Thank you Joseph!

The fact that she is promiscuous, and he still has his virginity has nothing to do with withholding knowledge from him. You two keep mentioning the people throughout the thousands of years that have been forced to be measured by others morals. I dont know if you realize but most of the world in every society has the same simple standard morals. Cheating, stealing, lying, killing, and the list goes on. These things bring a code for order in society so someone does not infringe their free will over someone elses. She needs to tell him the truth so it will set her free. She will not be harboring guilt for keeping a secret that he needed to know to be fully committed to her. Whether he judges her or not is irrelevant because he should not have to sacrifice his morals for her deception and she should not have to live up to his moral expectations.

Women who have tried their best to keep sex to relationships or the odd one-off fling don’t seem to want to be bothered with this discussion and why should they? They obviously know what sex is supposed to be about, something intimate and special.

Some women (and men) out there like to be the victim. They somehow justify their feelings as being valid while everyone else’s is unrealistic and that society is too uptight or they are having a finger pointed at them. We have to realize people that in this life there are consequences to our actions.

If I go to a store and shoplift a shirt and get caught, the managment will call the police and I’m going to jail.

If I tell the police that I’m sorry, I just had a bad day or I’m poor and can’t afford a shirt so I took it, guess what happens—I’m still going to jail!

There is nothing more frustrating than some people out there who try to justify their reasons for sleeping around: I was just drunk; I needed to find love anywhere I could; all my friends do it or I went through a “phase”.

There are consequences to our actions in this world. Just ask someone with HIV if a certain unprotected sexual encounter had consequences. If some women feel it necessary out there to sleep around with many different partners then they have to be willing to accept that they might inherit labels like “slut” not only from men but from other women too. If they are OK with that fine, but don’t come online and bitch and complain that people aren’t being fair and somehow that they need to be counted as equal in the sex department to a person who commits to a relationship or who has had sex discerningly. I should also point out that men can be sluts too and are by no means discounted from this.

That’s not to say that people out there don’t make mistakes and learn from them and move on. But let’s be honest, the term “slut” is not something that washes off easily.

Nobody’s saying that men on the whole want a virgin. Let’s be realistic here. Relationships fail and there are the odd moments of weakness. To be honest, I would prefer a woman with a little experience because it shows that she is human and has loved and lost. But I’m not going to respect a woman who has had 30 partners in the same manner as a woman with 4 or 5 as a sexually mature person.

It just annoys me that people seem to criticize others for picking and choosing who they want to sleep with. I am male. Society pushes me into sleeping around. It’s cool to be a “stud” and bang as many unsuspecting women as possible. Am I ever tempted to? Sure, I’m human but I have enough standards and respect for myself and current/future lovers to protect my reputation as well as my body.

There are a lot of men out there who have bragged about women they’ve scored with. I’ve been in the locker rooms and bar washrooms. But I can guarantee not a lot of men would EVER seriously consider marrying a girl who has ever been called a “slut”. They’re just for joke material and soon- forgotten stories.

I think it boils down to two types of sexual thinkers.

1) Those that treat sex like a fun activity to be shared and enjoyed with friends, strangers etc

2) Those that treat sex as something sacred.

There are degrees of each and I obviously decided to be extreme in each case.

We have problems when one of each style try to have a relationship together.

To complicate the situation further, here is another point. Some people are hypocritical in their behavior and their thoughts with themselves.(mostly men) That is, they act like 1s, treating sex like candy, sharing it often with mulitple partners but when it is time for a serious partner expect them to have behaved like a sacred (2). Will not except a partner who has behaved like a “1″ and deem them unworthy.

I am a man myself. I know this because I think like this too. We love to be slutty little whores scewing all types of different women from different countries but when it comes to our hearts, if the women we are with has behaved like us in the past, it is unexceptable. Why is this? Why do we think this way? Women seem not to care as much. They love us with their heart regardless of the amount of women we have had. Sometimes it turns them on to hear how whorish we had been. Others it makes them more secure that we have “gotten it out of our system”.

I think the answer to this problem (for men) is as a socitety we are confused and fighting an internal stuggle. I state again, I think this is a mainly a man’s problem. Perhaps stemming from recent women’s open promiscuity that has been critisized in the past and looked down upon.

We believe, the more our women enjoy mulitple sexual partners the less sacred it can become with one special man.

Who knows.. I do know this.. when the women we love tells us “the number”.. every number above ourselves burns somthing primal into our egos and jelous replaying possessive minds.

Of course, it’s everyone’s choice whether to divulge personal information (it is personal, after all). However, people will judge regardless of what they know. I’d rather have a partner judge me on factual information rather than some assumption that developed due to lack of information. If you don’t want to be judged negatively, then don’t do things that are judged negatively. That’s the price of doing things that are looked down on in your society. If you want to do whatever you want to do, then accept the judgment and move on. We can’t have our cake and eat it, too.

I stress that it’s the imagery of the “emotional part” in previous sex bouts that hurts, not the exact information on numbers, be it 3 or 40. Since the man has survived 3, he might survive 40 as well. I advocated lying when no numbers were yet revealed and no chances to find out.

1. Women CAN and DO change for the best. Their changes are permanent as they are more truthful to the promises than men. If we ignore this fact in favor of past sex “information”, the judgment will be flawed, if not regrettable.

2. There IS a twilight region between the inorganic dictums like “sin & virtue” etc. Life resides just there. Nobody is perfect and this makes life so wonderful to live. What is perfect in flesh & blood?

