# How many is too many (partners) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 16, 2000, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140 "2000-10-16T17:17:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Welfy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e56c9b/32.png) [@Welfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Welfy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2000, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/21 "2000-10-16T23:25:01Z")
If a guy had had any partner before me that he had slept with, it would be a turn-off for me. Virgins appeal to me, maybe since I’m one also. :^) ---
**Author:** ![Suo\_Na](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@Suo\_Na](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suo_Na)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/22 "2000-10-17T00:13:02Z")
Virgins are the best–they’re trainable! The OP: I figure around two or three a year, up to about 20, is enough. Any more than that and I wonder about your ability to develop relationships. I really don’t know why I feel this way, it could be that I don’t know enough men who sleep around, so have no way of judging. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/23 "2000-10-17T00:37:23Z")
A man cannot have too many sex partners. ---
**Author:** ![Malarky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b487fb/32.png) [@Malarky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malarky)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/24 "2000-10-17T00:51:09Z")
I personally think that if an 18-year old guy has more than 8 partners he qualifies as a man-whore…most guys I know who are that young and have had sex w/that many people already are walking STDs… But in my experiance, if a guy has had less than 3 partners (save this one guy who had one besides me but was AMAZING in bed) chances are he has no clue what he’s doing. So I feel good knowing that a guy has had less than 8 partners, and more than 3. But if he’s only had one other person and is still really really good, than I feel even better! ---
**Author:** ![dragonlady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@dragonlady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dragonlady)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/25 "2000-10-17T02:37:24Z")
I’m with 3Bunnymama, it depends alot on how old you are. When I was between 20 and 30, I worked as a bartender. The worst thing that could happen was getting pregnant or getting the clap(which was curable with one shot at the clinic back then.) I never got pregnant or any STD, but I really got around. It was fun, we were all single, no harm done. That was 10-20 years ago. I have been celibate since my SO died 5 years ago. Too many? Not enough? Who cares? It depends completely on the person and the circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![lolagranola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ea5d25/32.png) [@lolagranola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lolagranola)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/26 "2000-10-17T03:41:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spoke- \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > …three fourths of those were within one experimental 2 year period very early in my adulthood… > > Experimental, huh? So what were your “findings”? 😉 (I kid, I kid.) \*\* I discovered that it beat a night of Scrabble. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JuanDeCuba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a87d85/32.png) [@JuanDeCuba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JuanDeCuba)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/27 "2000-10-17T04:07:36Z")
I have to agree with Welfy on this one. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/28 "2000-10-17T05:12:39Z")
I don’t know if there could ever be an objective answer. I do know that at the beginning of things with my current lover, it was…not the FIRST time that I had had fears that I could no longer immerse myself in another person, that I would already be expecting it to end like all the others…well, that doesn’t seem to be an accurate, viable fear (if anything, I still disappear far too much and become subsumed in my relationships)…but it isn’t a good feeling just the same. ---
**Author:** ![Feynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@Feynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feynn)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/29 "2000-10-17T06:21:58Z")
Lola - youreally meant to say that I beat a night of Scrabble… right honey? It was a happy day when I knew I’d stopped counting even if I hadn’t reached my toes. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/30 "2000-10-17T11:05:48Z")
I, of course, have the opposite problem. How many is too few? Answer: zero is too few. And don’t I know it. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/31 "2000-10-17T13:10:11Z")
Boy is this a subjective question. Mrs Chance and I have been together since our freshman year in college. Me = five partners. Her = 3 partners. Seems OK to us. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/32 "2000-10-17T13:17:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Badtz Maru \* > \*\* > > I’ve only had sex with 7 women, and I am 28 - but I started at 22, and my list isn’t that respectable. \*\* Remeber Badtz, it’s the quality that’s important, not the quantity. The number of sexual partners, IMHO, tells you a little bit about that person. If a man has had 300 women, I can assure you that he didn’t care about _any_ of them. My roommate is a male slut, going after anything in a skirt. Sometimes he has 5 different women a week spend the night. It’s interesting that he started this tend after a painful break-up a couple of years ago. My theory is that he is simply avoiding the possibility of anything actually developing, relationship-wise, to keep from getting hurt again. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/33 "2000-10-17T15:04:22Z")
I think a large number of partners also suggests that sex is very, very important to a person. It takes work and dedication to bring home 5 different girls a week, and that means sacrificing a lot of other things. Now I like sex, but before my SO came along I really found a night with a good book and a masterbation session to be a lot more satisfying overall than spending hours trolling in a bar, making aimless small-talk, in order to possibly have a partner that night. To me, it semms like somebody wwith scads of partners isn’t leaving themselves time for many other intrests, and likely isn’t my type. ---
