Does a Woman’s “Body Count” Really Matter?

#TransparentTuesday

Hi friend,

Do you think a person’s “body count” matters?

Lately I’ve seen a lot of chatter, particularly in right-wing/manosphere spaces, about why the number of sexual partners a person has had (ie: their “body count”) is important—and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that most of them argue that it’s much more important for women than it is for men!

So let’s unpack that today, shall we?

To keep this brief, I’m going to interact with this topic today as if the phrase “body count” is—as people tend to use it— something tangible, measurable, objective, and real.

• Nevermind that in order for us to accurately “count” our sexual partners, we would all have to agree on what “counts” as sex in the first place…but we may all draw the line for what “does” and “doesn’t” count in different places, or define it by different sexual acts, so it’s actually entirely subjective. 

• Nevermind that most metrics for “counting” are sexist, phallocentric, and transphobic, in that they ask us to count how many penises have been somewhere (or how many places a penis has been) and that there is no metric for “counting” that applies equally to people of all different bodies or sexual identities. 

• Nevermind how complex, triggering, and harmful the question of “how many sexual partners?” becomes for people with a history of sexual violation.

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For today (and today only) we’re going to ignore all that and pretend that a person’s “body count” is something objective, real, and worth talking about.

Ok so, from what I’ve seen, the main argument being bandied about for why it’s “harmful” for women in particular to have a higher body count comes from the idea that women who have had more sexual partners have a harder time “pair bonding,” and are therefore more likely to get divorced.

Now, as much as I want to just write off these kinds of claims as stupid, sexist, purity-culture nonsense, I think it’s worth digging into a little deeper. That way, we can all understand exactly where this stupid, sexist, purity culture nonsense comes from, and push back against it with confidence wherever we may encounter it. (Externally or internally!)

So let’s start by quickly addressing the myth that sexual experience impacts a woman’s ability to form a deep and healthy “pair bond” with her partner.

To be clear, there is absolutely no scientific measure of “pair-bonding ability.” There is no brain scan, no psychological test, and no valid research construct that can measure a woman’s capacity to emotionally attach, and researchers certainly do not use “number of sexual partners” as any kind of proxy for bonding capacity.

Not to mention the fact that the phrase “pair bond” itself was actually borrowed from animal behavior research, where it describes species that mate for life (like swans or prairie voles), and it doesn’t even apply to humans! 

We humans do not naturally “pair bond” in the same fixed and biological way that we see among those types of animals, so it wouldn’t even be remotely appropriate to research what does or doesn’t impact a human’s ability to do so. So any versions of this claim are nothing more than myth and speculation, being falsely presented as if it was a biological fact. 

Beyond that, there is absolutely zero evidence-based research showing that having a higher number of sexual partners will negatively impact a person’s ability to form strong emotional bonds or healthy intimate relationships.

What about the “divorce” part of this argument, though? Is it possible that coming into a marriage with a higher body count increases your statistical chances of ending in divorce?

Well… sort of, but not for the reasons you might think.

There are studies that show a statistical association between the number of premarital sexual partners a person has, and a higher risk of divorce. 

For example, a recent longitudinal analysis using the large Health dataset found that people who had nine or more premarital partners were more likely to get divorced than people who had one to eight premarital partners… who in turn were more likely to get divorced than people who waited until marriage to have sex. 

Given the existence of studies like this, you might be tempted to accept the “body count matters” theory at face value.

But— and this is freakin critical to understand— correlation ≠ causation. 

The fact that people with more premarital partners are more likely to end up divorced does not prove that having more partners causes divorce.

Finding a statistical correlation between two factors does not mean you can fairly or accurately assume that one causes the other, and pretending otherwise is at best ignorant and at worst extremely dangerous. 

To help you understand this, please consider the fact that there is a statistical correlation between ice cream and drowning. 

