What the Number of People You've Had Sex With Means About You
How many people have you had sex with? And does it matter?
This week on the podcast I’m talking all about what the term body count means, why we all need to be a lot less judgemental, the Madonna-Whore complex, prioritising your pleasure, having real conversations about sexual exploration and so much more.
This podcast is for YOU, so if you ever have any questions you’d like me to answer on the show, or topics you’d like me to cover – reach out to me on email here or over on instagram @eleanorhadley
Links & Resources
Start your journey to explore your own personal pleasure language with my free quiz, including a bonus worksheet with journaling prompts to help you dive even deeper. Take the quiz now: www.eleanorhadley.com/pleasurelanguage
~ Other links / resources mentioned in episode ~
→ Sensualista 1:1 coaching: http://theacademy.eleanorhadley.com/coaching/
→ Book a chemistry call: https://theacademy.eleanorhadley.com/chemistry-call-schedule/
Articles referenced:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-surprising-roots-of-the-word-slut
http://yeoja-mag.com/origin-word-slut/
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-13333013
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Episode Transcript
Hello, and welcome to episode 23 of The Sensuality Academy Podcast.
How many people have you had sex with? And does it matter?
This week on the podcast I’m talking all about what the term body count means, why we all need to be a lot less judgemental, the Madonna whore complex, prioritising your pleasure and so much more. Let’s get in to it.
We all know I love a bit of Tik Tok - honestly, it’s such a great place for episode inspiration sometimes! Anyway, I’ve come across a trend over there where people - most often, teenagers - are talking about what their body count is. Now, I’m a whole 31 years old and as much as I’d rather not admit it, I’m not super across all the current terms and slang being used. But I’m adaptable and interested to learn and understand. So, I did some research. Turns out, the term “body count” is being used, not to refer to how many dead bodies are around - morbid - but instead how many people you’ve had sex with. And there are videos all over tik tok of people randomly asking others what their body count is, and many with people stating “If your body count is 1-2, it means this about you, if it’s 3-5 it means this about you, if it’s 6 or more it means this about you” and on and on.
Folks - this is slut-shaming at it’s finest. The idea that there's any moral weight attached to the number of people you happened to have had sex with - it’s the most patriarchal thing I’ve ever heard.
But, it’s not a new concept by any means. Many people ask, and get asked what their ‘number’ or their tally is. And still, the judgement.
The concept is messed up, and we’re going to unpack it in today’s episode. But I also want to quickly mention how awful the new terminology of a ‘body count’ is. Way to completely disconnect and remove any sense of intimacy from a topic as nuanced and personal as your sexual partners. It perpetuates the notion that sex is something that you do to someone else, or have done to you. It’s completely devoid of the potential for sex to be a really vulnerable, loving, exciting, fun experience that you share with a full human being - and instead shifts the focus to just the physical body itself - not the person inhabiting said body that you’re now counting to prove some kind of moral point. Gross.
Okay, so what’s with the judgment around how many people someone has slept with? Whether it’s considered too low or too high, it’s like we can’t win and get judged either way. There’s an assumption out there that too low means you’re inexperienced and yet too high means you’re somehow ‘used goods’. And we know this is more often than not, incredibly gendered. More on that later.
Before I get in to sharing some of your thoughts on this matter, I want to add a caveat. I feel like I need a little bell or something to signify it’s caveat time! I love a caveat. I want you to know, first of all, that your sexuality is YOURS and yours alone. I highly encourage you to take ownership of your sexuality and your sexual pleasure. We’re going to talk a lot about this ‘body count’ topic today - but remember, sex exists outside of your experiences with others. I think too often we think ’sex’ and immediately associate it with something done with another person. Yeah, that shits great - I love partnered sex! Yay partnered sex! But also - don’t forget about self-sex - self-pleasure - I’m talking about masturbation, folks! Your sex is yours, your pleasure is yours. Own it, explore it, and if you want to - share it.
