I wrote a text about this before. I still hate the phrase ‘body counts’ but I saw the replies and they made me think that I should approach the subject differently — with more understanding and guidance. Let’s talk about solutions and being better men. Let’s talk about courage. Let’s talk about what’s right for you.
Many guys are pretty critical of women who have had many lovers. And many others are pretty critical of them. It all tends to descend into the usual hate game that has no solution and leaves everybody worse off.
I am not here to call men who have a preference for chastity insecure, fragile or toxic. Neither will I talk about how this affects women. If that’s what you’re after, you can easily find lots of content which takes that line.
I am here to say that the real reason behind this ‘preference’ is a worry that’s just as valid as any other emotion. Many guys keep it hidden and suffer in silence. But as with any emotion, we need to take charge of it and make it work for, not against us.
I know what it feels like but I have conquered this fear and today I will show you how you can it, too. It hides behind a veneer of ‘rationality,’ so I will start by stripping it away with logical arguments. This will feel like some tough love for a moment, but by the end you will see the truth underneath and know what to do.
Disclaimer
Before I dive in, full disclosure. Until I was 25, I only had two lovers and was pretty shy. Then, I did some serious work on myself. My partner and I worked on our relationship and decided to open up. Now, I am part of a very open community in the most open city in Europe. I have slept with a lot of people and been in long-term non-monogamous relationships for over a decade.
If any of this makes you want to disagree without reading, your choice. But my arguments are just as good, whoever I am. Some principles stay the same. They certainly allowed me to have great relationships and intimate life, and they apply to people who want a traditional family just as much.
But research shows that many young men actually want non-monogamy and the kind of life I live, so maybe you’re on board already.
Regardless, this is a pretty heavy topic so if you’re still reading, make sure you’re ready to keep your mind open.
Yes, men can have preferences on ‘body counts’
First, I want to recognise that there are perfectly legitimate reasons to have a personal preference for dating people who haven’t had too many lovers. It might be what your religion requires. Even if you’re not religious, you might think that intimacy is sacred and would find it hard to be with a person for whom it is not. Or you might not be a very sensual person and worry that being with someone who is would make both of you unhappy. Or dozens of other reasons.
That’s perfectly fine. It’s hard to be with someone who’s life priorities and values are incompatible with yours in any area. Say, she is a big family person but you hate family events. Or she’s very spiritual but you think it’s all mumbo-jumbo. Or she wants pets, kids and a house in the suburbs, and you want to travel, party and not be tied down. It’s OK to prefer to be with somebody whose goals and values are more aligned with yours.
If that’s all there is to it, you can simply have an honest conversation about it and calmly decide how to move forward. You might say something like:
Hey, this is a bit of a hard topic, are you OK to talk? You see, intimacy is a sacred thing to me, I’m kind of saving it for those who really matter. I know other people have a more casual approach and I’m not judging, everyone can live their life however they want, but it’s just not what I’m looking for in a relationship. What’s your thoughts on that?
Ah.
Well, it’s better to know now than later, once we’ve become more invested. Thank you for sharing and for wanting to be with me, but I think that we might not be best for each other. Perhaps we can just be friends.
That is how a mature, confident man approaches the topic. He’s in charge of his emotions, he is smart enough to bring this up before things get complicated, he makes a rational judgment, and he is respectful throughout.
He doesn’t get angry. He doesn’t call her names. He doesn’t tell everyone how loose she is. He doesn’t go online to rave how all women are horrible. He doesn’t start a podcast to prove to women how they will all die sad and alone because no guys will have them.
My text is not about this guy. He’s got it sorted.
My text is about all the men who do get angry, who do call names, and who get into endless discussions trying to rationally prove the superiority of their preference.
Because I don’t think they’d be so intense about it if it was all just rational arguments and preferences. If it were, they’d just do what the mature, confident man would do. No. This is about something deeper.
Something that controls them.
The argument
The argument that usually gets brought up is made to sound rational and benevolent.
Dear women. You shouldn’t sleep around because one day you will want a husband but won’t find one because men might sleep with you but they sure won’t marry you.
