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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   2209 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 2, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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For men: in a relationship, do you ask about your partner's body count? Or perhaps you don't ask about it, but ask certain other questions like attitudes about casual sex? Does asking about it actually help with the preoccupation at all? How do you get over it?

Hell no I don't ask. I have a rough idea and that's bad enough, I know it would destroy me to get more info. I wish I knew how to get over it. I've been struggling with the mental health issues of my wife having had sex with other people (whereas she was my first) for almost 10 years now. Stoicism helps me some (and indeed it's the reason I got into Stoicism), but I'm not always feeling rational enough where appeals to philosophy can convince my brain to quiet down. Therapy didn't help at all. At this point I've given up on fixing it and figure I'll just have to live with the pain until the day I die.

Yes, see, this is why I was so resistant in my previous threads on this subject when some people were like "why do you dislike premarital sex so much? Have you tried just giving up your values?" I think I am pretty similar to you. Yes, I think it's best if I do not know. Thanks for your reply.

You're welcome. For what it's worth, I don't think it's a problem of values per se. I suspect (though I can't prove) that many if not most people are wired to want sexual exclusivity (including past exclusivity) with their partner. I've known plenty of people who don't have traditional values around sexuality, but who say they would rather not know about their partner's body count because it will just bother them. That suggests to me that, despite our culture's attempt to brush promiscuity (or even serial monogamy) off as "it's just sex, who cares", many people are in fact deeply wired to care about sex and to not be able to easily shrug the past off as "well, (s)he's with me now so it doesn't matter".

I agree with the advice of both @yofuckreddit and @ThomasdelVasto - this may be something you have to compromise on due to the nature of the society we live in, but not necessarily so because people waiting for marriage do still exist. Just be aware you're making it harder on yourself to find a partner if you make that a dealbreaker. Nothing wrong with that, one simply has to be aware of what they are setting themselves up for.

For some unsolicited advice of my own:

  • Be prepared that even if you figure you're ok with someone with a sexual past, your feelings might change. I didn't start to suffer from retroactive jealousy until my wife and I had been dating for 9 months.
  • If you think you might struggle with this topic, try to resist the temptation to sleep with a woman before getting married. My wife and I were already sleeping together when I started to struggle with her past, at which point there wasn't anything I could reasonably do about it (besides keep struggling) without being a massive hypocrite and the scum of the earth. What was I going to do, break up with my (then) gf because I felt bad because she had sex with other bfs? We were doing that very thing. Nor could I have tried to then find a woman who was a virgin without being a virgin myself (at least, not write being a massive hypocrite and the scum of the earth). I know how strong the temptation is - firsthand. But I wish I hadn't gone down that road.
  • If you pursue a relationship with a woman who has a past, and you start to struggle with feelings of retroactive jealousy, do not talk to her about it. I did this with my wife (while we were still dating, and once briefly after we got married) and all that it accomplished was that I hurt her deeply. Because what could she do? She couldn't change her past, after all, nor does she have a magic wand to wave to make my brain stop being hung up on this topic. Instead she rather bitterly remarked that she wished I had a gf before her whom I had slept with, that way it wouldn't be a struggle for our relationship. She also lamented that she was going to be a cautionary tale for Christian girls everywhere, that if they had sex with a man they didn't then marry it would ruin their marriage. For my part, all that happened was I got horrible guilt that I get to carry around that I hurt her, and moreover that I continue to have the feelings which hurt her. But I did at least learn to never speak of it again - I would bet dollars to donuts that my wife has no idea that I still struggle with these feelings of jealousy (though thankfully much less often than I used to, probably due to the wonders of habituation).

Regardless, good luck brother. I doubt it'll be easy for you, because it hasn't been for me. I can only hope that some of the advice here (from me but also others) will help to make it a little better. I wish that human psychology wasn't susceptible to this failure mode, but alas it is. I am truly rooting for you though.

I have what I believe to be natural male jealousy and insecurity, probably similar to both of you.

I have a higher body count and volume of experience than my wife. This is something you may not want to do, and statistically it makes your future relationships more likely to fail, but having been around the block at least once will calibrate the value of sex to something less than how you view it now. I won't say what's right or what's wrong on that, but I do believe there's a difference between sex and "lovemaking".

