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The Daily Cardinal Est. 1892
Friday, March 29, 2024
Pizza bird

The Dirty Bird: What’s yo name? What’s yo number?

Dear Alex,

My new partner is insistent on knowing how many people I’ve slept with before them. Do I have to tell them? Is it OK to lie?

—Contemplating Over-Under Number Truth 

Dearest COUNT,

No and no. 

There’s a great analogy I like to use in relation to a person’s “number.” Let’s say “Ted” eats a lot of pizza. Ted really enjoys pepperoni, mushrooms, pineapple and mac ’n’ cheese on his pizza. Ted does not like it when those toppings meet. However, Ted enjoys eating each one as much as he likes eating the others. His love for pepperoni pizza doesn’t take away from his love for mac ’n’ cheese pizza. 

Even if Ted used to love mushroom pizza but has now moved to eating exclusively pineapple pizza, he was happy loving mushroom when he did and is now completely satisfied by pineapple pizza, or else he wouldn’t decide to be so loyal to it. Right?

I don’t have to spell this one out for you guys: The different pizza toppings represent sexual partners, and yes, it’s possible to enjoy sex with many different people even if we’ve had similar fun with others before. 

So what do we do if our partner asks? We have several options! We can tell them or not tell them. We cannot lie. Techniques in not telling; avoiding the question, sharing the pizza analogy, explaining to them why we don’t want to share and finally, letting them know that sex with them is so good, nobody else really counted anyway. 

People tend to get jealous. However, we should stop ourselves from acting on our jealousy or accusing our partners of engaging in unapproved behavior. 

What about the rule that “men multiply their number by two and women divide theirs by two?” What about people who say things like, “If it only happened once, it doesn’t count,” and, “If I was drunk, it doesn’t count?” 

Those people buy into the idea that the number matters. In this day and age, we should be progressive enough to understand that keeping ourselves from certain pleasure does nothing but just that: Deprive us of pleasure! Some pleasureful activities (e.g. streaking, forgoing our studies to indulge our Netflix needs, doing cocaine) are harmful to others and ourselves, but the idea of “purity” or “studliness” are defined by society, not our bodily or mental needs. 

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Statistically, 80 percent of undergraduate students report having only zero to one new sexual partners each year they are in school. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the average American woman has about four partners in her entire lifetime, while the average American man has had about six partners. But what do we know about outliers? They exist! And they rock! And, who cares what other people think? Our bodies are ours. If it feels good and we want to do it, we should. If we don’t want to, we shouldn’t have to! 

End rant. 

Even if we’re discussing sexual history with our partners in the context of sexually transmitted infections, there is not much of a reason we need to know our partner’s “number.” To assess our level of risk, we are entitled to knowing how many people our partner has foregone using condoms with (if anybody involved had not been tested beforehand). 

So why are we so interested in knowing how many people our partners have had sex with? Some people have different reasons, and jealousy can be one of them. However, we should avoid retroactive jealousy (being jealous of the mushroom pizza even though our partner has already moved on to us, the delicious pineapple pizza) if we can. It won’t get us anywhere but anxious, and our partner did not do anything wrong by lovin’ on some mushrooms before they found us. 

Well, Birdies, time for me to sign off. Because I’m spending next semester away from the U Dub, I’ll also be taking a break from Birding. No fear, dear readers. I’ll be back in fall 2014. ’Til then, I thank you all for your questions and loyalty. I’ll miss you—keep me updated by emailing sex@dailycardinal.com. 

NEXT SEASON, on The Dirty Bird:

Introducing Michael Podgers. Want to give Michael a head start on your second semester questions? Email him at mpodgers@wisc.edu.  

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