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Average of 4 sexual partners per lifetime for women? Really?
f/16
So, I read somewhere recently that the average amount of sexual partners for a woman in her lifetime will be four sexual partners, and when I read this, I was a little....well...disgusted with myself, to be honest. I've already slept with two; although, one was a rape, and the other, a long term relationship 1+ years with my boyfriend. He was three years older, so sex, I suppose, was just natural at that age. Regardless, that's still two, and I feel, well, a little promiscuous, a little slutty, a little dirty, and a little like if that's really the average, that I shouldn't have been so foolish and quick to make decisions. My question is, I guess, is that REALLY and accurate average? And, if it is, is there any advice you could give when it comes to picking who to have sex with? I understand this sounds a little silly, but it's difficult to gauge whether or not you should have sex with someone if you truly believe you love them and have been with them for a while. Thanks.
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The only thing I feel the need to add to Rahzie's post is the following.
Rape is not a sexual partner. It's a violent crime committed against you. You've chosen to have sex with one person. You've had one sexual partner.
If you've never had a reason to regret being with your boyfriend/exboyfriend, why would you regret it because of a statistic?
I'll give you a description of someone I know. She is promiscuous. She has reason to be ashamed.
She slept with 20 people in two months after she turned 17 (legal age here). More recently, she was sleeping consistently with six separate guys, two of whom were married. She was not on birth control and had unprotected sex with all of them.
Three of the guys were roommates. She slept with all three in the same night on more than one occasion. One of them got put in jail for some stupid misdemeanor, and during that time she got pregnant. Once he got out she told him the baby was his, and they're living with his parents who are paying for the grandchild which is not actually theirs. She has cheated on every relationship she's ever had with more than one person. She seems incapable of saying no to sex, trading on her sexuality for attention. She will go to any lengths to create sexual interest in others directed towards her if there isn't any. She will do this regardless of whether or not she is actually interested in sleeping with someone, we worked together and more than once she tried (to her chagrin) to smile and look pretty at me to get out of job responsibilities.
On one occasion she was smoking a cigarette outside the apartment of the three roommates and overheard them discussing how much of a slut she was and how using her was getting boring (their words). She slept with the two who were not in jail less than 30 minutes later and then returned home to bitch about how they were talking about her.
Your one sexual partner is not promiscuous or slutty. The above is. Stop beating yourself up.
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I wouldn't trust that statistic for a moment. Woman under report the number of sex partners they have, and men tend to over report. Based on that along there is no reason to think that is a realistic number.
I've heard the slightly more believable average number of seven sexual partners, for woman of my age (25-45) and my social demographics like race and education level.
Think of it that way: Even if four is a true number (ha!) many of the woman contributing to that average are people who never had sex before marriage (or, will not admit they did, or will deny what they did before marriage can be called sex.) It includes woman in their 60s who got married to their high school sweet heart when they were 18. Those really aren't valid comparisons to the person you are, and the world you live in today.
I work in marketing, and sometimes when we see numbers like these, we call them 'white noise' because they are basically meaningless. There is no way to validate them, and they deal with a sample size or group of people that it is silly to group together. That makes the data effectively unusable.
Stop worrying about it. Really. There will always be reasons to feel ashamed or confused or to regret your choices in life, and there will always be people in the world throwing around white noise numbers like this to try and help you feel ashamed or confused. Ignore them.
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Hey there,
You are not alone in the fact that you have already been with two guys. I wouldn't say rape counts as having "sex" necissarily, because you didn't choose to. I would rather say: you made up your mind that you loved one person and so you had sex with him (your boyfriend). A lot of people these days actually don't think about who they sleep with. In my highschool, when I graduated at 17, I believe there was about 3 out of 14 girls (approx), that were still virgins. One which was me. This is a very high number of girls who have already slept with one or possibly (most likely) several different guys.
A lot of girls (and guys) are definately quick to make decisions when it comes to sex. Guys and girls will have sex for a variety of reasons. Most which shouldn't be good reasons at all. I have three friends my age which already have a baby and are trying to support a child when they are still teens themselves. I wouldn't say four partners is an accurate average, for everyone is different, parts of the world are different and you can't always survey everyone. I guess it is accurate for whoever got those results from whomever.
Advice when it comes to having sex: know the persons background (Who have they slept with already? Do they have a bad history in relationships? Etc.), be able to relate on all levels: personal, friendship, spiritual, mental, and physical (not the most important), have common ground, being completely honest with not only yourself, but with your partner (essential!), knowing you can trust that he won't leave you once you have the sex... and NEVER ever have sex based on the fact that you "think" you are in love with them. You have to "know". 'Know' meaning: you have all the above mentioned things with this person and you are being completely true to not only yourself, but to him.
You can never tell right away if any guy is a good person to have sex with. As you may know, it takes time to tell who a person really is. Know that: one guy who has slept with one girl, could have actually slept with many people. For example: if the one guy had sex with the one girl and she had sex with two guys before him... the first guy just had sex with three people (not meaning to). If you don't know who your partner slept with, you could catch something unwanted too. Therefore, trusting your inner judgement, using your knowledge and choosing wisely is the most important advice
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