I can tell you an Indian story: Once a deer came running into the hermitage where a monk was meditating. The deer sought protection from him as it was chased by a hungry tiger. The monk hid it in his hermitage. Soon after, the tiger came up and asked if the monk saw any deer. The monk lied but offered the tiger with some milk while having a consoling chat. The tiger believed the monk (since monks can not lie!) and went away rather happy with a full stomach. The monk released the deer with an advice to be more careful. Has the monk committed a sin by lying? Should he have given away the deer? Or should he have refused shelter? Ask yourself what would YOU have done. Things are really not so cut & dry.

3. There IS a philosophy of “becoming” according to Indian spirituality. (There are some discussions in this post about it.) It says you become “God-like” yourself by constantly worshipping God. (Worship means honesty, selflessness etc. It has nothing to do with some fixed “dos & don’ts” codes). Thus, a so called promiscuous woman can also be God-like from the moment she surrenders herself to God AND to her new found man. In Ramayana, Lord Rama delivered a prostitute (Ahalya) as her soul was always devoted to God, no matter what her living required her to do.

4. Coming back to the issue of the post, I wonder why at all she divulged the number 3. As xman says, and I fully agree, she could take all the 40 to her grave, consigning those to past nightmares, and look for a new wonderful beginning. But I think she has already committed an error by a half lie. It should be a full lie. A woman must tell a firm “NONE” (except of course those with previous husbands, if divorced. But it’s understood.) Nothing is provable beyond reasonable doubts. So, LIE and LIE FIRMLY ABOUT IT RIGHT FROM DAY 1 and DEFEND it to the grave. And CHANGE, CHANGE PERMANENTLY TO A BEST LOVING WIFE. This is in the interest of both.

5. What is the meaning of “virginity” “soild values” “non-promiscuous” etc of a man? Is he a monk? (Even monks slip, because it is the property of flesh & blood.) Has he never even masterbated thinking of a nice neighbor or Sophia Loren? Has not ever his subconscious sex drives led him to soil the bed in erotic dreams? Undeformed nether lips can not be any point of serious assessment, they anyway get deformed by time (I always thought we, Indians, clamoured for virgin brides…but it does not seem to be the case.)

BUT BUT BUT I do agree it’s extremely painful to stomach the “emotional” involvement I alluded to earlier. It is impossible to treat her as a “princess” which we all men want to treat our women like. I’m a sufferer myself and I know. But thinking of the great love the man has bestowed on her, he should consider no.1 as the only way to be happy with her, who now is a new woman risen like a Sphinx. I advance no.4 above as a plausible solution for future cases.

Good evening to ALL.
KK

It’s this attempt to make ourselves accept other behaviors that leads to the moral relativism that previous posters mentioned. However, it’s really not neccessary. All we need to do is tolerate others and in exchange they will tolerate us.

Speaking as an atheist and as someone who was raised in the Catholic church, I have to say that Catholicism specifically does not teach nor imply that those who are not virgins are ‘bad’ or are unworthy of marriage. That’s nonsense. In all my years at Catholic school and college did I ever hear anything like this. How tolerant would you be if you spread lies about various faiths?

This is not about ego, or “it is what made me who I am today”, or chauvinism or double standards or evolution or 1950 or “not anyone else’s business” or anything else you can come up with. It’s not really about freedom to do as one wishes with their body, rather freedom for anyone to have the truth and choose if the partner they are picking is acceptable by their value system. Yes this is about choice and preference and honesty. Plain and simple.

I too am one of those men who has let a girl I loved go because of her sexual promiscuity. I do miss her but she did not fall in line with my values and I would never again be able to respect her. She deserved better. So did I. I was not going to lower my standards for any of the reasons that so many have listed above. I don’t ask for much but to me self respect is very important. She is now in her late 30’s and still single and full of a lot of regret. I am sad for her. But she did make her choices, sadly they were based on the lies of an earlier generation. Now she pays for those choices. I now have everything that she wanted to have with me. Much of it is now too late for her to ever have. Having loved her and in some ways still do, I am very sad for her. Its such a sad fate that it appears many women are suffering due to the assumption that today’s men are required to and will be accepting of this.

We all make choices and we all will be judged for them. Every choice comes with a price. It appears that for promiscuous women that price is respect and life long love. Men’s preferences in women have been consistent throughout history. This type of woman has never been desired by men. Like it or not, that seems to be the underlying truth here.

I have myself lived through such trauma of suspicion. My spouse only hinted at her past once that led to many sleepless nights for me. But thinking in that line helped me. Moreover, her love is genuine and life is too short to be unhappy. Still, I’d say she did not even hint at it…Hence my comments.

Having said the above, I fully realize that the knowledge or suspicion about past escapades of the spouse does hurt the man very really; the intimate imageries involving the spouse and other men do keep returning irresitibly and devastatingly. It is impossible to “rationalize it away” once a suspicion pops up its head when the woman hints at it even by mistake. Thus, a small white lie can save the relationship which is so wonderfully going. I should add that women want to honestly seek a relationship and in the process end up giving themselves, butvery well be eventually left alone, not for her fault. I would not call it “promiscuity”. Would you call a successful man a “failure” just because his earlier applications were rejected? I fully subscribe to the idea that women become wiser through failures (wrongly termed as promiscuity)with men and look to someone they can realy love. It is indeed lucky for the man if a woman fears losing him.