June 22, 2011 by Gina B.
Do You Fret About It, or Forget About It?
Since it's hump day, I'm just going to jump right in with a barrage of questions about sex.
Do you know how many sex partners you've had? And if so, what do you think of your number? Do you think you need more experience? Or do you shudder when you think of the staggering amount of notches in your bedpost? Hell... do you even care?
I was thinking of this topic when I recently revisited a novel written by my friend Karyn Bosnak.
20 Times a Lady (soon to be a motion picture titled "What's Your Number?" starring Anna Faris) is about a woman whose 20th sexual encounter was a heinous entanglement with a former boss. After reading an article that says that the average person has 10.5 partners in their lifetime, the protagonist feels that she's reached her allotted quota of sexual partners, and embarks on an excursion to locate her exes, and determine whether one of them might be "the one."
Karyn was inspired to write the book to keep people from feeling guilty about their numbers, and to have no regrets. Karyn and I
share the opinion that it's not healthy to revisit a bad relationship just to keep the numbers low.
During our show on WCIU.com, I polled my fellow Brown Chicks about this topic, and there seem to be a few schools of thought about how we think about our numbers of partners.
Some of us know our exact numbers, and feel that we should be mindful and selective of who we include on our roster.
Others have algorithms that keep them from counting certain partners, therefore protecting themselves from feeling
badly about occasional – or regular – bouts of slutty behavior. (Some of us call this "denial," but who am I to judge?) A few don't care. They don't keep count because they don't feel that it's a relevant statistic.
There is no right answer – as long as you're protecting yourself and making decisions that you can live with, your journey to finding "The One" is a personal mission.
I do encourage you add 20 Times a Lady to your summer reading list, and to watch the Six Brown Chicks' colorful conversation here. Let us know what you think! We love reading and responding to your comments, so please don't be shy.