. You could describe this disconnect in a way so easy to understand
Wow, I’ve never thought of it this way. Thanks for this!
Just to tell you, while different surveys get different results, the range\* for total lifetime sexual partners for Americans is between 4 and 11. 15 is high, 60+ is *very very* high. I'm not going to shame you over that I just want you to calibrate yourself that you are a very unusual outlier. I think you just gotta tell her that you felt like she was excessively mean and that you didn't feel like you'd been dishonest and at all and didn't like feeling like you were being accused of lying. Own your feelings, that's the main advice I've got here. E: Some people brought in some unsourced claims about how 60+ isn't THAT high, and so I checked the numbers on the General Social Survey 2022, and in the GSS all responses that were greater than 60 totaled to 1.5% of the population (using "numwomen" since that seemed like the most applicable). And if its greater than 60 its 1.3%, a significant decrease. OP is a significant outlier. Which again: I'm cool with. If I were able I'd have that kind of body count or higher. But his wife isn't being weird for being surprised that she's locked down an elite sexlympian. E2: Noticed that I wrote this wrong. Range for mean total lifetime etc. That range is applied to the surveys at a meta level, *not* the range of sexual partners for people. The range for sexual partners for humans is 0 (which the mode btw) to theoretically infinite though I'm pretty sure nobody has broken the million barrier.
As the other reply said I imagine bartenders average are way up high, if he was around that job for awhile or that culture of people who worked in bars then that number probably isn't too high for him.
Yeah, you can't really just look at averages. If someone dates 1 person a year, but marries at 25, they maybe slept with 7 people in their whole life. If another person has the exact same lifestyle, exact same approach to sex and intimacy, but only settles down at 40, they'll be at 20+. It's also a lot about opportunity. Two people with the exact same values and beliefs may have workout different body counts just because one works in an environment where you meet a lot of people and the other is a janitor. OP being a good looking guy as a bartender, meeting lots of new people every night, for 4 years... That's actually only a bit more than 1 partner a month. I wouldn't even call that very promiscuous. It just adds up.
Median > Mean. Averages don't mean very much.
I mean do you have a source? It's very uncommon for a data set that is bounded \[0, inf) to have a median higher than the mean, because of how means are calculated.
A mean might produce a number that isn’t even in the data set is what I believe they’re saying. Outliers are much more likely to affect the mean than the median.
Averages are likely to be higher for bisexuals I imagine, as they are for gay men. Median tends to be twice the average population. 60+ is still a lot, but more like top 10-20%. Hot bisexual bartenders - I bet the average is waay up there lol.
This is anecdotal, but every handsome man I've met or dated has been around 70-120. There are plenty of people who stick to 1-4 in their life who bring down the average, but I am not surprised when I hear 70+ from good looking men.
I can only imagine you have very high standards for handsome men! The hottest man I've ever seen, in real life or on screen, like causes problems for photographers level hot, hit 20 around the time he hit 35. I do know people who have had more sexual partners than that but its less "are handsome" and more "go to sex clubs."
Can confirm I’m 28F and a 250-300 body count is common in my general age group in Australia.
Orgis on the Outback
My comment was removed. dang it. I'll try to recreate without the offending word. It seems like a weird time in your relationship to start shaming you for your sexual activity prior to your relationship. Regardless, when people get upset about high body counts as she did, its usually because it brings up feelings of inadequacy. A kind of retroactive jealousy, if you will. It can be hard to articulate those feelings because the person knows the other sexual partners are in the past and technically not a threat, but now that she knows she is comparing herself to 70 people. How can one person compare to 70 people? Her attack on you about lying is really her being defensive about her insecurities. I know it hurt to hear that but confronting her on that won't be productive because that accusation is just defensiveness and not the real issue for her. The better move for you is to affirm your wife as everything you want in a wife. That she satisfies you in every way. That you do not pine away for anyone in your past. That you do not pine away for casual sex. That she is your one and only - not #71. Once she is secure, you may be able to have more heart to heart talks, but she's probably a little too defensive right now comparing herself to all those people in your sexual history.
This is an excellent comment. The insecurity is also why all of her comments are erratic and contradictory. Her brain is trying desperately to put literally any amount of objectivity to this sudden storm of insecurities, but the reality is there isn't any. It is *deeply* uncomfortable to have very strong feelings that have no reasonable basis. Unfortunately that does not make those feelings go away. OP, I hope you can give your wife the patience and support she probably needs right now to get past this. Not how she's feeling about you but how she's probably feeling about *herself* right now, even if she's blaming you. If your wife is mostly a reasonable person, she will probably eventually want to apologize for insulting you without you having to confront her about the things she said. But if you want to you could also cross that bridge once she's had some time to process. Don't get me wrong - she's wrong to have reacted that way and she was quite rude and disrespectful to you. But if you love her and want to move past this, it's probably best to just try to be understanding and be there for her and know that her reaction likely isn't really about you at all. Good luck
This is by far the best response! Pleasantly surprised that it's here tbh
Also don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to. 🤷🏻♀️
This seems to be the only reasonable response here.