So, I asked you all over on my instagram stories this week to share your thoughts and experiences with this and I got so many varied responses. On one end of the spectrum, some of you reached out to me and told me that you had only recently had sex for the first time (and yes I’m intentionally not using the phrase ‘lost your virginity’ because I have THOUGHTS & FEELINGS on that terminology!), or that you had waited until later than what is deemed ‘normal’ and received judgement for it. Sometimes, you said, the judgement came from within, with a fear around sharing it with a new partner, or feeling like you had to give them a heads up, and sometimes it was external judgement where you shared that others thought there was something wrong with you or, in the case of one woman, who told me that a male friend had openly said in a group conversation that he could ‘never have sex with a virgin’ knowing full well that she was there.
When I posed the question about body count, someone else shared this with me, she said,
“I feel awkward in the reverse because mine is so low - I’ve only ever slept with my current partner and I feel like people would have judgements going the other way. I feel like I can’t win.”
Another said “I feel ashamed of my body count. People patronise me and assume I’m not sexual.”
This is such a great point. Sure, your count might be “low” because you’ve been in a monogamous relationship for a long time - but this sure as hell doesn’t mean you’re not sexual. Yes, in some cases - many cases actually, maybe long term monogamy or serial monogamy means you have the same type of sex again and again with no variation - but, not necessarily.
Also, on this point - let’s not judge people for not being sexual, just as we shouldn’t judge people for being sexual. My take on this is that, yes, I believe sex is a powerful thing for us to do. It connects us deeply with ourselves, our pleasure and with our sexual partners and it can be one of the best things ever. A lot of my work is about giving you permission to explore your sexual self - the one that's been repressed by unrealistic societal standards - many of which have been imposed by the influence of religion.
Yeah, I think sex is great, this is why I teach about it so much. I’m a big fan! But you know what I’m even more of a fan of? SOVEREIGNTY. And self-exploration. I’m here to offer you ideas and concepts to then go off and explore in yourself until you find what feels good. I don’t believe in replacing one doctrine (society) with another (what Eleanor thinks is good). You feel me?
Okay then - back to the responses I received from you all - on the other end of the spectrum, I had many of you share with me that you’d been judged, called a slut, a whore, a hussy and all those other names that women get called from simply owning their sexuality - because of your perceived “high” number. Can I get a collective eye roll? Ughhh.
Here’s what you shared with me, one of you said, “I was called a whore by a female friend of mine because of my count. Because women internalise slut shaming more than men. I don’t keep track anymore, it doesn’t matter. As long as the sex is good and fulfilling and consensual, number doesn’t matter, and I share it openly. I stopped counting when it was higher than my age.”
I think this is a great perspective to have. I honestly don’t think it matters.
But how many of you have heard judgements about women who seem to enjoy sex? The word SLUT itself is used to shame women in to adhering to the status quo because, god forbid, someone would think you’re a slut.
Since we receive this messaging CONSTANTLY from society that being a slut is bad, it’s only natural that we begin to internalise this fear and eventually slut-shame ourselves. Many of you shared that you had turned down potential opportunities for sexual exploration for fear of being judged (either internally or externally) as a slut.
This is how pervasive patriarchal thinking is. It becomes so ingrained that we, the ones oppressed by said patriarchal ideals, continue to uphold it - despite how detrimental it is to us. This notion goes for all the worst things - internalised slut-shaming, internalised misogyny, internalised homophobia, internalised biphobia (more on that next week) and internalised racism too.
This is why I harp on about questioning your conditioning so damn much. It’s uncomfortable as hell, but so damn important if we are to grow and break free of the oppressive systems that keep the status quo going while harming people left right and centre - including yourself.
Now - back to the word SLUT - it’s tangent time! I was thinking to do a whole episode about the word slut (and I still might), and so I had done some research and found some really interesting things about the origins of the word. Check this out:
According to an article from The Daily Beast, The OED’s first definition for slut is “a woman of dirty, slovenly, or untidy habits or appearance; a foul slattern.” Nothing to do with sexuality. And the earliest citation is from 1402, predating citations for either the words fuck or cunt. (Side note, if you haven’t yet be sure to go to my “Words” highlight on instagram to see a history lesson of the word cunt. Yes, I said it.)
