I must admit, reading Her Campus has quickly become one of my favorite pastimes. Whether it’s scanning the “Campus Cuties” section to see if any of my fraternity brothers have recently made the site (Note: Andy King, David Dupra), or seeing the accolades of articles that pop up in my Facebook feed, I can’t help but see why there is such a buzz around this online periodical. I am, by my own account, oblivious to a lot of things when it involves the opposite gender. Maybe it’s a lack of observation or a lack of understanding, but reading Her Campus has certainly helped me in some regard to this issue. Recently, I read an article that actually sparked a lot of debate amongst my group of friends. The article, “A Guy’s Body Count: How High is too High,” provided a few benchmarks for whether or not a guy has slept with too many individuals. Things like having a “number as high as one’s age” or embarrassment were some of the examples. My question, however, is what if the roles were reversed?
What if, instead of gauging how high a man’s body count was, we were to look at the opposite situation; how high is too high for a woman’s number of sexual partners? This became a rampant source of debate as I quickly polled a few of my friends in my fraternity as well as some peers in my classes. The most noticeable trait, which held for both male and female opinion, is that there is a significant double standard between male and female sexual encounters. Nearly everyone I spoke with was comfortable with a guy having slept with more women than the reverse scenario. I realized even my own view was skewed. I don’t like to talk about my personal life, especially when it comes to sex, but I realized that I was more comfortable with a partner who had had fewer encounters than me. Even when I pointed out the double standard to some of my peers, their opinion did not change. For some reason it was expected that men would have more partners than women and this was acceptable. This brings me to the next question of, why? Why is there such a strongly held belief that a man’s number is naturally above a woman’s?
There is any multitude of reasons as to why a man is expected to have more sexual encounters than a woman. Maybe it’s the college hookup phenomenon, maybe it’s the appearance of ease, or perhaps it’s still a hangover from the 20th century portrayal of men and women. Whatever the reason, it still brings up an interesting question regarding gender differences. If a man has a high body count, why is it viewed as an achievement, whereas with women, it’s a negative trait? After giving this more thought, I’ve realized that there might not even be a gauge for “How many is too many.” An individual’s sexual encounters are completely dependent on that individual’s preferences and I don’t think an all-encompassing rule such as age or embarrassment can be a true measure. I know guys (and women for that matter) who have been in the double digits for a few years now. I also know individuals who have just recently lost their virginity. Neither situation in my opinion is wrong, but if something is going to apply to one gender it should most certainly apply to both. As long as individuals are being safe about their actions, then I see nothing wrong with having a higher than average count; but again, it’s a subjective matter and no threshold can really be quantified as to how much is too much.
As far as the benchmarks given for what is too high of a number, I think the most intriguing was the embarrassment rule. I took this to mean that the individual was embarrassed to tell their partner or felt guilty relative to their partner’s experience. Again, this issue of subjectivity comes up. Often times, embarrassment is all based on reaction. So if you’re with someone less experienced, then you might feel embarrassed to share your number but feel completely comfortable around someone with more experience. This subjectivity really is the root of why I do not believe you can give a concrete number that pertains to every sexually active individual.