Recently there was a silly movie called ‘What’s your number?’ Don’t worry if you don’t remember it, it isn’t worth seeing or remembering. But the premise of the movie caught my attention. Here is the IMDB synopsis;

A woman looks back at the past twenty men she’s had relationships with in her life and wonders if one of them might be her one true love.

Got that? A woman who realizes she has had twenty relationships/lovers/boyfriends reads (in some magazine) that she has had too many relationships/lovers/boyfriends to find true love. She sets off to find all of her old boyfriends, convinced that she has missed the love of her life. I am not even going to touch the premise of the move, so insulting is it. Go ahead and fume at home. I have other things to talk about.

It got me thinking. What is in that number? You may not know this, but I know my number. I’m going to tell you what it is in a moment. First, what does this number mean to you? Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are not judged on it. According to a recent poll:

Cosmopolitan and AskMen.com recently surveyed thousands of women and asked them what they considered to be a woman’s “slut number”: 37 percent said it was 20 sexual partners, 35 percent said it was 10, and 16 percent said it was 50. Just 9 percent of respondents said a woman can never be a slut.

What is wrong with this? First, the terminology. “Slut number”? Really? I have never seen an episode of Sex and the City, but I know the archetypes of the women portrayed, and I’d rather be a Samantha than a Carrie any day. ANY DAY. Do you know how grateful I am for my number? Each person who makes up that number has been a learning experience. I know what works for me and what doesn’t, what turns me on and what turns me off. I know how to vocalize all those things to my partner. I also know what men like even when they don’t know how to vocalize it.

But many of those sexual encounters were easily forgotten, and for that I am little wistful. Too much time with a sexually incompatible partners led to boredom, and a jaded view of sex. All of this before I married my (now) ex at 25. (For reference, I did not start having sex until I was 18). Even my ex and I weren’t sexually compatible. That should be no surprise to anyone. I don’t care how bad things are in your marriage, if you are having hot sex things are usually going to work out. Now, again I have to stop and say this. That is not a dig at my ex, nor a comment on his sexual performance. It is only a statement that we were not sexually compatible. It led to a loss of closeness in our marriage early on and loss of intimacy near the end.

Back to my number. Ahem.

I look at my daughter. Do I want her to have the same number? The honest answer is ‘I don’t know’. Is she having sex because she is comfortable with her sexuality and her body or is she having sex to fill an empty void left by someone or something? If it the former, then go get busy. If it is the latter, then slow down and have look at what is wrong. Also, do not start having sex until you are 30. Thanks.

I reject the idea that women have a slut number. I reject the idea that I am ashamed of my number because it is high. I reject the idea that I forfeited true love by sleeping with more than a certain number of people. I reject the idea that I have found my sexual soul mate (because if that’s true, men, you need to step up your game. No joke.) and discarded him, I reject the idea that I won’t find my sexual other half. And above all I reject Anna Faris movies.

So what is my number?

40 (39 of those before I married at 25) 

Seem high to you? Well, I am taking a walk down my sexual memory lane as I write this. And I am smiling. This is all that matters to me.

Bring on number 41.