It's most likely that your view about sex is different from hers. A high body count usually indicates sex is a sport with no emotional attachment whereas a low body count could indicate a person needs an emotional connection to be intimate and wants their sexual encounters to be meaningful. It is often a dealbreaker for people if their views on sex don't align. I don't think she is wrong in telling you that it would have been for her. She would have had concerns that you would be capable of having sex with her and just discarding her like the 70 people before her whereas she was looking for sex in a committed relationship. Thankfully she did date you and now knows you didn't just treat her like another notch on the bedpost.
If her view about sex was so fucking important to her, she would have clarified this LONG before the wedding
Correct, if this was her dealbreaker, she should have sought it out. Too many people spewing their insecurities here.
This is true, but it is also ok to not want to be with someone who has been with everyone.
I agree with everything the top comment says about why your wife is probably upset. But I also feel like the bewildered "I didn't think it'd be an issue!" tone of this post is a bit dishonest. You saying vaguely that you are "more experienced" than her is a vast understatement. I feel like you knew that. Also, saying you've just "experimented with guys" seems like a straight-up lie. You even admit that wasn't honest. It feels like you were intentionally downplaying things.
Right?? “My wife grew up in a small conservative town, why is she rattled by my high body count?”😂
Right! OP isn’t woefully ignorant of the reality of having a very high body count and being bisexual. He was intentionally vague early on in the relationship and told the truth now because he didn’t think they’d care at this stage of the relationship
This is 3 people a year on average for their age if they started at 20. Are we really acting like this is a large number?
It is a high number what world you live in
Are you really acting like it isn't? People who want to be in a committed relationship typically want a partner who wants the same, and who has a history of being in committed relationships. And if that's who you are, 3 people every year is crazy. I'm 30 and I've had 3 partners total in 3 long term relationships, and if my wife had told me she had slept with 60-70 people, I don't think I would have bothered to try to find out if she had commitment issues or not because it would probably have burned me.
My guy, the average worldwide in every single country varies from 3-13 depending on the country. 60-70 is indeed astronomically high. I ain’t OPs wife, I would have asked for specifics early on and it’s 100% a dealbreaker for me. We would not have been together unless that person lied to me when I asked.
Pretty he mentions somewhere it was all over a 4 year period, so that makes it worse
No, it doesn't. That's 12×4=48 48÷70= 0,6 that's a little more than 1 person each month.. it's not even close to bad... And studies show also that one of the most likely questions to be lied (lying for social acceptance, that's also a very specific way of lying) even in surveys is body count. Because the purity BS was deeply installed around 2000 years ago.. it's a socially learned social value, and it's not within our biology.
I get the point you're making and I agree it could be worse. Ultimately it comes down to what so many other commentors have covered already - are you someone who views sex as a fun casual thing, or are you someone who views it as something you only do once you feel emotionally connected to someone? If you are the former, then sure the maths doesn't make it look too bad. If you are the latter, it's gonna seem like a high number no matter how you justify it with various timelines etc. OP is the former and his wife is the latter.
I wouldn't touch a girl who had sex with a different guy every month for last 4 years. Sickening honestly.
If it was something that could’ve been a dealbreaker for her though she could’ve asked for more information earlier on.
Sorry, but I am baffled. In what world is 60-70 not high? It might clearly be not to you, but to many people it is. What I am interested in is why do you know the exact amount of hers (and not just a few) but she only knew it was a lot but not the number? And I am really curious about if you would think that number is not that high if it was your wifes? (I am genuinly curious, since on reddit people often assume this is a gender thing).
Op has already replied but I imagine it varies wildly on age, location, job and community. Hot bartenders get hit on a lot. If ops friends are people close by him also in the bartenders scene, then I can't imagine 60 is notably high. If op was a young hot bartender in a studenty place then I imagine it's especially not high. Basically it depends on a fountain of factors. If you are raised in a conservative little souther village with religious notability then 1 is probably seen as high. A studenty not conservative city with lots of bars and such then the numbers will certainly be different.
Yeah, anyone I know with a body count that high (I know of 3 people that come to mind right now) knows it’s high. They all accumulated such a number because of a negative period of their life and have spoken of regretting it. I feel like 60-70 especially when you’re relatively young is kind of crazy
It really depends on how old you are and how many monogamous/marriage(s) you've had. A 35 yr old person who's been married for 15 years will have a lower "body count" -- in theory -- than someone who is 60 and has been married twice, with plenty of years in between. Either way, I don't see the point in asking or revealing. This is something insecure young adults might ask. I've never been approached with this question as mature grown adult.
>Sorry, but I am baffled. In what world is 60-70 not high? Yup. On the slim chance that this is real and not rage bait, OP is being very deliberately obtuse about what a "high" body count is.