Anyway, back to the word slut. Apparently when Samuel Johnson first published his dictionary, he defined a slut as “a dirty woman” and also noted that it was a word “of slight contempt to a woman.” The examples he cites all use “dirty” in its most obvious, non-sexual sense. a woman of loose morals, or, as some would have it, “a woman with the morals of a man.”
Interesting that a woman with the morals of a man are a bad thing, huh? Like, so if they’re so bad - why are they okay in men? Off the ingrained double standards just send me. Ridiculous.
Then, according to an article found in Yeoja Mag:
"It wasn't until 1966 that ‘slut’ became what we know it as today; a “woman who enjoys sex in a degree considered shamefully excessive.” They also shared that - not surprisingly - this was around the time that women gained their right to contraception (in Griswold vs. Connecticut 1965) and claimed control over their own sexuality for the first time. The article says, "Coincidence? I think not. As soon as women were able to embrace their sexuality without fear of pregnancy, the label of ‘slut’ arose to keep them in check. ‘Slut’ was a warning for women to adhere to female sexual norms.”
Because the patriarchy is all about keeping men in power and women beneath them. It’s about control. It’s about women being possessions. These are the roots of patriarchy, when women were legitimately considered property.
An empowered woman owning her own sexuality is a radical concept, and one that scares the patriarchy.
Further to this, an article from the BBC shares that,
“the word slut is an embodiment of the double standards employed when discussing the sexual appetites of women and men. Women are described as sluts, while men are often referred in a less derogatory light as "studs" or a "ladies man”.”
These double standards. Fuckkkk I’m so sick of them. Okay, story time.
When I think of this topic of body count and being judged for my number - one memory pops up rather vividly.
I was in a long-term relationship of 5 years when I went through a break up. I was totally heartbroken. Anyway, one day about 5 months PB, post-break up - for some stupid reason I decided to accept an invitation from my ex to come around for dinner. Despite having broken up, he had still been calling me constantly and the whole ordeal just dragged out. You know the kind. Anyway, I went over, it was tense and emotional and at some point he asks me if I’d been with anyone since we broke up.
Now, it took me a solid 4 months to heal enough to even be remotely interested in being with anyone else. But yes, I told him, I had slept with someone. One person.
I tell you - the look of horror and straight up disgust on this boys face. It made me feel awful, completely judged, dirty, wrong, bad. He started banging on about how pure I was and that the thought of someone else touching me disgusted him. SO - red flags all around right? The gall to shame me at all should have been enough for me to up and leave.
But you know what I did? I asked him how many people he’d slept with. To which he said he couldn’t count.
Are you fucking kidding me!? I pointed out the hypocrisy of his judgement and all he could say was “it’s different for girls”.
To quote one of my instagram followers “sir, your misogyny is showing”
The next moment was like something out of a movie - it was cinematic as fuck. I was livid - clearly - that he would dare to judge me so harshly for sleeping with one whole person while he couldn’t count how many people he’d been with since our break up - that I gave him a right talking to - I’m talking all up in his face, backing him in to a corner to the point where this man was pushed up against a wall and slid down the the floor in shame because of the serve I gave him. I then proceeded to proclaim that I was officially done and uninterested in any form of salvation of this relationship and promptly left the building. One of my finest moments or perhaps not one of my finest moments. Hmm.
Clearly I didn’t have great communication skills back then, but ooooof did I learn an important lesson.
I realised that part of me - that part that is heavily conditioned by societal standards - kind of agreed. Yeah, part of me thought it was different for girls. Because we’re sold this fairytale princess idea that we should meet one person and be with them only forever and ever, and that anything outside of that isn’t okay.
For quite a while, I’ve dealt with my own internalised slut-shaming ways. I’ve had to work through why I was denying myself pleasure and what I was afraid of. Even as recently as last week I was unpacking this shit. The work never stops.
But - I’ve learnt to ask myself the question: “Who benefits from you denying yourself pleasure & connection?”
Because I sure don’t. Again, if it’s consensual and fun, fucking go for it.
Yes, deep love plus sex are a great combo. But you don’t need long-term commitment and love to have great, connected, passionate sex. I cover this in more detail in episodes 10 and 14 about gourmet sex vs snack sex and spiritual slut-shaming.
