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For you non-Shakespeareans, this is about s-e-x.
So after reading and responding to a post on the Dope about "how many partners is too many," I started thinking about it for a bit-- obviously, I'm going to have a far different view of that answer than someone who's had a lot fewer partners, or a lot more. But are we really that different? I mean, the guy who's had two partners at 25, he may be just as much a horndog as me, but he's had a lot less opportunity (hel-LO, Comp. Sci. majors).
So, here's my Gedankenexperiment for evening things out:
1. Assume that you're not hindered in your search for a relationship or a sex partner by distance, your own looks or intelligence, lack of time to spend searching, or whatever. Assume that work takes up only the amount of time you want it to, and assume that your family and friends will approve of whatever you wish to do. In other words, you may have as many or as few sex partners as you like. Now, pretend you're at the end of your long, happy life, a life happy in every detail, no regrets-- and think about how many sex partners you would have had in that life. (For those of you who marry monogamously, think carefully about whether you would want to live out the remainder of your life as a widow or widower-- your answer may be one higher than you think!)
2. Take that number and multiply it by five. (If your answer was 0, round it up to 1, so that you get an answer of 5 for this part.) Now pretend you've met someone who would have that five-times-larger number of partners at the end of their long, happy life. Call this person Alex.
3. Take your own number and divide it by five. (If you get an answer less than 1, round down to 0.) Pretend you've met someone who would have this five-times-smaller number of partners at the end of their long, happy life. Call this person Bailey.
I guarantee you that if Alex and Bailey were your two bestest friends in the whole world and you knew everything about them and had for years, you STILL absolutely wouldn't understand what at least one of them got out of sex, and you likely wouldn't understand what either of them got out of sex (or not having sex, in Bailey's case, unless your own answer is also 0).
My Alex, if she met the same people I had, would've spent her early 20's working her ass off trying to get laid, and not nearly as much time studying or reading or fooling around with computers. Bailey, on the other hand, would've only had sex with people she dated for over a year, and would've missed some of the best dates. But that's what she gets for being a hopeless romantic, I guess.
How about your Alex and Bailey? What do you think of them? Do you understand why they have sex?
So after reading and responding to a post on the Dope about "how many partners is too many," I started thinking about it for a bit-- obviously, I'm going to have a far different view of that answer than someone who's had a lot fewer partners, or a lot more. But are we really that different? I mean, the guy who's had two partners at 25, he may be just as much a horndog as me, but he's had a lot less opportunity (hel-LO, Comp. Sci. majors).
So, here's my Gedankenexperiment for evening things out:
1. Assume that you're not hindered in your search for a relationship or a sex partner by distance, your own looks or intelligence, lack of time to spend searching, or whatever. Assume that work takes up only the amount of time you want it to, and assume that your family and friends will approve of whatever you wish to do. In other words, you may have as many or as few sex partners as you like. Now, pretend you're at the end of your long, happy life, a life happy in every detail, no regrets-- and think about how many sex partners you would have had in that life. (For those of you who marry monogamously, think carefully about whether you would want to live out the remainder of your life as a widow or widower-- your answer may be one higher than you think!)
2. Take that number and multiply it by five. (If your answer was 0, round it up to 1, so that you get an answer of 5 for this part.) Now pretend you've met someone who would have that five-times-larger number of partners at the end of their long, happy life. Call this person Alex.
3. Take your own number and divide it by five. (If you get an answer less than 1, round down to 0.) Pretend you've met someone who would have this five-times-smaller number of partners at the end of their long, happy life. Call this person Bailey.
I guarantee you that if Alex and Bailey were your two bestest friends in the whole world and you knew everything about them and had for years, you STILL absolutely wouldn't understand what at least one of them got out of sex, and you likely wouldn't understand what either of them got out of sex (or not having sex, in Bailey's case, unless your own answer is also 0).
My Alex, if she met the same people I had, would've spent her early 20's working her ass off trying to get laid, and not nearly as much time studying or reading or fooling around with computers. Bailey, on the other hand, would've only had sex with people she dated for over a year, and would've missed some of the best dates. But that's what she gets for being a hopeless romantic, I guess.
How about your Alex and Bailey? What do you think of them? Do you understand why they have sex?