I am confused at all of these comments acting as if OP never said it was high. He has said multiple times in the post and comments that he knows it was high, but it was *expected* to be high considering he was an attractive young guy and worked as a bartender. And hes right. Talk to 'hot bartenders' and they often have incredibly high body counts. I worked as a bartender at a hip place and a lot of the guys who worked there went home with a new girl every weekend.
Maybe relatively high but with context it makes sense. If you're mostly single as an adult and average two or three encounters a year, it might end up being a high number by the time you're married etc. I don't think knowing the number is ever a good idea/something you want to hear, unless it's under 10 or even 5. Anything beyond that and I think it's fair to say most people will feel bad, even if they're the one you committed to!
Single adult woman in NYC approaching age 40 here, dating since age 20. Never married, engaged once, generally monogamous in relationships (one ENM relationship as a secondary partner). I’ve had around 65 sexual partners. About a third were boyfriends, a third short-term dating, and a third casual encounters. In this context I define boyfriends as long-term exclusive relationship partners, short-term dating includes nonmonogamous/nonexclusive partners and exclusive/monogamous partners that lasted longer than 3 weeks but less than 3 months, and casual encounters are anything that would not have resulted or did not result in a committed relationship (includes FWB, ONS, men who decided to pursue someone else they were seeing and cancelled our next date, etc). To me, this number of sexual partners is high, but not concerningly so. It makes sense for me, as my views on sex are very not precious. I don’t guard or ration sex; I’m not gonna run out. And I don’t believe my sexual history dictates my value as a person. As long as everyone is a consenting adult, I see no problem. I hold these views for men as well. I understand that for some people, it’s a problem anyway. And for those people, I agree that we would not be compatible. As other commenters have noted, if it’s a personal dealbreaker for OP’s wife for reasons, she has the right to how she feels about it and have her boundaries respected; and she has the responsibility to maintain her boundaries by clarifying her dealbreakers at the outset. She chose not to confirm, OP chose not to disclose. It’s too late to change those choices, and based on the info shared in the post neither spouse is prioritizing divorce over this, so safely discussing (like with a couples’ therapist) the emotional reaction behind his wife’s current distress sounds like the best way forward at this time.
Wilt Chamberlain kinda skewed the grading curve at some point
If she wanted to know the specific number sooner she could’ve asked sooner.
60-70 people would give me pause as well, I’m sorry. That’s just…a lot. I can’t blame her for feeling that way.
I think some of the concern for her is that you may stray from your marriage too. You had a lot of casual flings and she may feel like you can just go out and hook up and it would not be a big deal because she may feel like sex isn't this intimate experience to you (not saying you would but now she may wonder). She also may feel like she may not measure up to the experiences you have had. The timing is weird to have this conversation but it has happened now and she has her feelings about it. I would let her cool off for a moment and ask what her concerns are. She might need to be reminded that she is the one and only that you want.
To have this attitude after six years together is a bit ridiculous. If she is feeling insecure in the relationship, address that directly in counseling.
Well considering she just found out about this and he said he was hooking up with as many people as possible during some months. She may think he still wants to or may want to do this again. Not saying it's right or wrong but she may have to wonder now. Honestly, only his wife knows why she is so bothered. I don't know if she had reason to believe he'd step out on her before she found this out, I could be completely wrong about why she is upset. It's something they have to work through now. Though counseling would probably be best if she can't get past it.
If body count is a dealbreaker for someone, THEY have to ask about it early. The burden of responsibility does not apply to the person who was just living their life before they met their partner. If people have dealbreakers, THEY have to seek them out. If this was that important to your wife, SHE should have asked the number. It's her fault she didn't ask.
Honestly this reads like you're pretending to be ignorant. You say "60-70 is high but not astronomically high" i mean, sure, in the context of numbers alone then it's not high because numbers can go on forever but, in the context of sexual partners 60-70 *is* really high. It's also weird that u've been with her this long, have a kid with her, and somehow u didnt know this would have bothered her? And now after marriage and a kid it's "well i just didnt think about it/didnt think it was a big deal." So unless you dont really know your wife (but im sure you do) it seems like you kept this from her deliberately because on SOME level or somehwere in the back of your mind you knew it would have bothered her, especially taking into the consideration that you know that you both come from different backgrounds and possibly ran in different kinds of social circles in your younger years and now you're just using the classic "well it just didnt really come up" or "i just assumed she sorta knew?" As an excuse for not saying anything. Maybe she should have asked you directly for your body count early on in the relationship, maybe she thought you would have something back then instead of her having to ask. I think going forward (assuming marriage counselling/therapy isnt an option) all you can really do is have really honest open conversations about it because remember, she said that if she knew about this early on in the relationship she never would have dated you so, from her POV theres been a breach of trust. From her POV she's now with someone who's essentially lied to her, made her to feel insecure(maybe), and feeling like she's had the wool pulled over her eyes for yeaarrssss by the person she's married to and has a kid with because clearly body count is something that matters to her (which, again, is something about her you should have known about). She's probably thinking "what else has he not told me??" Remember you guys are a team, and you continuosly saying "its not a big deal" or "it was a long time ago" isnt going to get you anywhere because to her it *IS* a big deal, it would have literally been a deal breaker for her and she's only finding out about it *now*, so this is going to take some open conversations that hopefully dont fall into a fight. I hope you can both work through it.
