What's Your Number?

Peerless Reader!

I don’t know how many lovers you’ve had….. and I don’t know how many lovers our correspondent’s had…..and I don’t know if my Dead List is now longer than my Lover List, but I do know it’s mathematically certain that you and the uncanny Conflab will help Ms. Spread Sheet solve her problem with “the number.”

Read on . . . my luvs!

Dear E. Jean:

I think it’s in bad taste to discuss how many partners I’ve had sex with. (I’m 31, and it’s not that many, I can tell you!) My boyfriend is mad that I won’t disclose “the number.” He thinks it’s because I’ve slept around.

Of course, he told me his number right off the bat. (It’s a lot higher than mine.) I said that if we ever got serious enough to get married, I’d tell him then. But do I tell him the truth?—This Woman is NOT a Spread Sheet

Spread, My Snap Dragon:

Wellllll……

If you’re an honest woman (like the rest of us), you’ll simply slash the total in half. If you’re a well-bred woman, you’ll divide the number by your age, and then subtract all your out-of-town flings. However, if you’re a smart woman, you’ll realize fibs do nothing but inflate the already massive male ego. So here’s my advice: Whatever your number, double it!

Yes! We’ve coddled the male beast too long. If we all doubled our numbers—or tripled them!—it might cow the chaps into some semblance of accuracy. Because after thirty years of reading Ask E. Jean letters, my guess is that people who identify as men enjoy roughly the same number of lovers as the people who identify as women.

Repeat: Roughly equal. Researchers from universities around the world will go on pestering us with the results of their experiments, studies, and surveys proving that men exaggerate the number of people they’ve slept with [the sex lives of 15,000 humans (ages 16 to 74) for instance, was reported by scientists at the University of Glasgow, with the lads claiming an average of 14 sexual partners over their lifetime, while the bonny lasses reported only seven]; but I can tell every sex researcher on earth right now: STOP WASTING YOUR FRICKIN’ TIME!

Chaps exaggerate. Your chap exaggerates, Ms. Spread Sheet. Whether it’s because he simply and optimistically over-estimates, or is embarrassed by his real number, or wants to impress you with his studly magnificence, or has watched wayyyy too much porn and lost touch, I can’t say; but I suspect it’s because he expects you to subtract lovers, and this puffs up his vanity, so naturally, he jacks up his number.

Tell him the truth. Real number, straight out, minus coyness and explanation. Or, if you prefer, remain silent on the subject with a “Darling,