Another reason why having at least some experience is important is that you realize that many women are terrible lays. Given how little they have to actually do, a natural conclusion is that men are pretty fucking bad at sex as well. I historically took some comfort in the fact that even if I was with someone who had been with more people, I was above par.

My biggest concern for you right now is that some of that insecurity - that another dude before you is a better lay and satisfied her more deeply - may be true because you have no experience. It took years to elevate my technique, and sex that felt transcendent in my second year doing it seems like amateur hour in comparison to what I did later. To be clear this isn't anything exotic - even 1-1 monogamous and toy-free sex requires a lot of effort. There's a huge sleight of hand in the US Christian culture, at least, where everyone's pretending they're not having sex when they actually are, and realizing that really pissed my wife off for years. Christian women, IME, aren't interested in virgin men.

I haven't really answered your question yet. First: no, I don't ask about historical body count. It only has the potential to be bad news. I believe you can learn about someone's tastes and preferences effectively without hearing that Joe from Accounting was the first one to put a thumb in her ass. All it would do is make me jealous.

The second thing is that true emotional connection and enthusiasm is a huge force multiplier for high-quality sex. If you are a great partner in all the other ways and love sex with them, you'll be at or near the top of their historical experiences.

Can you name your fear? Is it that you won't be the best? That they'll cheat? Because you do need to suss out the probablity of the latter happening. I don't think going into the gory details helps. If it's the former, you should know that people live with that reality all the time.

There's a huge sleight of hand in the US Christian culture, at least, where everyone's pretending they're not having sex when they actually are, and realizing that really pissed my wife off for years.

Why did that piss her off?

Recognizing that such a huge percentage of your family, friends, schoolmates, etc. that are part of your culture were all lying to you doesn't feel great. I don't think she had sexual FOMO, but who knows, maybe that was part of it too.

Thanks for your reply, you clearly understand how I feel, at least a little. It's not about me not being the best - obviously, if she loves me, she will tolerate me until I get more experience, and you're totally right about sex not being just in the bedroom - and it's not about them cheating, I don't think either of those are things that I fear. It's that I waited for marriage and she didn't, so someone else has experienced such a level of intimacy with her, and intimacy with me will not feel as special as it otherwise would have; being "the first" for everything would have been far more preferable, and the thought of someone else having done it to her besides me is painful. SubstantialFrivolity effectively convinced me that I should try to not learn any more than that, and my brain will probably eventually find a comforting headcanon if left to its own devices. I guess it boils down to just plain jealousy and some sense of purity. But like most of my anxieties, I find that keeping them private and not doing anything about them generally helps them go away without incident.

SubstantialFrivolity effectively convinced me that I should try to not learn any more than that, and my brain will probably eventually find a comforting headcanon if left to its own devices.

I support this and I want to double up on his advice not to talk about it. Probably for different reasons - I think his wife was being a bit unfair by turning it around back on him when he expressed his jealousy. But talking about it is a catch-22. It makes you appear weak to your partner, and will increase the chances of something negative happening as a result, as you can see from his anecdote.

In the modern world I'll throw something out there - a woman who's slept with ~<1 person a year since becoming "active" is probably a good deal on the sexual market. To me that shows a significant amount of personal restraint. I would be pretty happy with that if I were still dating to marry.

Best of luck!

and intimacy with me will not feel as special as it otherwise would have

As somebody who have been in relationships before "settling down", this is not true. I don't feel like my previous experiences - many of which I don't even remember now - diminish my bond to my wife in any way, and I don't think she feels our relationship is less special because she was married in the past too. It's all the past and gone, and the special thing is now.

I guess it boils down to just plain jealousy and some sense of purity.

In marriage, sometimes you need to make sacrifices. I think sacrificing the part of your selfishness that is jealousy to the past is not a bad thing to do. And if you keep in mind why you're doing it and what you're getting in return, you may feel better about it. You can't make yourself not feel things that you feel, but you can conquer those things and not let them make you unhappy. Fortunately, these are things that depend only on you alone - so nothing prevents you from doing that.

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