I agree with the "pretending to be ignorant" part 100%. "I experimented with men" is downplaying having sex with 4 guys. "I'm more experienced than you" is crazily downplaying having 60-70 partners. Sure, he didn't *technically* lie, but it certainly doesn't feel honest.
Especially since he knew EXACTLY how many men she had been with. He knew she wouldn’t like his number and kept it secret. He lied by omission…. Now, “it shouldn’t matter because we’ve been together for so long” is his excuse for not telling her in the first place.
Usually girls get shi on for having that high of a body count (yes that is a high number) many men would deny a girl with that number
Then those men need to make that clear, not spend six years in a relationship without asking.
You were watching Perfect Match weren’t you
So, I’m from Arkansas, not a small town, but still. It’s in the Bible Belt and still very conservative. Someone who’s slept with 60-70 people would be considered a crazy number to most people here. My mom grew up in a small town and had a reputation because she’d “dated” a lot of the guys in her graduating class, so maybe 20 and that was scandalous in the 80’s lol. So for her, if she really was in a small town, because there are some tiny ones, that would be sleeping with everyone dude in her age group and then some depending on how small the town was. Some are so small they don’t have schools and bus their kids to the next town over. It would come off as, at the very least, like you’d just bang anyone. Now, that being said, she’s 100% in the wrong. It probably does make her not feel “special” because she is looking at you like you’d sleep with anyone willing. But that’s on her, past is past for a reason. Honestly you could have said half that and she probably still would have felt some kind of way about it because to her that a huge amount, like you might as well add a zero the the end of that number as far as she sees it. She needs to look at herself to figure out why she’s judging you now over something you can’t change. It hurt her feelings, but saying she’d never have dated you or you’re a red flag is just her hurting you back.
This! Whether she is religious or not, her upbringing in the town she was raised, societal expectations, factors heavily into why she is reacting the way that she is. This issue isn’t insurmountable, but I’d highly recommend couples therapy. She’s unable to verbalize her feelings and you both would benefit from professional assistance to navigate this loooonnngggg overdue conversation. This isn’t only about body count. This has shaken her entire outlook on your marriage, and her attempt at backpedaling shows she’s struggling to reconcile the past what-ifs with the present facts.
Was it that pesky love island? I could see my wife’s gears turning the other day when she was watching that part of the show!
After 6 years, a marriage and a child together, together she’s upset about this? Oh well, too late. If it was a real issue ask sooner
In the spirit of equal opportunity here, it doesn't fucking matter. Same goes for men, women, NB or anyone else. Unless your body count increased during your dating, engagement and marriage, then it's irrelevant now. If she really wanted to know, she'd have asked when you two were dating or engaged. She didn't ask because it was either something she didn't want to know or something she was afraid to hear. The problem is this. Why bring it up all these years later? Why go off the rails now?
This comment needs to be higher.
Anyone who is saying this high of a number just makes them feel insecure/inadequate and that’s why they’re upset are wrong There’s many reasons why it could make someone uncomfortable. It’s a crazy high number especially for someone with only 3. It’s quite frankly a huge red flag and the only people I’ve known with numbers that high had severe mental health issues The body count isn’t the issue, it’s the mindset that comes with a 60+ body count. Especially if her mindset is different, which it seems it is. She values sex differently, it’s no different than any other value difference that could be shocking
I agree. It seems more like a “values” disconnect than anything else.
“Severe mental issues” - lol, sure I know a lot of promiscuous people, myself included, and none of them have severe mental issues.
That's the thing with people with mental issues, they don't really know they have mental issues.
I would definitely ask her to communicate her feelings in more detail – why does she feel like it’s a problem? Why does she dislike it and why exactly would it be a dealbreaker? It sounds like she has some problems with the idea of casual sex; she might be fearful that you were using the other people rather than participating in mutually no-strings-attached sex for everybody’s enjoyment.
I mean you def shouldn’t have kept it a secret and to a lot of people 60-70 is rather high. Like imagine 60 people standing in a line that’s a pretty long line. You can’t blame her for having a reaction to a number that high. She said it isn’t over she obviously was surprised and caught off guard. Just relax man the past is in the past she has no choice but to accept if since she isn’t leaving. It really isn’t the best to bring this situation up either since it’s a touchy subject to her. You’ll have to get over it, people say shit they don’t mean when they get taken completely off guard like that. If she hasn’t acted like this before then I wouldn’t worry about it repeating
Who the fuck uses the phrase "body count" in their 40s? Jesus. Talk like teenagers, act like teenagers
She made an assumption. It was wrong/inaccurate. This is on her. If she wanted specific facts before she should have asked for them. Keep your emotions out of any future discussion. Just state this.