Honestly, it’s touching how selfless and kind this message is.
Let’s pick it apart.
#NotAllMen, #NotAllWomen
Only 87% of women are completely straight. Of the remaining straight women, 24% say they prefer being single but let’s say only a third of them really do. Thus, about 20% can simply not care what men want.
Most men might expect some level of chastity, but not all. Those in non-monogamous circles certainly don’t and and trust me, there are many of us (12% in the US). I’d wager at least 10% of monogamous men also don’t care (at least in the Global North). Thus, another 20% of women will find a partner without much trouble. More, as polyamorous men are perfectly happy to date more than one woman.
Finally, a large portion of the remaining men will cave in in the end. After all, men hate being lonely more than women. I’d wager more than half might not like it but they’ll do it. Thus, another 30% of women will eventually find a partner anyway.
That means that most women have no actual reason to worry about ending up alone. Thus, if we’re honest, the argument should say:
Dear straight women: you shouldn’t sleep around because one day many of you will want a husband, many won’t match with men who don’t mind your past, and some of the other men will actually stay true to their resolve not to marry you.
At this point, you can see how women might just say: thanks for the warning, we’ll take our chances. Particularly if they’re smart, fun and hot, and thus might have the first pick of the men who don’t mind.
But there are reasons!
Wait, this isn’t about some stats! It’s about what’s right and wrong. There are rational reasons which show that having fewer lovers is better.
And you know what? I’m ready to concede that indeed, there are some such reasons. I just don’t think they’re particularly strong. Let’s look at some:
Biology
Men have an evolutionary interest in ensuring paternity and thus want to prevent women they have kids with from sleeping with other men.
This is a surprisingly weak argument. It doesn’t apply if you don’t want kids. It doesn’t apply to past lovers — we can all count months. It also doesn’t apply to present ones — we have contraception and paternity tests.
You can argue that none of this negates how men evolved to think. But the history of humanity is a history of using our brains to transcend nature: we didn’t evolve to work at a computer, travel to space, or eat refined sugar. We can cope with all that, so why not with sleeping around? Besides, there is good evidence that humans, like most great apes, evolved to be polygamous, and monogamy is a cultural, not natural invention. Either way, the solution is to rise above our natural or culturally ingrained instincts and ensure paternity using our brains and technology.
STIs
Women who sleep around have a higher chance of contracting diseases and I don’t want to get them.
To be fair, if people who did in fact contract an incurable STI can’t find a partner because of that, it’s tragic. But the risk that you will get it from a woman you want a relationship with, is miniscule if you take simple precautions: ask her to get tested and use condoms until you know the result. And even then, most diseases are curable. It’s not hard. And sure, even then there is still some tiny chance you’ll get something. But there’s a tiny chance you’ll die every time you sit in a car, yet we all take this and other reasonable risks every day without making a fuss about it.
She’s Got Issues
Women who sleep around are likely to have drug problems, traumatic childhood, have been abused, etc. This makes them difficult partners.
Statistically, this effect exists. But the problem here is not sleeping around — it’s all those other things. Neither does sleeping around cause such issues — typically, the causes are deep in the woman’s childhood and are not her fault. The solution is not to police her intimate life — it’s to help her resolve those issues. Naturally, that’s a big commitment and any guy is well within his right to say he’s not able or willing to do so. But if that’s the case, he’s not who she needs anyway, so why would she care what he thinks about her intimate life?
Instability
Relationships where partners had more lovers are more likely to break up, so they’re just bad investments.
Statistically, that’s true. But why? Most women don’t leave on a whim but because something is making them unhappy. If they’re experienced, they are more likely to know that it doesn’t have to be like this, and leave. But the way to solve this should surely be to address the thing that makes her unhappy, not to only go out with women who will agree to being unhappy because they don’t know they don’t have to be. And in those rare cases where women do leave on a whim — good riddance! Sounds like someone you wouldn’t want to be with anyway.
