Alix Lane
According to the popular romcom What’s Your Number starring Anna Faris and Chris Evans, women who have more than twenty lovers in their lifetime have a harder time finding a husband. So, we should assume twenty is too many-right? I don’t know about you, but when I stepped onto Queen’s campus for the first time as a scared and naïve frosh, I really was not prepared for the new kinds of relationships I was going to have. As someone who had dated only once prior, and was a long term relationship, I wasn’t quite ready for how the university’s “hook up culture” was going to influence me. I will admit, I felt pressured to expand my number or “kill count” as most people put it and increase it rapidly as it seemed the more you had, the more you felt you would relate to the community. It appears everyone’s number is high at Queen’s, but the question that we should be asking is, is everyone’s number really as high as we think?
The answer is no, it’s not. After posting a survey for the general Queen’s student body, I was able to get an idea on what people’s views actually were and how many people in general they had engaged in sexual activity with. Out of 61 respondents, the average number for those having only 1-3 sexual partners was 28.3%. Another 15% of people said theirs were over 15. It is important to acknowledge this is a small pool of data and the results would be more concrete with a larger number sample, but still it is an opportunity to open up an interesting discussion.
Would you disclose your number to your friends? Maybe only close friends? Maybe not even them! Within the survey it was pretty close with 52.5% saying they would only share their number of sexual partners to close friends, 44.3% saying to any friend, and only 3.3% saying no. It seems then that the majority of us are pretty open when it comes to sharing with friends what we do behind closed doors. However, where it gets interesting is when we look at how many of us have felt pressured to have more partners. 57.4% said they did feel pressured with 42.6% saying no.
Bringing awareness to this kind of issue can be beneficial to everyone because at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter how many people you’ve been with and others shouldn’t care as long as you are being safe; physically and mentally. I say mentally because I know for me as an 18-year-old, I don’t think I was quite mature enough to understand all of the kinds of relationships I was having and if I went back, I’d do some things differently.
Here are some thoughts from the participants of our survey on “hook up culture”:
“I think there is a very interesting dichotomous relationship in the hook up culture for women. As such it is hard to win in the hook up culture, if you are not having enough sex then you are deemed a "prude" but if you are having too much and with too many different people you are looked at as a "slut". Whereas for men the hook up culture rewards really whatever the man chooses to do.”
“I personally do not like hook up culture. I completely understand why people partake in it, but I am not someone who feels comfortable sleeping with strangers or having multiple partners. One thing I particularly dislike about hookup culture is how people react when they learn I’ve only had one partner. I shouldn’t have to feel ashamed for not sleeping with multiple people.”
“It can be fun but there is definitely a toxic side to it when trying to find a real relationship”
“It’s definitely different for gay men than what I’ve heard for straight men. There is a lot of pressure to experiment and try new things which usually is sexual in nature. It’s tough for a guy like me who isn’t super sexually open, but I’m definitely still sex positive! I would just rather go for coffee before committing to sex with someone.”
“If you want it, goes and gets it (but wrap it). If you don’t, don’t”
Something to take away from this article is that people aren’t getting as busy as you think they are. As long as people are performing safe sex physically and mentally-mentally being that both partners are comfortable and know exactly what they are getting out of it and physically that are measures are taken to prevent STI’s/STD’s and unwanted pregnancies-then you should feel no pressure to expand your “body count”, which honestly just sounds like a murder charge waiting to happen! Linked below is a YouTube video from the channel ‘Cut’ where 100 different people share how many people they’ve hooked up with. Their answers range from zero to 2000, and the different attitudes towards each person’s individual number is refreshing as you get to see what real people are doing and that there truly is no norm when it comes to your own number.
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