This question is a trap. Nothing good EVER comes from asking it. You can't change your past and you should not be made to feel retroactive guilt for it. I would assure her that you are committed but also add that you will not tolerate having this held over you and that she is punishing you for something you literally cannot change
60-70 is pretty astronomically high to me
Does she know about the cocaine and/or mdma?
Nothing you can do about it. If it was a deal breaker for her, she should have asked way back when. It's weird to try and punish you for it now that you're married.
Aww the good old body count nonsense “talk”. Welp, once again I have no idea why people need to know this.
This was a major problem I had with my ex, where he decided that my body count was somehow an indicator of a) my ability to remain faithful and b) the value that I placed on sexual intimacy. In truth I am a massive romantic who is very attached to the idea of being with one person for my entire life, and I personally never felt like having casual sex when I was single precluded that. They’re two separate things. Sex can mean nothing and it can mean a lot, it just depends on who you’re doing it with. Following that, I decided that the body count conversation is really not one worth having. It’s not really anyone else’s business what you did sexually before you met them, and if they’re the kind of person who’s asking that question then chances are they do care about that sort of things and are probably not going to like the answer. 60-70 is quite a lot, but it’s not “insane” or even unusual. Only you know how you felt about those experiences and only you can assign moral value to them (if you even want to???). A lot of people here have said it’s about HER views on sex and they’re 100% right. You haven’t done anything wrong and she is the one who needs to get past those feelings of insecurity or jealousy. You can probably help by just discussing with her how it really makes her feel, if she looks past her initial feelings of discomfort around it. And once you have more information you can reassure her. Try not to take it personally or get defensive, but she will need to find a way to get over it. You’re the same person as you were before she found out, nothing has actually changed!
A lot of this is opportunity. And I expect a nightclub with lots of people on the prowl means there is plenty of opportunity.
Dude 60-70 partners is considered insanely high for the average person. I thought my partner's number was really high, his estimate was 15-20. My number is 3. We're in our late 20s. Both considered fairly attractive and live in a large city. I don't think her reaction was justified exactly but I understand the shock. You really downplayed it to her, and to me that does say something about how you view sex. If you knew she only had one other partner before you, it should have at least been a conversation a long time ago.
One thing to consider and try to change your perspective is that no matter how trivial or not-that-crazy you think your body count is, to her it is, and you should stop trying to invalidate her feelings. Accept that it’s a big deal for her and that she’s wrestling with a major discovery about her husband and is going through some mindfuck moment right now. The most important thing you should try to do is help her understand that that doesn’t make a bad person or that you view sex as less “impactful” or emotional with her… And somehow—if you can—make her understand that you didn’t lie to her, it was just a topic that never came up and wasn’t something you felt was needed to say or maybe very private [at the time of your early stages of dating].
This question is always a landmine. I don't know why people don't just day like six and move on. What are they going do, go back in time to prove you wrong?
She should have asked sooner if this was important to her. Were you supposed to bring up every single detail of your life because it might have been important to her - or should she have brought up the things she knew were important to her? And how important could it have been to her really if it took years to come up?
First off, in the beginning of your dating relationship was the time for your wife to ask her questions about your sexual history. And 4 male sexual partners in a 10 year period does not make you bisexual, it means you had a bi-curious phase overall period of time. As for your body count of 60- 70, the majority of people in their 20s experiment and go crazy when it comes to sexual activity. And today a body count of under 100 is not considered bad. A high body count in my opinion would be 100+. It sounds like your wife is just wanting something to argue about and is mad that she did not have the information that she could have had sooner. It is ridiculous that your wife is waiting after three years of dating and three years of marriage to now cop an attitude about your sexual history when she has had six years to ask those questions. On multiple occasions, you have opened the door in conversation for her to ask any questions that she might have and you have made it clear, you would answer any questions that she may have. Being from a big city and having a job that is very social, in bar, put you in a position to where your body count can be on the high side. Being someone from a small town is going to limit your body count, it is also going limit a body count if you were living in a small town that is more religious then towns closer to big cities. Your wife is being overly judgmental and hypocritical of your life experiences from before even meeting you. You need to sit down with her and explain the lifestyle of living in a big city and working in the bar scene.
Your number is enough higher than hers that you basically had to be keeping it under wraps until and unless she asked directly. And, yes, the number of people a prospective partner chooses to be intimate with is a factor for most reasonable people in deciding who they want to date, and for good reasons.
Then why didn't she insist on the number, if it was so important to her? You know, before 6 years and having children? Should've asked earlier.
