the one about numbers

i read an article today that was discussing the "perfect" numer of men a woman can admit to sleeping with. the article said that the perfect number was 7. so i googled the topic and came across a few interesting stories. this huffington post article (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-kramer-bussel/how-many-partners-makes-y_b_117350.html) i thought covered the issue pretty reasonably. but then i stumbled across a blog that had a discussion of the issue and essentially it turned into a "ho" bashing session describing women who have slept with 5 or more men in the same night. and i was reminded why these types of conversations bother me so much. 

to begin with, the whole conversation is typically skewed to sexist, archaic ideals that simply are no longer a reality in our society. men want virginal pristine women to marry, yet they don't want to actually get married until they are 35 and they have fucked everything in sight. more women than ever are entering graduate and professional school, which typically pushes marriage back a few years. so now women are a little older when they marry. and they are likely marrying a man who has had a decent number of sexual partners. but simply because she is a woman, she is supposed to have been damn near a virgin? someone please explain this to me.

don't get me wrong, i know a couple of 20 something virgins. and i respect that. i just don't think that this double standard should exist for judging people by their number. ideally, there would be no judgment (unless there are crazy circumstances or something) -- in my mind, asking how many isn't the important question. the important questions are: have you been tested, how recently, and what were the results. 

as for me, i have dated one man who was numbers conscious. in fact, my number made him uncomfortable. what was ironic (and infuriating) was that his number was 7x (literally) mine. i'm so not kidding. and what was so great about this guy, was that he never tried to claim it wasn't a double standard, he just said "well, that's how i feel. period" i can respect that as well. but of course, that was a huge red flag that we weren't going to work out.