I asked many of you if you feel like you internally self slut shame too - and the results were overwhelming. So many of you, particularly women, shared that you’ve turned down the opportunity to have sex with someone for fear of judgement, that you haven’t acted how you really feel towards someone due to this same fear, and that you even feel shame for whatever your number might be because people assume it means something about you.
As humans, we’re such good story-tellers. Story-makers. That is, we constantly create these big elaborate stories, adding meaning to things that really aren’t true. So, I want to invite you, today, to flip the script. TO change the story.
If your number is “low” - perhaps flip to to mean you’ve had explorations with a few great people - or maybe if you’re in a long term relationship, use this as an opportunity to enquire about how you can explore the limits of your pleasure.
If your number is “high”, try reframing that to mean you’ve had some great experiences and learnt a lot. That’s empowering, you’ve prioritised your pleasure. Go you.
And if - wherever you’re at number wise - you feel unfulfilled, use this as an opportunity to dig deeper and explore what you want out of your sex life. Do you crave more connection? Do you want to try different things? Would you like to explore your sexuality or gender more? What would be most fulfilling and nourishing for you?
Now, something I have to touch on when we’re talking about these double standards is the concept of the Madonna/Whore Complex. If you’re not familiar, let me explain. First thing to know is this isn’t referring to Madonna the singer, it’s the biblical reference.
In psychoanalytic literature, a Madonna–whore complex is the inability to maintain sexual arousal within a committed, loving relationship. It’s where men see women as either saintly Madonnas (as in a virgin mother-type) or debased prostitutes. Men with this complex desire a sexual partner who has been degraded (the whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (the Madonna).[3] Freud wrote: "Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love.
Urban dictionary had this to add:
A man with a Madonna-whore complex is a man who will sleep with and lust for a sexual and beautiful woman but he will never respect her as "wife" material and he will never marry her. In his eyes, she is tainted, impure, unworthy of the status of wife---yet he may possess passionate and contradictory feelings for her. He may even be in love with her but will never allow himself to be with her in any real sense.
He will look for a "good girl" to marry---usually a woman who is cold sexually but, for example, is good at "wifely" domestic things: cooking, cleaning, homemaking in general, etc. A proper, pure "Madonna" type woman who will bear his children.
This is part of what makes Cardi B’s song WAP so remarkable - in it she says “I don’t cook, I don’t clean, but let me show you how I got this ring”. Completely defying the stereotype that you need to have those skills to be worthy of marriage. Not only that, but talk about owning your sexuality and pleasure. More on this song in a future episode - I’ve got a fabulous journalist coming on to the show to talk all about WAP and what it means for women, and particularly black women. So stay tuned for that.
Now, this thinking - that a woman is either a good girl and marriage material, or that she’s promiscuous and therefore not worthy of partnership - is SO common. And it’s really fucking limiting. It’s the idea that a woman can’t possibly be both a great mother and homemaker (important, skilled jobs) and have a sexual appetite. Aside from that ridiculous notion, it’s incredibly heterocentric.
The Madonna Whore complex plays a huge role in how women are judged for their sexual experience. We can’t win. As the lyrics go, men seemingly want “a lady in the sheets but a freak in the sheets” yet don’t actually believe the two can coexist.
What’s even more ridiculous about this dichotomy is, just like toxic masculinity & patriarchy itself, it’s harmful to the very men who fight hard to uphold it.
According to a paper found in the America Psychological Association, "Men who perceive women's nurturance and sexuality as mutually exclusive endorse patriarchy and show lower relationship satisfaction."
That is, if you believe this shit, it’s not doing anything for you and in fact makes your relationship (and likely your sex life) suffer as a result.
Also - this just further reinforces that if you are a woman who is open to exploring her pleasure potential - you must be a “whore”. Sidenote: the word whore is so problematic and this whole notion is also incredibly harmful to sex workers, who deserve the utmost of respect, yet many faux feminists work to exclude them. The term for people like this is a SWERF - or sex worker exclusionary feminist. Essentially, SWERFS maintain patriarchal ideology but reinforcing the judgement of women who take ownership of their sexuality and use it as a way to directly gain financially from the very people who aim to oppress them in the first place. Pretty fucking radical, if you ask me.