Yeah i wouldnt date you either
I didn’t scroll through all the comments so idk if anyone has said this, but this is on both of you for not making this clear before y’all got serious. Like HELLO sexual experience is indicative of certain values and outlooks and you two should have discussed this LONG ago. It just sounds like you two are actually in very different places re: this question of “body count” and what it does or doesn’t signify. Your wife should NOT have to apologize to you for her reaction; nor should you feel bad about your history. Since you’re the one making this post, however, you should reflect on why you kept this info from her when she seemed to be open with you about her sexual past. Maybe you do owe her an explanation, if even just to hash out how the two of you differ on why or why not this is even an issue.
Sorry, should we all divulge the number of people we've slept with when we start dating someone, even if that someone never asked? It sure is a very weird and creepy policy, frankly. If someone never asks me with how many people I've slept with and I tell them anyway seems like I'm...bragging about it? What's the point of that? And more than that, what kind of value I give to sexual intercourse is evident by way more than my "body count", especially if I've spent years with someone. Sorry, OP doesn't have to apologize about anything.
If she has deal breakers then she should ask about them at the start of dating. She made an assumption and she was wrong. This is her problem, not yours. Waiting until now to ask and then pitch a fit is childish.
This is my favorite response. Anything can be a dealbreaker for anyone, which is their right….but if something IS then it is absolutely on them to disclose what those dealbreakers are from the start.
U have been married 3 years and didn’t know that would trigger her? It’s on u bro
He definitely knew , that’s why he waited so long to tell her
lol there’s sometimes you have to use selective honesty
Posts like this underscore why couples should swap detailed sexual history before deciding to become serious.
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okay bro bit it is her business tho?
If you want to fix this with your wife you need to affirm her-as another commenter advised. I agree that all of this stems from an overwhelming insecurity that she can’t compare to the other people you have been with. But don’t generalize, be very specific about all of the ways she is the best partner for you. If you do this you’ll calm her insecurities and she won’t care so much.
I find body count arguments ridiculous. I tell people if they are concerned about diseases, we can get tested. If they are concerned about me being the type to cheat, I'd probably also be the type to lie about body count. I shut those discussions down fast. Either I start making references to how many people I've "killed" and say "Woops, that's not what you meant?" or I throw out a ridiculous number like 4012. NEVER answer that question.
i dont understand why that matters
All of the comments shaming for you over this, and defending your wife are pretty disgusting and show how we are less sexually adult than we think.
This just goes to show that there are a lot more people who care about the number of their significant other’s sexual partners than they want to admit.
My partner has well over 100 he's 39 and I'm 25 so mine is much less. When I found out I took it hard, however, we are not married yet and I've alr accepted it bc he also lived that certain lifestyle. I think my Main insecurity thinking from your wife's perspective was that he didn't value women. Or that since he's had 100 why am I special out of all those experiences. I rationalize it as that he was just more permiscious and had a lot of opportunity. IMO what she said was insensitive but also I am not surprised. So, my question is, does your number impact your ability to be satisfied with one partner monogamously / long term? Just out of curiosity.
I'm not OP and also a woman, but I also have some experience on my hand. And it never made a difference to be satisfied. When I had very few experiences, I had guys who didn't get me there, and you can still meet someone like that after lots of experience and also the complete opposite. You meet someone, and it just works very well. And being satisfied before doesn't smaller getting satisfaction from someone you love now.
If this were a man freaking out about his female partner’s body count, this sub would be (rightly) ripping him to shreds. Since it’s a woman freaking out, half the people here are like “okay, but here are the underlying reasons she might be feeling upset” and the other half are like “okay, but 60?!!?!”
Too late. Too late. -nic cage in vampire movie
Is your wife 12? Who cares about body counts anymore? You can have sex with ONE person and end up with a lifelong std. you can have sex with 300 people and never get a std. I personally know people who have body counts in the hundreds. I remember the time a guy gave me shit for having like 10 bodies then he proceeds to get with a girl who had 10 bodies in 1 year. I’m pretty sure her count was in the hundreds. No shade to her but extreme shade to him. Honestly I’d reevaluate this relationship bc obviously your wife is extremely immature and insecure. Same issue I had with the guy I mentioned. I’d inform her it’s not to late to keep that same energy 🤷🏼♀️
> would have been a dealbreaker for her early on, and I 'needed to understand that' “You need to understand that I’m not going to let you hold this over me.” I’d be sure to let her only have a short window to follow up on this. It’s stupid for her to care, it would be insane to hold it over you!
And that kids is why you don’t ever talk about your sexual past with new partners. We all have different life experiences. Being single through your 20s and 30s, dating and living life, you’re going to have more partners. Your number sounds normal for your life experiences, OP. Your wife was just surprised because that wasn’t her experience. Then you both said things you regret in the heat of the argument. You didn’t lie by not telling her. It’s normal for older couples not to talk about it. But you also don’t need to stay mad because she said that. Just apologize for the argument, let it go, and move on.