**Author:** ![thinksnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thinksnow/32/2849_2.png) [@thinksnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thinksnow)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/34 "2000-10-17T16:27:36Z")
I’m glad there is some dissent already, I figured there would be. Okay, so we’ve seen that some think 2-3 a year is fairly normal; others think the whole question is bogus and shallow; still others voiced that the issue of numbers could go for (or against) prowess and quality; and others like virgins. Well,I suppose I should have included, as yet another possible screening factor, the consideration of the partners age at their initiation to sex. For instance, I was 18 and a freshman in college. The “more experienced” people I knew in HS had been with maybe 5 people, though most were maybe with 2. Is there, in some peoples considerations, a waiver given for “experimental years?” There seems to be some indiction that some posters have had just that, be it years where they were with 20 people or 3, either being a banner year (or week) for the libido. What **manda JO** mentioned about the importance of sex to a person may have bearing, but only becaue it is something easily quantifiable. Saying you’ve been with **X** partners versus saying _I travel all the time_ or _I spend every waking hour figuring out how to get out West to go skiing or to the ocean to go SCUBA diving_ or _I’m really into my cats_ is more readily recognizable as a factor of some sort in someones life, perhaps. I don’t know. I’m not basing my life on the issue, nor shoudl anyone, I’m just interested because I’ve been asked the question before and I wondered at what point would the response become an issue. If it weren’t to be an issue, why ask? Does the question imply insecurity on my partners part or simply curiousity or, perhaps, they feel the need to ask me first so that they can, in turn tell me their history. Which is silly, as openness is the cornerstone of any solid relationship. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/35 "2000-10-17T20:42:50Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m just interested because I’ve been asked the question before and I wondered at what point would the response become an issue.\*\* At any point the response would become an issue, unless the response was the only correct one, for men or women: “none of your business.” That’s was the correct response before the sexual revolution, and during it, and, now after it, it may addended with an agreement to get tested for STD’s, but the details and stats are still not open to discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/36 "2000-10-17T20:55:26Z")
I can’t imagine why numbers would ever be an issue between mature adults. (In my experience, mature adults usually know better than to ask, anyway.) ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2000, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/37 "2000-10-17T23:44:30Z")
“I can’t imagine why numbers would ever be an issue between mature adults. (In my experience, mature adults usually know better than to ask, anyway.)” No, I don’t agree because mature adults must say how many there are in order for their partner to know what risk of STD there is. Of course, if you get a full STD test set, you may be exempt from this rule up to the point of the test results. If you want a long relationship with someone, you may not want to pick someone who had a lot of partners as that would indicate short relationships. Someone with a small number of partners might have had deep meaningful relationships that were for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2000, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/38 "2000-10-18T00:06:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by handy \* > \*\*.If you want a long relationship with someone, you may not want to pick someone who had a lot of partners as that would indicate short relationships. Someone with a small number of partners might have had deep meaningful relationships that were for a long time. \*\* And yet, I’ve know men and women who decided, after marriage, that they still had some wild oats left after all, and used a low pre-marital score to justify cheating. People ask personal questions like these for a lot of reasons, not just to gestimate the odds of STD’s (a clinic visit would do for that), or deciding the committment aptitude (sorry - there is no handicapping relationships like horse races). They ask personal questins so they can get some judgemental moral one-upmanship, or because they want a lever for emotional distancing, or because they want to tear their guts out with images of their loved ones en flagrante, or simply because they are jealous, which, IMHP, is a more dangerous vice than lust. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2000, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/39 "2000-10-18T12:38:06Z")
> [@](#): > > They ask personal questins so they can get some judgemental moral one-upmanship, or because they want a lever for emotional distancing, or because they want to tear their guts out with images of their loved ones en flagrante, or simply because they are jealous, which, IMHP, is a more dangerous vice than lust. Or because a person’s past is am important part of who they are, and the only way to get an idea of a pweosn’s past is to talk. I agree asking flat out for number is crude and pointless, but if after a decent amount of time you haven’t the foggiest idea how many partners your partner has had, well then it seems like some active deception must be going on. And if in the course of normal personal interactio I discover that my partner considers causual sex to be something well worth dedicating a lot of time to pursueing, well I am likely to take that as evidence that we have very different outlooks on a very important subject. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2000, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140/40 "2000-10-18T13:35:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Slithy Tove \* > \*\*They ask personal questins so they can get some judgemental moral one-upmanship, or because they want a lever for emotional distancing, or because they want to tear their guts out with images of their loved ones en flagrante, or simply because they are jealous, which, IMHP, is a more dangerous vice than lust. \*\* Gee, people ask personal questions for a lot more reasons than _that_. What about making sure value systems are compatible? One can make a judgement on whether someone is relationship potential without resorting to ‘judgemental one-upmanship.’ We all make judgements on who might be a suitable partner or not, on a variety of subjects. Why should sexual history be exempt? I mean, if I were a vegan, and I met someone interesting who it turns out worked on a veal farm, I think that would be important information, because it comes down to _values_. If Christianity is important to me, I might want to know if the woman I was dating was a pagan. Again, value systems. A person certainly has the right to believe that the tendency to sleep around is an incompatable point. Maybe you don’t see promiscuity as wrong, but what about someone that does? Doesn’t Person ‘A’ have the right to know, at least in general terms (I’m not talking about a scoresheet here), whether or not potential partner ‘B’ is or has exhibited behaviors that ‘A’ finds disturbing? Maybe those actions are ancient history, and ‘A’ decides it’s not important. Fine, but he/she has the right to make that call. On the other hand, If a person has a varied or extensive sexual history and doesn’t have any qualms about it, then asking for information would seem to be gratuitous. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-is-too-many-partners/37140.md?page=3)