1. It Depends
It depends on the guy. Some guys don’t care. Some guys view sex as a special thing done between two people who have a connection or something, and if a woman has had casual sex many times with many men, it would suggest they are not sexually compatible. Alternatively, some guys don’t view sex like that and prefer a more sexually free woman.
2. Yes
Anyway, plenty of guys do care. And personally, I did care until I had a sufficient number of sexual partners of my own. Not in a “Ugh, gross, this girl is a harlot!” way, but in a “This bums me out, and I’m probably better off seeing someone else” way.
For some reason, a lot of women have a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that men are sexually jealous to a greater degree than women. Every single survey gives the same result: when it comes to infidelity in relationships, the sexual component is what is most hurtful for a cheated male partner, and the emotional component is what is most hurtful for a cheated female partner.
Obviously, a person’s number of previous partners has nothing to do with infidelity. But is well known what men and women, respectively, are sensitive to.
Most likely, guys who care how many partners a girl has had, usually care because the “power disparity” bothers them. For the vast majority of guys, it is an obvious fact that most women wield far greater power in the “sexual marketplace” than they themselves do. For the average woman, all she has to do in order to “amass” a high partner count is to just say “Why yes, I would like to have sex with you.” when propositioned. Not so for the average man.
Personally, I got rid of my insecurity vis-a-vis “high partner count” by running up my own partner count. I didn’t do that consciously, but it struck me a few years down the lane that my own count had gotten high enough that I couldn’t possibly care what anyone else’s was.
3. Kind of
How much sex? Not exactly.
I do care about the partners and how that relates to her specific cadence and outlook on her sexuality.
4. “Such a thing as too many.”
I don’t care if they’ve fucked one partner three times a day for their entire adult life. Though I imagine you were talking about partner count, not sex count. It doesn’t matter to some guys, but it does to me. I don’t get why, but at 21 if you tell me you’ve been with 12 guys, it just turns me off.
5. A little
Sort of. There are diseases to consider. Plus it shows what kind of person she is. If she has a long history, she may not be very stable and make for a poor SO.
Not that there is anything wrong with being promiscuous.
— cv512hg
6. Yes
I certainly do. I mean, I understand if a girl/guy is “exploring their sexuality” or “being sexually free”. That’s fine.
But if this girl/guy is bringing a new person into the bedroom every week for months/years on end, there’s more going on there than just experimenting. It can be insecurities, a complex, whatever, but it’s a major red flag for me and I don’t want any part in that.
— krOneLoL
7. Yes
I do care:
One, it can get into territory where it’s unhealthy / self-harm / an expression of personal issues.
Two, it can indicate something about how much she sees sex and love as interconnected or not (200 partners by age 20 -> probably not), and I couldn’t be with someone who does not see them as closely connected.
8. It reflects different views
I would, yeah. I wouldn’t be offended or think it’s a bad thing if she’s been with lots of guys, but I would see it as evidence that we probably have incompatible views on sex.
— aseiden
9. Yes, because I don’t think sex is casual
It took me awhile to answer this cause I’m not quite sure how to state my position accurately. I’m answering this as a 25 year old virgin so I’m statistically in the minority there, but I just don’t see sex as something to be done that casually. I’d have to be in a committed relationship before having sex, and if I know ahead of time that she doesn’t see things that way then I can’t see anything happening between us outside of being friends or acquaintances or something.
— aseiden
10.
I do, but I’m really insecure
11. It really depends
It truly varies, for example
Personally I care if she’s had very few partners. I’m 48 and to me it just seems odd that a woman in my dating range has very limited sexual experience. In my experience it also often means she doesn’t really know what she likes sexually.
I have a friend who is 44 or 45 and if he could find a virgin he’d be thrilled. He admits is uncomfortable with a woman who has more sexual experience than he does.
— le_fez
12. Yes, I want experience
For me, I do in the sense that I want someone who’s had sex often enough before to be able to say they enjoy sex, know at least some of what they like (and maybe don’t like), and so I don’t have to deal with being that shitty first time. I honestly wouldn’t know how to take a girl’s first time without feeling at least a little bad about it. It’s also just more work in my view (and I accept that I could be completely wrong about this) to get a relatively inexperienced partner to open up to trying new kinks than someone who’s more experienced and I’m a lazy little shit who likes to keep work to a minimum.
— LulzGoat
13. At least some experience!
I generally prefer that the girl has had at least 1, preferably 2.
Its more fun if the girl knows what she is doing.
On the whole, I don’t really care, its just a vague sorta preference
14. Who you’ve banged says a lot about you.
It’s a judgement thing for me. The higher the number (for both sexes), the higher the odds that they have some regrettable bangs in their history.
I’m not interested in girls who give it up easy to guys I personally feel don’t deserve her.