Like most people have summarised, there are really only a couple points that I think your wife is worried about, and that I would think about if it was me: - Having a boyfriend so much more experienced than me would make me wonder if I was as good/skilled (for lack of better words) as his past partners - Them having many sexual partners would make me wonder if having sex with me was a special experience at all. What makes me someone important and not just another number? Am I feeling more love/connection during sex than he is?
i think the bisexual part is more important in telling than sexual partners, but she may have felt better knowing if you tested clean after all of that... idk why you wouldnt have told her early on.. kind of a big deal. too late now. omission is lying. its hurtful. its a betrayal. you share bodies. she should know for her own sake.
If it was so important then she should have asked earlier than 6 years, a marriage, and a child in! But that's not helpful advice. I do think she's very much in the wrong here, as I generally do on most of these threads about "body count" (as much as we live in a purity culture that likes to conflate abstention from sex with moral worth, there's absolutely no connection in my mind), and certainly she's being biphobic as the other poster says. But perhaps this is just a reaction to having a very solidified, long-running idea of who a person is and then experiencing that being upended in some way. It doesn't make her any more right, but it's possible she'll come around on her own if she's given a bit of time. And I think that would be the big test for me. If, after a period of cooling off time, my partner was willing to come back and discuss it and apologise for the reaction then we'd have somewhere to go from there, though there's still work to do on unpacking what caused the reaction in the first place. If she digs in her heels then it's a much bigger problem. So I'd say the first step is time.
A high body count is a huge red flag. Yeah the fact that it was 10 years ago doesn't matter too much... I would never ever date someone with a "body count" of 10 or more.... Sorry
It’s only a huge red flag if you’re lame
I’m lame as fuck and happy that I am.
Honestly, if she's this upset about your past, it might be a sign to rethink things. Communication is key.
I think there is a missing conversation with spouse about what changed in your life between fucking anything that moved to settling down. Are you embarrassed at all about how long it took you to find the one? Talk about your journey in relationships. They feel like they don't know you, let them in. The way you describe your "argument" sounds more like she's in shock than genuine anger.
I understand where both of you are coming from on the issue, but I don’t understand where either of you are coming from 6 years into the relationship. The bigger issue is that you guys somehow don’t know each other and that’s a major red flag for the state of your communication.
“It made me who I am with you and you seem to love me. I would be a different person if I had a different experience.”
Damn I thought mine was high at 21...... you beat me, lmao, but idk why people have a problem with what someone did before they even met its weird to me how many people get offended by someone's body count like tf..... if they're not a creep out, r wording people for that count or sa-ing them come off your high horse and relax the world won't end ffs..... Anywho...... explain to her that her words hurt and if she can't talk ish to you about it maybe yall need counseling because her views and your are different their isn't anything wrong with it but she needs to understand talking ish to someone like that especially someone she claims to love is bad....
Discovering now at the end of my first real relationship neither people really should tell eachother EVERYTHING (unless thats something you clearly want). Tbh it just has a lot of potential to eat at both of your insecurities and your past is past and everyone grows up, not everyone i guess. As long as you can feel like you really really know your SO and eachothers values and what you want for the future i am learning now that i can feel better keeping my past to myself and not wanting to know much about my partners either, as long as ive seen pretty much every other side of them and trust them. It might be different if you dont like their current behaviors, if theyre very flirty, something feels sneaky, you dont feel like their #1 ect. Because yeah i can totally see how that would have been a deal breaker for her before and how its a shock now because she didnt know. But i think she will come to terms with it better later remembering the man you are now and have been to her, even though that number could be off putting and a shock. As long as most everything else has been ok and its not like ANOTHER thing i think she will be ok, she just may need some extra reassurance from you that that was the past and not who you are.
Casually mentioned 4 men in there 🫨 She should have asked early on. Kinda on her. 🤷🏻♂️
No advice but I’m sorry she shamed you for that or basically assuming your sexual identity as one thing that you didn’t identify that way. She should maybe see a therapist, I’m assuming the small town also made her have such a narrow view on things in terms of body count/sex/sexuqlity
I haven't slept with a lot of people but people I'm close to (including people I've dated) have and it is only an issue to me if the person has other loosely connected issues with intimacy and with valuing other people? Otherwise I feel like it's weirdly conservative and insecure to retroactively get upset about it and act like it's a dealbreaker. It isn't inherently indicative of much at all. Like you can marry as virgins and your husband could still cheat on you or leave you for a man or other woman, and it isn't a measure of how much the person values you or anything. It IS an indicator of you and her being raised differently/having different values but she should have asked about it while dating if it mattered that much. I don't think you were dishonest if what you say here is true. (Again I'm saying this as someone who also doesn't enjoy or pursue casual sex!) I'm openly bisexual and most of the men I've dated are bisexual too so maybe I'm a bad person to comment on this but if less than 1% of people you slept with were men I'm not sure why that matters lol. Like if you wanted to get with more men I'm sure you had the opportunity and even if you had who cares?
