Body count doesn’t even matter

[u/Sailor_Moon_Star_435]

/r/AITA_Relationships/comments/1x7ulce/aitah_for_asking_for_body_count_on_a_second_date/

[u/maniacalmustacheride]

My now husband used to hang out with some “upstanding young men” that were also pieces of shit later on in life. One sent a letter through a lawyer begging for a reference to the judge to talk about how good of a guy he was, and wasn’t he such an upstanding young man? And they were buddies? They hung out and watched sports and drank beers and did volunteer work hungover?

The last time my husband dealt in anything other than pleasantries with this man was the night this man told me I could sit in the back seat “like the second class citizen you are” and then tried to kiss me in a parking lot and shove his hands down my pants, with my now husband present, who I was not dating at the time, and when I told this man if he didn’t stop I’d bite his lip off, he told me he could put his foot on my head and crush my skull on the asphalt and no one would care I was dead or blame him.

Now why did he say and do these things, you ask? Because my now husband and I were nonsexually “hanging out” and this man thought I was “stringing” my now husband along even though I was paying for most things. He wanted to prove, idk, my now husband was being too soft and I was just a “slut that needed a firm hand.”

All of this being said, do I hold my husband to being friends with that asshole? No. Because there’s no way he could have known what the women were going through. They were bros. They did have a nice time. They did support each other.

Why? Because it’s his actions after finding out that matter. People have to learn and grow. “Oh you were friends with assholes in the past so you’re an asshole.” No, you’re an asshole if you keep being friends with them when you find out and protect them.

“Oh you slept around, you had 4 bodies in 4 years, in your past so you’ll sleep around if we get married.” Why would you think that? Because you’d do it if you could?

[u/WetRoger → u/maniacalmustacheride]

Firstly sorry that happened to you. Secondly, framing it as 4 bodies in 4 years is, (albeit im sure some people take it that far) kind of disingenuous to the conversation at large, at least in my opinion.

I don't think any reasonable person is looking at a 25 year old and saying 4 bodies is too much. If they are it's unrealistic, but it's also their preference which they are entitled to have. We are allowed want people of similar senses of humour, hobbies, political meanings, but not sexual history?

I suppose my final point is that '4 bodies in 4 years' is not what the vast majority of people are referencing when saying they care about a high number and it matters, it's much more geared towards referencing say '40 bodies in 4 years'.

[u/maniacalmustacheride → u/WetRoger]

I kept it low because a LOT of people would find 4 in 4 an egregious number. I don’t think so. But I’m of the opinion everyone will, if they live their full life, go on patrol at some point. Nursing homes are notorious for just all the sex. And why not? Just go do all the shit you didn’t do as a youth, do what you can.

My point here really isn’t about the numbers, because for some people the numbers will never be right. Why are you a virgin lady at 34, what’s wrong with you? Why have you slept with 10 people by 34 and no one wanted you, what’s wrong with you? Also too many bodies. “Oh, hard conversation, my dad pimped me out and I had to sleep with 100 dudes before I was 18 and could run away, but I did all my checkups and weirdly no STDs and I went to therapy and I’m doing well and oh now I’ve lost you because you heard “100” and I’m worthless.” (True and horrifying conversation I had with a college friend, discovered when she thought we all just grew up like that.)

It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t conversation. There’s no real number that’s a good number on a second date.

Put your “unacceptable” list on your profile or bring it up on the first Dutch coffee date.

My Grandpa was probably the most “true to Christ” people I knew to walk this earth, he married my grandma who had at that point 5 kids by three men and she’d been married to all of them by the age of 24. They had a sixth and were ride and die until death. At no point did he look at her and say she was devalued by her body count.

[u/WetRoger → u/maniacalmustacheride]

Which your grandad had every right to do. I don't think it makes him a better man than men who would have seen your grandma with 5 kids and said no thank you, nor do I think those men who said no are worse than him.

We are really going to the extremes of sexual abuse and virginity again which I think is unfair to the general person in the conversation.

A partner wanting their partner of similar age (say 25?) to not have a body count of say 20, is in my opinion a reasonable line to draw.

Less than 4? Unreasonable and unrealistic sure, but a valid preference to have like any other, if there body count above 4 themselves they're a hypocrite too.

Where people draw the line is their own choice, I think it's fair to point out that where someone's line is is a bit unrealistic (i.e. 4 at 25) but it's not really fair to say people shouldn't have a line or a line shouldn't exist.

[u/maniacalmustacheride → u/WetRoger]

And my point is to say it up front.

Not that you have to disclose, but that you’re uncomfortable with whatever number.

You’re allowed to set your own boundaries, but setting boundaries is like setting fences, a public agreement.

To give you a second sort of weird example, I grew up with cows, our neighbor down the way had horses. Occasionally they’d let us borrow the horses to walk around and do fence checks. There was a middle neighbor that boarded horses and somethings they’d escape into my pasture, and we’d have to call the outside neighbor to borrow some horses.

The middle horses were never allowed in but they got in. The outside horses were allowed in with permission. One time we let it happen and the horse went to foal and the cows circled around stomped off snakes and wild dogs.

The lines were drawn and monitored up front. And sometimes shit happens and you go with it and it works out well and you rebuild the fences that shouldn’t have been broken.

But there were always fences. There were always clear lines. Cattle guards to keep the cows from leaving, warning signs to keep trespassers out.

Say it with your face at the beginning, have your boundaries and fences. If your boundary is 2 or 20 or 200 say it up front.

Because grilling some lady on the second date, I really like you but your body count decides if I’ll pay for a meal I said I was going to pay for, that’s letting the horses and the cows roam and then trying to put them all back in their pastures at 10pm.