Every single summer we see an increase in both ice cream sales and in the number of deaths by drowning. Pretty suspicious, no?? If we were to draw a causative conclusion from these statistics we might say that “people who eat more ice cream cause drowning,” and try to discourage people from eating ice cream. Or perhaps we’d say that “deaths by drowning causes people to eat more ice cream,” and start worrying about the sugar intake of grieving families. 

Either of these conclusions would be preposterous, of course, since the truth is that more people both go swimming and buy more frozen desserts during the summer, when it’s hot out. This is an example of how correlation ≠ causation. 

Those first conclusions, however, show us the level of ignorance we’re looking at anytime someone draws a causative conclusion from correlative research—including the aforementioned one about divorce. 

There are so many other factors that go into whether a person will get divorced, including their religious beliefs, their age when getting married, personal and political beliefs and values, financial situation, and community support or stigma. 

Someone who is waiting for marriage to have sex, for example, is more likely to be religious, believe divorce is wrong, and get married younger than someone with nine or more sexual partners… and therefore they may be less likely to ask for a divorce later, even if they’re unhappy (or being mistreated). 

Put another way, it’s entirely possible that the statistics on body count and marriage are being influenced by another factor entirely (like how summer impacts both ice cream sales and drowning) that isn’t represented in the research. 

And to be honest, as a person who simply doesn’t view divorce as a morally charged or inherently negative thing, I’m not all that invested in keeping people married in the first place. We saw divorce rates skyrocket both when women were granted the ability to earn and control their own money, and when “no fault divorces” became an option, because women who had previously been trapped in bad marriages were finally able to safely escape. That is obviously a good thing, so you simply cannot convince me that getting a divorce is somehow morally inferior to staying together forever in a relationship that doesn’t serve you.

Also, to any men who are worried about a woman’s body count for these reasons, I would suggest that if it’s really important to you to avoid divorce, you should probably invest in the therapy, communication skills, and personal growth needed to become the kind of partner women don’t end up divorcing, rather than trapping a young, religious, or inexperienced “good girl” with a low body count—who is too afraid of the shame/stigma of divorce to leave her shitty husband—into staying with you.

But hey, maybe that’s just me. 

Either way, it should be clear by now that this kind of sexist, bad-faith, pseudo-scientific argument about body count is designed for only one purpose: to shame and control women. 

If the same logic isn’t applied to men, it’s sexism. If the conclusion is always “female purity = higher value,” it’s misogyny. If the “data interpretation” always reinforces patriarchal norms, it’s sexism. If the argument only ever limits or shames women’s sexual freedom, it’s misogyny. 

The whole stupid argument about body count is structured around policing women’s choices, moralizing women’s sexuality, creating hierarchies of “good” and “bad” women, and asserting male ownership over female bodies.

Calling it “just data” doesn’t make it neutral, and in this case it’s actually extremely dangerous.

These types of patriarchal and purity-culture talking points both rely on and reinforce misogyny by pathologizing women’s sexuality, stigmatizing women’s pleasure and agency, reducing women to her sexual history, fetishizing her lack of sexual experience, centering men’s desires, and robbing her of her whole humanity. 

And honestly, just… no.

Fuck no, to all that.

No to shaming or moralizing sexuality. No to fetishining purity and virginity. No to objectifying women, no to slut-shaming, and no to centering men. Just no.

Through the perspective of body neutrality, we treat the body around here (and by extension, our sexual history) as morally neutral, and not a measure of our value, right? 

So let me wrap this up by reminding you of something incredibly important:

Your worthiness and value are in absolutely no way impacted by your sexual history or “body count.” 

Just like how it’s not determined by the way you look, your sexual history and number of sexual partners doesn’t mean jack shit about you… and it certainly doesn’t mean anything about your worthiness, value, or how you deserve to be treated, either.

No matter what patriarchal bullshit you’ve heard (or internalized), a person’s value doesn’t increase or decrease based on how many partners they’ve had, and sexual history holds no magical moral currency.

So let’s not tolerate anyone trying to convince us otherwise, mmkay?

Big hug,

Jessi