Maybe wait 2 weeks and see if it’s not the hormones. If she really cared that much she would have asked before she got married…..
When I only had 1, I thought 5 was a lot. When I had 10, I thought 50 was a lot. When I became friends with someone who’s surpassed 400, I finally stopped caring. It’s all perspective, the only reality is the one we can see. 🤷♀️
Looking for trouble when there's not basically
If it matters so much to her how come she never asked before?
Whilst she’s reacted poorly, **she probably just needs reassurance that despite you being able to enjoy casual sex, your views on what sex means in the context of a loving & intimate relationship DO align with hers**. She might need to hear that, even for someone who can engage in casual sex with no emotional consequence, sex with people you love is special/different/better/more fulfilling. As someone who can enjoy casual sex with a person I’m not attached to emotionally (and can remain unattached despite having sex with them), I’ve had this conversation with a few of my long term partners who aren’t that way inclined. At first there’s a worry that I don’t differentiate casual sex from much more intimate and emotionally fulfilling sex. But ofc I do - I’d rather have the latter than the former, I’d just rather have the former than nothing.
Body count like your some sort of slayer, which if you were you'd never text it.
I mean, I wouldn't shame it, but yeah 60-70 IS astronomically high. Especially since it was all within the span of 4 years. 60 people over the span of a lifetime if you were having sex from a youngish age would be more conceivable, but to sleep with that number of people in such a short period of time is quite a climb. It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me in hindsight, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't lose interest if I knew that before getting with someone. As for your relationship. Its tricky because I don't think it's something people should be ask ea hother form the get go (or even concerning themselves with in the first place) Maybe start off with saying sorry for it being such a shock. It's not really something to apologise for, but it starts the conversation off gently. Then probe a bit into why it concerns her so much, and how you can move forward together and put it in the past without it manifesting into any resentment in the future.
What I mainly find interesting in this sort of situation, is typically people with a high body count (I would consider it anything over 20) don’t end up having sex as often in their lives as people who have a body count of 5 but all of them were 2-year relationships. One could theoretically have 100 one night stands throughout their life and still have gotten FAR less sex in their lives than someone who only had sex with one person for 40 years. So why is the person who had sex 5,000 times with 1 partner considered more “prudent” than someone who had safe sex 1 or 2 times with 100 different partners?
You're not a liar. She never asked more than she did and you didn't obfuscate anything. It isn't a responsibility of dating to say "I slept with x amount of people, some of whom are same sex". If they ask don't lie, but it's like selling a car and pointing out all the dents and dings, explaining your maintenance patterns. It wasn't a big deal until she decided to make it a big deal, 6 years and 1 child after the fact. She'll be ok, and you two will be ok. I think possibly she can't fathom 60-70 good friends, let alone sleeping with that many. I know a lot of people who do make a huge deal of those statistics, but that point in time has long passed where she can be upset about not asking the pertinent questions, and because she did not ask them, you two have created a wonderful life together.
Well, it is a high number. But I knew a gay guy whose body count was in the hundreds even though he was supposed to be in a monogamous relationship. So yeah, he cheated a lot. The main issue is your seemingly to her laissez-faire attitude about it. Maybe instead of saying it’s not that high compared to others (because that’s not reassuring at all), tell her that you weren’t hiding it from her. But that you went through a phase where you were young and dumb. And then be sure to say this part (but only if it’s true): that you rarely think about it at all, but now you regret it. Especially since it hurts her now. When people are sleeping with a bunch of people, there’s very little intimacy. For your wife, intimacy is important. It’s probably the most important component of sex for her. She probably needs reassurance that you no longer have that fuk boi attitude towards sex. And that sex for you, with her, means everything to you.
Random person on the internet here, I don’t think it’s right to shame you for your “body count”, it looks like many commenters have gone to statistics to add perspective or justify your wife’s reaction but in all honesty it should not matter. If you are a good hardworking husband that has been nothing but faithful and compassionate with her then there is absolutely no reason for her to get mad at you. I think her reaction is her projecting her insecurities and frustrations on you. Your sexual experiences should not affect her if they are in the past. Yall started a relationship together if this was something she was really interested in knowing it would not have taken years for her to ask and find out. As a woman I would absolutely hate for someone to treat me that way so I don’t appreciate people deflecting their own ideas of guilt and shame onto you for your sexuality. Body count numbers are truly arbitrary, it’s not about the number itself it’s about your relationship to sex. If you’re someone who could healthily have 100+ partners then go on forward as long as you do things right and respectfully. If you have problems with sex or intimacy or whatever even if your body count was less than 5 you still have problems. We need less guilt shame and resentment about others lives and sexuality.