Let’s say you make an acquaintance through work. You get along well at the office, and during a few post-work outings the two of you get along even better. There’s no hint of sexual tension; you simply like this person. As you start hanging out more and more, it comes to your attention that your new friend has had hundreds of sexual partners, obviously mostly casual. The new acquaintances doesn’t boast about it or speak ill of those partners, and you have no reason to think that the friend was engaging in unsafe sex or prostitution.
Does this give you pause? If so why? Does it matter if you and the friend are the same sex?
When answering, please give your approximate age (± 10 years) and sex.
Almost anyone who’s had a decent number of friends has a friend or two like that. I’ve known several. I was one guy’s wingman for a while, which was an interesting few years.
Everyone’s got their secrets and foibles. Having lots of sex partners is pretty tame, assuming they were all consenting adults. Why would I even care if they were having unsafe sex or were former prostitutes? In fact, I know a former prostitute.
'Twould be more interesting of a question if you said “Date/Marry”.
I would have no problem them being my friend (throw some my way buddy??), but if she was my girlfriend it would be a lot harder to look past. I could probably do it, since I would care more about her than her history; but it would definitely give me pause.
I have no interest in judging anyone based on how many people they’ve slept with. I also don’t think they’d have time to be my friend, since they’re prolly a porn star who’s working every day.
The mere fact that they’d had hundreds? Wouldn’t bother me, though I suppose I’d think twice before sharing a glass with them :-P.
Age: 25.
I’d expect that someone who had hundreds of sexual partners (especially if they’d done so by my age) would not be my kind of person (also see Diogenes and Joey P), but there are always exceptions and the promiscuity itself would never be the issue.
Having hundreds of sexual partners is neither cool nor uncool, in the same way that having few or none is neither cool nor uncool. At any rate, it would not affect my ability to be friends with them. Why should it? I judge people on their kindness and consideration, not how many people they make the happy fun naked times with.
I was friends with a girl in high school who had moved from interstate. At one point she revealed to me that she had been extremely promiscuous where she came from although there was no sign of it at our school. I talked to her about it a little but she was pleased that I took no more interest than if she had had an interesting hobby. Actually this is the first time I have ever mentioned it since.
I don’t see why I’d care. I might wonder what about them led them to be so far out of the bell curve for normal numbers of partners, especially if they were close to my age(~30). That’s a lot for someone who has only been an “adult” for ~12 years. Most of the people I know who’ve had anywhere that number of partners were doing it because they had commitment issues and/or self esteem issues and didn’t even try for anything longer-term. I don’t believe humans are a pair-mating species overall, but everything since the agricultural revolution has driven towards long-term relationships, and there is significant societal pressure also. If it were a woman, I admit, I’d have a stronger reaction due to the norms of female sexual biochemistry. One of the main effects of sex on the female is a release of oxytocin, also known as the human pair bonding hormone. Typically women experience bonding desires when they have sex, whereas a man, lacking as many receptors for oxytocin, may bond less. It has long been known by empirical evidence that women are more likely to bond with people they have sex with than men are, we’re just starting to understand the biochemistry of it. This is not to make a moral judgment about male and female bonding via sex, just a biological observation.
It would be a point of interest, and make me watch for signs of self esteem or stability issues, but I don’t see it being a serious barrier to friendship.
I’d have no problem with it I’m 26 so that would work out ~8 years of sexual activity or just a little over a partner a month at a minimum. I’ve known several people on that pace and all it does it encourage me that I can be a man-whore too and I try to pick up tips and tricks form them.
I wouldn’t care, and it wouldn’t make a nickel’s worth of difference which sex they were. I’m 49 and female.
I don’t get why people would be uptight about this. A lot of people I know had wild fun sex lives “back in the day”, settled down later and are perfectly bland suburban marrieds. You’d never even know they had all that sex years ago.
The issue for me in the OP’s circumstances isn’t the number of sex partners; it’s that the “confessional” work acquaintance will almost ineluctably lead to some kind of shitshow or another.
