The other day I was sitting outside the Shaskeen Pub, having a nice cold pint of beer, when I got into a debate with a few people about the following question:

Is it okay to ask a girl how many men she has slept with?

Is it?

To say the least, the  people I was sitting with had some pretty interesting answers. One guy even said he had the right to ask that question.

Excuse me?!  Oh, ya..I’m sure you can imagine my utter shock when he made that statement.

“What?!”  Bug-eyed and in utter disbelief, I looked at his girlfriend who was sitting next to him and said, “I hope you didn’t answer him when he asked you that question.”

And, guess what?

Of course she did!

*Shakes head*

Then, to add insult to injury, the boyfriend proudly proclaimed, “And we’ve been together for five years.  Any woman who doesn’t answer that question has obviously slept with a lot of men.”

Uhg.

My reply was a smug one, “So what? Regardless of how many or how few men any woman has slept with, it’s none of your business.  Period.  No woman should ever answer that misogynistic question.”

Of course taking that stance, it was pretty obvious that the guy thought I slept with a lot of men.  Like I cared, because we all know by the lack of action I get, clearly,  I’m not that girl.  But see how one can easily judge?

I don’t sleep around because I see sex as a spiritual connection.  I believe that if you sleep around with just anyone, you lose a bit of yourself spiritually and you can eventually become desensitized and forget that there is another part of sex that sets us apart from animals – which is intimacy.  Ahhh…the wonderful world of trust, passion and vulnerability that connects two souls together. There’s nothing like it and no orgasm can take the place of that feeling, when you actually connect with someone on a spiritual level.

Getting back to the question, where is it written that a woman’s worth is based on how many people she has slept with?  Let’s face it, it’s an archaic viewpoint to think that in this day and age, women are less valuable to a man because she has been sexually active.  But it’s okay for a guy to sleep with however many women he chooses – it’s such a double standard.

I also pointed out in our debate that asking this sort of question is down-right rude and out-of-line. Rude is rude.  It would be like asking for someone’s voting record or how much money they make…or, if they like anal sex.  We’d all like to know I’m sure, but who asks those kind of questions?

The guy sitting with his girlfriend said, “What happens if she was a former prostitute?  I have the right to know about that, don’t I?”

Once again, I was shocked by his ignorance and the conversation was becoming painful…

“Sure. I get  that.  Of course every guy has the right to make sure the girl isn’t a prostitute…” *said with a lot of sarcasm* “But I’m pretty sure prostitutes aren’t looking for a boyfriend…they usually want something else, like drugs.”

I found myself staring at him in confusion and trying to figure out how had a girlfriend for the past five years…seeing that I a had a hard time even getting a damn date.  Oh, the irony…

Someone else said they asked the question out of curiosity.  Again, I get that, but doesn’t that open up Pandora’s box?  Why would anyone do that?  I understand that we are curious about a lot of things but, like with anything else, this is where self-control comes into play.  When I  get overly curious, I remind myself of this simple rule:

If you can’t handle the answer, don’t ask the question.

There are some things I just don’t want to know – therefore I don’t ask the question, because, ultimately,  it only leads me to judge people and I don’t think that’s fair.   I don’t like to be judged, so I try not to judge.  It also helps when you refrain from asking stupid, irrelevant, obnoxious, out-of-line questions.

The debate ended up going on and on and wouldn’t you know, the only person in the group who sat silent during the whole conversation leaned over at the end of it and said, “A confident guy would never ask that question.”

And there you have it.

~Carrie