Who's Counting?

On September 30th the romantic comedy What's Your Number? hit theatres and was almost immediately declared a flop, both commercially and critically.  In fact, if it weren't for the chorus of feminist bloggers lambasting the movie for its sexism, nobody would have even known about it (apart from the 20-odd people who actually went to see it in theatres).  These particular critics took issue with the underlying premise behind the film's storyline.  In the movie, the main character, Ally reads a magazine article that claims that once a woman has had over 20 twenty sexual partners, her chances of getting married drop precipitously.  Realizing she's already slept with 19 men, Ally goes on a mission to try to find love among her previous boyfriends so that she can avoid increasing her grand total.

The primary criticism - and one that I agree with - is that the movie fails to challenge the notion that a woman's desirability goes down with each sexual encounter.  After watching the movie (or in my case, reading the reviews since there is no way I would ever watch this), one gets the impression that the filmmakers accept this notion as a fundamental truth that we should all just accept.  Several bloggers went so far as to dispute the fact that this view still informs the dating habits of today's young people.  For example, Dana Stevens of Slate.com accused the movie of endorsing "courtship practices as arcane and sadistic as Chinese foot-binding.  And Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly asked "who in this day and age is counting?".

Luckily, Ms. Stevens' colleague, and fellow feminist blogger, Jessica Grose, took it upon herself to find out just who is counting in this day and age.  And it turns out the answer is almost everybody.  I disagree with the suggestion that caring about the quantity of a woman's past sexual  partners is some fringe pathology that today affects only the most archaic and backward of the male species.  On the contrary, the research shows that, not only are the majority of straight women concerned with their number, but women whose numbers are high are viewed by both sexes as being less attractive as a potential mate.

I agree that this mentality is problematic and that it is informed by antiquated, patriarchal, and misogynistic notions of gender and sexuality.  So in this sense, I suppose that, as a young man, I should be flattered by these writers who clearly give young men of my generation way more credit than we deserve when appraising our ability to transcend such unenlightened hangups.  But I would also submit that there are many man who are very progressive, and sophisticated, and feminists in their own right, who might be turned off by a woman whose number is too high.  This doesn't necessarily make someone a sexist degenerate.

Most of these men don't care enough - and are smart enough - not to ask their girlfriends how many men they've slept with.  I'd count myself in this category.  But in the unlikely event that the exact figure got divulged during a period of late-night, alcohol-infused banter, I could think of a few numbers that might give me pause.  And I think there are very few men who would say otherwise.  Even for a guy who thinks he doesn't care, he will always have an upper bound above which he'd view his girlfriend's past as a red flag.  This doesn't mean he wants his girlfriend to be chaste and "pure".  And it doesn't mean that he views his girlfriend as his property and that all of her prior trysts constitute acts of defilement. Even if he is confident that she has used protection each and every time and therefore he has no concern of exposure to STD's, no man wants to hear that his future wife has bedded over 200 dudes.  One of the major reasons for this - and one that I'm sure has its roots in insecurity and the fragility of the male ego rather than sexism - is the need for exclusivity.  Most men want to know that they've earned the affections of their partner because of some special virtue that few others possess.  They want to know that the feelings their partner has for them aren't feelings that she develops toward just anybody.  And as misguided an assumption as this may be, men assume that in the majority of cases, when a woman agrees to sleep with a man it's because she is strongly attracted to him, not just physically, but to the whole individual.  And nobody wants to be with somebody who develops those feelings for a new person every week.

This is not to say that sexism is absent from the equation.  There is no question that the patriarchal way in which female identity and female sexuality have historically been constructed informs male attitudes toward women's sexual pasts.  But to dismiss those men who've succumb even slightly to those social and historical influences as anomalous, illegitimate or unsophisticated is unfair and unwarranted given the scientific data.  Consequently this hyperbolic posture does little to advance the discourse beyond the realm of comedic fiction, much like the movie itself.