Taking Sex Off Its Pedestal

My romantic partner recently told me he felt insecure about how many sexual partners I might have had. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this question, directly or indirectly.

What’s your “number”?

If I’m honest, I’ve started to notice that this question is often less innocent than it seems. In more than one relationship, I’ve watched men spiral around my sexual history, not simply from insecurity, but from a deep cultural wound around ownership.

I have felt many times like they were unconsciously trying to trap me and pull me into an agreement that my choices should carry shame. Because I was “with them” now, I should suddenly adopt their moral framework around sex, rewrite my history, and do things the way they want. 

Recently, I remember thinking: maybe I should just go on a sex strike. I can feel how quickly sex becomes loaded with expectation. Being “with” someone can create an invisible pressure that your body is now part of an unspoken contract where consent gets thrown out the window.

And every time the question “what’s your number?” is asked, I find myself wondering why we ask this about sex. No one has ever asked me how many bike rides I’ve been on, how many pineapples I’ve eaten, how many massages I’ve received, or how many oceans I’ve swum in. No, those experiences are allowed to simply be experiences.

But sex? Sex is loaded, counted, measured, moralised, and held up as evidence of worth, desirability, purity, damage, experience, and value.

I remember in university making a “sex map”. We drew lines between everyone who had slept with everyone else in our small community. At the time it felt funny, but looking back, it says a lot.

Sex was never just sex, it was status, identity, and currency. Sex sits on a huge pedestal in our culture. 

Men are expected to perform, initiate, know what they’re doing, stay hard, never falter, never feel insecure. Their worth often gets tied to sexual success just as women’s worth gets tied to sexual purity. 

As women, we are meant to be pure, untouched, virginal, desirable, and innocent. But definitely not prudish, or “vanilla”. We must be skilled, sexy, open, wild, fulfil fantasies, and know what we’re doing. We must be experienced enough to satisfy, but inexperienced enough to remain “special.” It’s an impossible and exhausting standard that keeps people performing, rather than listening. 

I think we need to take sex off its pedestal. Sex can be transformationally powerful, healing, intimate, and beautiful. It can also be confusing, awkward, violating, empty, and traumatic. And sometimes, it can be boring, like just another thing, equivalent to taking out the trash or cleaning your house. That might sound unromantic, but I think it’s important, because not all sex is sacred, and not all sex is meaningless.

Sometimes sex is profound because of timing, trust, and connection. Sometimes sex without magic (the right thing, at the right time), is just sex. This is a pretty radical to say that in a culture built on sexualisation. I can feel the weight of it, almost like a physical thing. 

Recently, I was having sex and realised I wanted to stop. Nothing dramatic had happened, I just didn’t want to continue, and I said so. My partner spiralled, and his feelings of unworthiness surfaced. Old stuff around feeling unattractive, rejected, not skilled enough, etc. Five years ago, I probably would have overridden myself and not mustered the strength to say anything. 

The pressure is immense: to please, to avoid hurting someone, to make them feel wanted, to make them feel special. All of that pressure stands heavily in the way of full consensual choice.

Consent is being able to say no, at any point, even halfway through, even if someone is disappointed, even if they get some feedback and it changes how they see themselves. And it’s a skill that we all need to increase, because frankly, we can’t expect our sexual partners to be masters at this. 

Instead of “what’s your number?”, consider these useful questions: Have you ever said yes when you meant no? Have you confused being sexually desired with being worthy? How often do you choose from truth rather than pressure? What would it take to increase your capacity for choosing, fully, what you give and to whom you give it to?

Those questions are far more revealing. Sex is not a reliable measure of purity or value or intimacy. It is simply one of the many ways humans touch each other. The more we deconstruct its mythology, the freer we can be to choose it consciously.