Can you have had too many lovers? Is there a moment when you are suddenly seen as damaged goods, as a result of too many bruising sexual encounters?

Oscar Wilde said he could resist everything except temptation, and the denial of pleasure is very much a part of our culture. It’s a basic tenet of the Catholic mindset. If something is enjoyable, it’s generally wicked. Naughty, but nice. If you can forego the tasty tiramisu or the sexy stranger, you are a good person.
These days very few of us expect our partners to have had no prior sexual experience. Except in the case of people in their late teens, the working assumption tends to be that people have been there, done that. However, while most of us are quite happy with the idea of a sexual past, we nonetheless tend to operate along a morally relativistic sliding scale of how much experience is desirable or acceptable.
The number of lovers you’ve had becomes a benchmark of what kind of person you are. Of course, what’s acceptable in another all depends on how much experience we have had ourselves. The older we get and the more notches we add to the bedpost, the more flexible our attitudes become.
When I was about twelve years old, I decided that marriage was not for me. A house in the suburbs and 2.5 children lacked the excitement I had planned for my future self. Several lovers seemed a more thrilling prospect than just one husband. I decided I would have ten lovers before reforming my wicked ways and settling down. Ten struck me as a good round number – enough to be experienced but not so many as to be regarded as sluttish. Then again, I also thought I would grow up to be blonde and busty – so unrealistic expectations may have been par for the course.
On a Sunday afternoon, walking hand in hand with Thomas, the Perfect Man, I thought it was time to quiz him on his sexual history. Like a fine wine, I wanted to know a bit more about his provenance. And who had taught him the tricks he can do with his tongue. She deserves a Christmas card from me at the very least.
It’s not every man that would put up with my shameless curiosity, but Thomas answered my questions and threw a good few back at me. Having spent the last three hours in bed, sex was very much on our minds. It was all going fine – we discussed preferences and favourite positions without any hesitation or embarrassment – until I asked him how many women he’d had sex with. He stopped in his tracks and clammed up. Did the Perfect Man have a dark past? I wanted to know more.
Since we’d been very open, it struck me as odd that Thomas didn’t want to tell me how many people he’d shagged. Had he frittered away his college days actually studying, or was I merely one in a cast of thousands? Short of spiking his coffee with truth serum, there was no way of finding out.
But I did want to know why he was so reluctant to talk numbers. He said it was private, and fair enough, it probably is. Then he told me he had no desire to know how many people I had been with. Oh dear…
According to the 2004 Durex Global Sex Survey, most of us average just over ten lovers in a lifetime. If I’d stuck to my original plan, I would have been bang on the money. As it turns out, I got greedy. Not enough to get me hauled before the European Commission on charges of monopoly, but I’ve claimed more than my fair share of the (free) market.
I feel no need to explain or apologise for this. Sex is wonderful and for the most part, so were the men I’ve slept with. But since Thomas seemed to want to avoid any knowledge of my sexual history, I began to wonder if he would actually be shocked by my debauched past?
By the following Tuesday, I had worked myself into a bit of state. I convinced myself that Thomas was practically a spotless saint. Granted, the boy may know a thing or two about pleasing a woman, but in my irrational state I was gone beyond assuming that he must have had lots of practise. I mean, maybe he was just a natural?
Like a dog with a bone, I kept bringing up the numbers issue. Thomas twigged that this was really bothering me and decided to answer my question. Well, was I shocked! Turns out he’s shagged more than twice as many people as I had estimated. The Perfect Man was human after all. Or should that be superhuman? What a relief! Just goes to show, you can never tell with the quiet ones.
It’s always struck me as odd that our sexual experiences are tied in with issues of morality, but there’s no doubt that they still are – that even people who think of themselves as liberated have strange misgivings that they cannot entirely control. Although the social landscape has changed significantly over the last thirty years, sex is still intertwined with the idea of sin. Thus, when it comes to revealing the number of people we’ve had sex with, many of us tend to be flexible with the truth. Depending on who is asking, we may add or subtract from the real total. So, in the end, you are always left with the conundrum of whether to believe what you’re told or not. Unless, of course, he gives you their telephone numbers (now there’s an idea!).
All this hedging is ridiculous when you think about it. The number of people we’ve shagged with doesn’t affect our intelligence, our sense of humour or how generous we are. A colourful sexual history doesn’t make us more likely to commit random acts of violence or be mean to old ladies on the bus. Some people may simply have more wild oats to sow than others. The question is, does it really matter? I don’t think so. Sex is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Spread the joy.