A cart before the horse
Like I said, it’s not that none of those reasons matter. And perhaps I’m missing some details. But they just aren’t that strong. They all have better solutions than requiring abstinence. If we want to approach them rationally, we should rather be focusing on perfecting those solutions.
Which brings me to my main point. I don’t think that any of those rational reasons are what is really doing the work here.
It’s not: ‘I heard those rational reasons, they informed my judgment, and now I think sleeping around is wrong.’
It’s the other way around: ‘I don’t like it, so let’s find reasons why it’s wrong.’
Deeper than reason
People generally don’t get so passionate about rational arguments or argue so intensely purely out of concern that others might end up alone. No, such a strong reaction indicates that at the bottom of it is something much more primal than reason: emotions.
There is nothing weird or bad about it. It’s just human. We have all evolved to have emotions and we are all massively affected by them. We all have the tendency to just not like something, to have an emotional reaction, and then find ourselves reasons to justify it.
I know I’ve done it a million times, so I’m certainly not going to throw stones at anyone here. And I dare anyone who would — are you truly without sin?
Guys might say they’re oh-so-stoic and don’t care about emotions, but this whole affair is prime evidence that it’s just not true.
Because how does hearing about a woman’s adventurous past make many men feel? I think it is summed up in this gif:
Men who shun experienced women worry that they will not be special. That someone might have been a better lover than them. That they will be not enough. That the woman will realise that and leave them for somebody better.
Behind the veneer of rational arguments is fear, plain and simple.
And there is no stronger motivator than fear.
Men’s emotions are valid
What you are probably expecting now, is another woke person to come and laugh at you. Oh no, poor fragile insecure man! Maybe if you were a better lover, she wouldn’t have left you!
Such a lazy reply says something about the speaker. It says they are more interested in feeling smug and powerful than addressing the problem. What happened to ‘your emotions are valid?’
I think that it is perfectly understandable for men to have this fear. The society puts massive pressure on us to find and keep partners. We’ve been taught to tie our self-worth with having a family we can protect and provide for. If I can’t find, keep, and satisfy a partner, I’m less of a man. Guys will laugh. People will talk. I’ll feel like a failure.
No wonder guys feel worried! But then comes the next layer — admitting to being afraid is the same as admitting weakness and male gender norms say that men can’t be weak.
It’s a catch-22! To get rid of the fear that I’m less of a man I’d need to admit to having it, but admitting to having it also makes me less of a man!
So we rationalise our fear and hide it behind a veneer of ‘rational arguments.’
But that’s just sweeping the problem under the carpet. It’s no real solution. The real solution is to check out of the pressures society puts on us.
Those pressures exist because we hold on to old values and life scripts developed in a different time. Today, people don’t want to settle young — we want to learn, develop careers, enjoy life. Many of us don’t want kids, we’ve got technology, contraception and medicine, and being single just isn’t as hard as it used to. And today, we know what horrible toll hiding emotions has on our mental health and people are increasingly accepting of men expressing themselves.
The Solution
But it’s not easy to check out of those pressures. We grew up with and internalised them. Whatever we do, they still keep playing in the back of our minds. D.B. Sayers, captured it perfectly in this comment:
We are stubbornly clinging to “our rock,” while someone on shore is shouting, “drop the rock, you’ll swim better.” To which, unfortunately, too many of us shout back, “but it’s my rock.”
This is the first part of the solution:
1. Drop the rock
We should change the scripts we live by to match the changing reality — Have the courage to break out of the old pressures and show the middle finger to anyone who expects you to play by outdated rules or shame you for having emotions. Strength is not falling in line with what they want from you. Strength is doing the right thing whatever they say.
This is the kind of thinking that helped me do it. It’s not about doing what women want me to do — it’s about realising that I’m playing a role in a system that’s designed to keep me down and playing Rage Against The Machine on repeat in my mind:
So don’t do it for me, or for women, or for some abstract idea. Do it for yourself. Do it to free yourself from worry. Because pointless worries suck. They eat us from the inside, get in our heads and make us fail.