The girl that went through a “daddy phase” where she was fucking 45 year old guys in her early 20s. The girl that fucked her dealer so she could score free drugs. The girl who fucked that guy from the bar, not because she found him particularly attractive, but he kept pushing for it and she just decided to give in.
If I was a straight woman I would have the same hangups about men.
It’s a judgement call. If you’re throwing your dick (or vagina) around – odds are there were some questionable partners in that group. And I’m not into girls that have a questionable sexual history.
Whether people want to admit it or not – your sexual history says a lot about you as a person.
15. It’s a mixed bag.
There are negatives and positives to being with someone promiscuous. The negatives are that you have to deal with their previous partners (which is much more dangerous if their previous partners were men), with jealousy, with the potential that they no longer consider sex special, and with the possibility that they will not respect you if you have had less sex than them. The positives are that they probably have traits that allow them to be promiscuous (such as assertiveness, confidence, or physical attractiveness), and that they probably know what they are doing in bed.
A lot of the negatives apply to men and women equally, although I think women are much more likely to disrespect men who are inexperienced than vice versa. However, I think that the positives are much more likely to matter to women. Women who have the traits necessary to be promiscuous are much more common than men (since traditional gender roles do not require women to be assertive or confident. And if you believe the OkCupid study, there are also more attractive women than their are men). But, aside from that, women benefit more from sleeping with someone who knows what they are doing in bed than men do. Most men are going to orgasm even if the woman is new to sex. But I doubt that the same is true when the situation is reversed. I think that has more to do with it than anything.
TLDR: Women are probably more likely to orgasm with a man who is experienced, so it makes sense for them to put up with the additional problems that come along with a promiscuous partner. Men are probably going to enjoy sex even if the woman is inexperienced, so the negatives outweigh the positives.
— TenOfOne
16. No two people have the same opinion
Definitely a person to person thing.
I don’t care at all. As long as you are clean and safe about it, I don’t give a shit. I live my life as promiscuously as I can when I’m not in a relationship, so I see no reason to judge a woman for doing the same thing.
17. To be honest…
Honest answer: It depends on what you are looking for.
If you are looking for someone who just wants to have casual sex with you, partner count is not much of a factor.
If you are looking for someone who will commit to a long term relationship, you are going to start running into some issues.
As to the “why” of the later point, it is complicated, and varies from man to man. As others have pointed out, merely having sex is a whole lot easier for women than men. So if a woman has a high partner count I am going to sort of assume that she is not very serious about commitment and probably not that picky. That basically makes me not anything that special to her. It is just my turn.
Also, while I am sure that there are some legitimately “sex positive” women out there, my overwhelming personal experience has been that women with a high partner count tend to have some sort of baggage driving that behavior. Mostly centered around a need for validation or some drive to constantly seek male attention. Daddy issues, in other words. Generally, the pattern this sets up is that things are essentially fine until the man in the equation gets super busy with work or something, or the couple has a fight. Then before you know it she is back to the old pattern of seeking male approval and attention and before you know it something “just happened” with that nice guy she met at the bar.
This is to just name a couple of reasons. The main point I am making is this: Like it or not, when it comes to finding a man that is willing to commit to you long term, partner count can still be a pretty big factor. That said, if what you are doing is looking to get laid, you should have very little trouble as long as you are reasonably attractive. At least well into your 30s.
18. I do
Some do, some don’t. I do.
Why?
I have never had sex. I think maybe after I’ve had sex, perhaps only after I’ve had sex with a handfull of different people, if that will ever even come to pass, I will view it differently. It’s just that I don’t know how to relate to someone who’s had sex with a bunch of different people. Basically, having no experience, in my head maybe having had a lot of sex makes… how you experience a relationship completely different. Does she love me or does she love sex?
That’s the major reason. There are a few minor reasons which are things like.. how it makes me self-conscious. I don’t like the idea of being compared, I don’t have any practice to make me any good at it, in fact I would probably be really awkward which I see as something an experienced woman wouldn’t want to put up with.
Sex in my inexperienced brain is somewhat antithetically supposed to be both a loving act where a lot of feelings are involved but also supposed to be a fun game/past-time. A person who sleeps around (aka. not someone who’s slept with the same person a thousand times), probably has a different idea of what sex is, probably only sees it as the fun and games part with no feelings involved. That would make me incompatible with a person who felt that way about the subject.
I think the same way for both men and women.
19. Don’t care, but experience is great.
Personally, I couldn’t give two bits if I tried. As long as we’re exclusive now, everyone before me I just consider practice before the main event.
And let’s be honest: I’d prefer an experienced woman over a virgin any day of the week. Never saw the appeal of innocence, I guess. I much prefer skill.
20. What am I looking for??
If I was looking at her as a serious girlfriend, yeah. If I was just interested and testing the waters with her, I couldn’t care less about where she’s been or what she’s done.