Anyway - that’s a tangent and a half and a topic to dive in to another day.
But back to this Madonna Whore complex - it entirely disempowers women from owning their pleasure and even thinking that it’s something they deserve.
I’ll say it again and again until its a deeply ingrained mantra for you: Prioritise your pleasure.
Better yet, say this with me - "I deserve orgasms!” “I deserve pleasure!"
Another thing I asked you was whether or not it is something you openly shared with your partners and it was varied. Some of you regularly have this conversation, and others avoid it like the plague.
I know for me, it’s never come up at all. Besides that one outrageous experience. Which, by the way - I don’t feel morally superior by any means that at the time my number was “low’ compared to his. I was infuriated by his judgement - that’s what got me.
I’m generally of the opinion that it doesn’t matter in the slightest how many people my partner, or lover has had. I find it totally irrelevant. Because - they’re with me right now, in this moment. Sure, our past informs our current state to a degree, but it’s not relevant to what’s about to go down. I’m also not one for jealousy or comparison. And I would hope you’re not either. Because honestly, if someone is with you, they’re choosing to be with you. And you know what? It’s a god damn honour that they should be graced with your presence.
What I love about asking open questions over on instagram is hearing peoples different perspectives. Because here I was pretty set in my view that knowing a partners “body count” was irrelevant - but then I had one wonderful follower share a really insightful perspective. Here’s what she said:
“I believe it can be something worth talking about because someone may have a large body count, but they’ve had the same experience (like a quick fuck) over and over again without really exploring sexual pleasure beyond repeating a similar type of experience.”
She said she noticed that, in their 20’s, a lot of her friendship group would report having same same sex despite being either single and having casual sex, or in a relationship. And that being open about your experiences could actually be the catalyst for opening up a conversation with a new lover about what kind of experiences you would like to explore in this new relationship.
I thought this was a really interesting perspective and I think it could definitely serve a purpose if you’re with someone you feel you can have an open, honest and conscious discussion with on the matter.
Another great point she made was that this discussion actually helped support healing of sexual trauma by simply opening up the discussion of previous experiences. Now that’s powerful. I think this level of honestly about where you’re at with your relationship to sex and pleasure - particularly after any kind of trauma (no matter the level) can be so supportive.
I actually think this aspect could even be added to my pre-sex talk acronym of SHARED - more on that in episode 15.
Now, another thing I want to explore - and I’ll do a full length episode on this topic at some point because there’s a lot to explore here, but I think it’s important to mention. And that is - what is even considered “sex”. I’ve heard many people say things like “Oh, we did everything but sex”.
If we look at highly heterocentric language used in media, many of us are led to believe that “sex” is penis in vagina only and that everything else is “foreplay”.
This notion in itself is so exclusionary it hurts. Not to mention that it’s limiting as fuck. I want to encourage you to reframe what sex means to you. It can mean intimacy, it can mean touching and pleasure and arousal of any errogenous zones, it can mean orgasm, it can be whatever the hell you feel it is. But, let’s challenge the notion that the “main event” is penis in vagina. Because there’s so much more pleasure to be experienced outside of that limiting scope - not to mention for those without those two parts.
A lot to break down on that one, but I’ll save it for another episode because I’ve been going for a while now!
Okay, time to wrap this up. Moral of the story is: you do you. You deserve pleasure. Please don’t judge yourself - and especially don’t you dare judge anyone else - for their pursuit of pleasure.
I would love to know your thoughts on this episode and your biggest takeaways, so be sure to head over to instagram @eleanorhadley and share with me! Better yet, why not take a short minute to leave me a lovely review and a rating for the podcast. It would honestly mean so much - plus it’ll help future listeners decide if it’s a show they want to listen to!
Go ahead and screenshot and share the episode on your socials and with your friends too, don’t forget to tag me. I’m here to have an impact, and you can help me by sharing the love.
I hope you loved this episode. If you’re in Byron Bay be sure to check out the shownotes for a few upcoming events, and if you’d love to dive deep in to your pleasure journey with me as your coach, check out the link to learn more about coaching too.
Until next time, my loves, stay sensual!