They become self-fulfilling prophecies — you could have a great relationship with a woman who might have had more lovers, but this fear just gnaws on you and makes you do and say things you wish you haven’t said and done, and then… well, she leaves — except it’s not because of the past lovers, but because of all those things you’ve said and done out of that fear.
This video sums it up way better than I could:
I know very well that even when we rationally see that this is daft and we shouldn’t feel so worried, it is genuinely hard not to. But if you run away from your fear, it will also work against you.
This is the second part of the solution:
2. Face your fear.
It is hard to be in charge of our emotions. It’s much easier to just run away. To simply not date women who would ever put you in a situation where you need to look your fear in the eye and sort it out. It’s much easier to tell those women to not sleep around. Make it their problem, not yours.
But your emotions are yours to deal with. Nobody else will deal with them for you. Nobody has any duty to make sacrifices so that you don’t need to face your fears.
Asking women to not sleep around makes about as much sense as asking all handsome men to stop working out. Or everyone who plays a game better than you to stop playing so well. Or more productive colleagues to stop working so hard.
It’s not weak to worry. What’s weak, is to refuse to master your fear and instead try to make it everybody else’s problem.
It’s not me who didn’t master my fear, she was just loose!
It’s not me who can’t play well, the game is just rigged!
It’s not me who failed to meet the targets again, my manager just hates me!
We all know people like that. Do you think it makes them attractive?
But you know what is attractive?
Courage
Courage is not about having no fear. It’s about being afraid but deciding to do the right thing anyway.
Have the courage to drop the rock, to stop playing the role society is forcing upon you and think for yourself. This role might feel comfortable and easy but it is dragging you down and preventing you from pursuing potentially amazing relationships.
Have the courage to look at the messed up system you’ve been brought up in and shout: Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
Have the courage to face your fear and trust her. To trust that even though she could have had who knows how many others, she decided to be with you because she thinks that you are awesome.
Have the courage to not try to control her, question her past, make her feel trapped, because every single time you do that, you give her another reason to think that actually, maybe you’re not as awesome as she thought.
But most importantly — have the courage to trust yourself. To trust that you are actually good enough and can be a great partner and lover. That you will satisfy her at least as well as others did. And if you have doubts about that, then have the courage to ask her how she wants to be loved, and to work, improve, and become the person you want to be.
Wherever you are
If you are in a relationship, trust that whatever she saw in you that made her fall for you — you have it and it is awesome. Have the courage to ask her what she loves about you and make it grow so you might become even more awesome.
If you are single and looking for love, have the courage to believe that you are lovable. Ask your friends what they think is attractive about you and make it grow so you might become even more awesome. Trust yourself to do the work that will make you confident and attractive.
But wherever you are in life, have the courage to admit that — like every single damn human on this earth — you have fears, you are not perfect, and you can be better. So have the courage to listen to others when they tell you how you can be better and to work on yourself to actually become better.
And if anyone in your life ridicules you for having fears and worries around dating, you have my blessing to tell them to fuck right off. Especially if they’re a feminist. People don’t get to tell men we should be more in tune with our emotions and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, but then ridicule us when we are. To those people I say: you are part of the problem.
Tough love, but love
So, can men have a preference for women who have only had a handful of lovers? Sure we can. Sometimes we have good reasons to and then we can simply talk about this openly with a prospective partner and make decisions that are best for us.
Sometimes all those ‘reasons’ are just what we say to cover the fact that we’re afraid we won’t be enough. And while some might ridicule us for this fear, I think it is perfectly understandable. It is OK to be afraid. What is not OK, is making your fear other people’s problem and going on a slut-shaming crusade on the way.
My piece might sound like some tough love, but it is more love than tough. I know that conquering this fear is really hard. I have been there.
Have the courage to drop the rock of social expectations which drags you down and prevents you from pursuing a better life for yourself. Have the courage to face your fears and trust in her love and your ability to grow. Take all the energy you spend on blaming others and put it into improving yourself and becoming the sort of person no sane woman would leave, however many lovers she had.
I’ve done it and you can do it, too.
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