This topic is so interesting to me. My husband and I have been together since our freshman year of college (15 years ago). We met as virgins, and have never been with anyone since. We weren’t virgins for any particular reason, we’re not terribly religous people. It’s just that we’d never really met anyone we’d wanted to have sex with until then!
So, the issue of previous sex partners has never come up. But about 5 years ago, I found out that he had a “fling” with a girl at the beginning of freshman year. No sex was involved, just a lot of “making out”. I had no idea of this. He’d always told me he’d “never done anything” with this girl. (Almost all the other guys on our floor had.) I took “never done anything” to mean never done anything but he seemed to mean anything involving genitals.
I was stunned.
Why was I stunned? It was 10 years ago! He hadn’t fucked her! What was my problem? I was stunned at the story and stunned by my reaction. My husband was stunned, too. In some part of my brain, it felt as though he had cheated on my. (God, this sounds so prudish. I’m really not a prude. I just happen to have been with the same guy since I was 17 and haven’t wanted to cheat on him.)
I guess the problem I have with “previous lovers” is that it somehow seems to violate the “sanctity” of relations I have with my SO. Sex to me is something really special. Sacred, actually. And to think of my SO’s heart having been that open with someone who wasn’t me makes it feel like what’s happening between us isn’t as special as I thought it was.
Does that make any sense? Ugh. I’m wishing I hadn’t “shared” so much now.
That said, I truly don’t have a problem with Stoidela’s attitude. I think she shows a REMARKABLE amount of self-assurance and I wish I could be that secure inside my head.
Besides, she’s got the coolest web site in the world. (I was just plugging it to some friends at dinner the other night, Stoidela.)