You think you have met the right person, the one who checks all the boxes, personality, complicity, life objectives … But now, a detail is getting you down. On the sexual side, you are not at all at the same time! Whether it (or it) is much more experienced, or on the contrary, has known only one love, is a fact that takes up a lot of space. Or even obsess you, or blocks you. But why put so much meaning on this encrypted data?
The “Body Count”, a fact that means everything and nothing
First, it seems that this Count body – is the number of sexual partners in his life – is today a data that is exposed (too) easily. The result is Internet users who are all proud to give a significant number, or on the contrary, ready to judge that of others. A count that is “often sexist in terms of women.
In reality, according to the latest Inserm survey – Anrs -Mie on the sexuality of the French, the account is more reasonable: women would have on average in their lifetime 7.9 sexual partners. When men admit 16.4 on average too. And if obviously, some epicureans can really combine conquests, the number of partners is also often a taboo, even false figure. Thus according to another LELO survey carried out in 2024, 31% of participants (40% men and 22% women) tend to minimize the number of sexual partners in their past, while 31% (38% men and 23% women) recognize it frankly. What if it was a fact that only concerns the person?
Why do we give so much credit to the number of ex-players?
The fact remains that the number of ex announced by your new lover, if it is very far from yours, can quickly become a pebble in the shoe. Information that can make you uncomfortable. But why, if all is well? For the sexologist Paolo Furgiuele, this occurs mainly because the number of partners is often perceived as a value indicator. Who can highlight experience, desirability, or on the contrary, supposed instability.
“But it is in my opinion a very anchored cultural projection which is reinforced by gender stereotypes. For example the man is” valued “by his conquests, while the woman is sometimes deemed negatively“.
That’s not all. In this discrepancy is also played something deeper “Who touches our self -confidence rather than the relationship with the other …”
Thus receive this active information several fears such as comparison (“Am I as well as the previous ones?“), the fear of being judged (“Will I seem too wise or too fickle?“), and sometimes the anxiety of an imbalance of power in the relationship.
More or less partners, a gap that cannot be exceeded?
But concretely, to meet a person who has accumulated adventures, or who, on the contrary, has known only long relationships (and therefore few partners) create a real difference on the pillow? An incompatibility? Not at all, for our sexologist.
“This is not the number of partners that determines the quality of the love or sexual link but the way we experience the relationship with the present. The couples in which there is a large gap also work very well if everyone accepts their history and that of the other.”
In reality, dysfunctions arise when this discrepancy becomes a pretext for fueling insecurities already present.
Or or she has a past so what?
You hold the person and this relationship. So perhaps, you have to take a step back, so as not to be “blocked” on a figure. The sexologist explains it to us in three stages:
- First, it should be remembered that in this case, the past of the other is not a threat but a construction which led it to the current relationship (to you!). It can therefore be perceived as a wealth;
- Then we could move the question and say that what is important is that we live together here and now;
- Finally, if the comparison remains invasive, it may be useful to verbalize your insecurity with your partner and hear that you are desired and chosen, soothes much more than a reassuring figure. And why not be accompanied to discuss it …
And can be repeated as a mantra: “In love, the number of past partners weighs little in the face of the quality of the present experienced together“.