Study: Men and Women Agree on the Ideal Magic Number for Sexual Partners

“So, baby, what’s your magic number?”

If you’ve ever heard these words from your significant other, the kneejerk reaction for many is to cut and run. Or lie.

Even if you get out of there alive, your mind starts to wander. Do you have just one magic number, or perhaps you’ve graduated to double digits?

Some of us might not even know the exact figure. A friend of mine recently told me that she decided to upgrade the notches on her bedpost to the 21st century by making an excel spreadsheet at work, and was horrified to learn that it was, shall we say, a little higher than she’d anticipated.

Honesty, of course, is always the best policy. But if you’re looking for a number that’s going to be well received, here’s a tip: according to a dating site, 10 is the ideal number of lovers to have – and that’s the same for men and women.

The study was conducted by IllicitEncounters.com, a U.K dating website that pairs married or attached persons looking for a little romance outside their current relationship (Ashley Madison with a British accent).

The poll asked people how many lovers you would want a new partner to have; 38 per cent of women and 37 per cent of men said that between eight and 12 lovers was optimal. Within that group, 10 sexual partners was considered the best.

Spokesperson Christian Grant said, “If we had conducted this poll 10 years ago, men would have expected a potential partner to have slept with far fewer people.

“But a gentlemen never asks a woman how many men she has slept with.”

And although it may show a shift in the dating game, with people opting to have more sexual partners before they settle down, the study showed that men were still wary of women whose number exceeded the perfect 10.

But both men and women were turned off by anyone whose magic number was above 20.

Women wanted to know what a man’s magic number was only 35 per cent of the time, and men were even less inquisitive – only wanting to know a woman’s sexual history 30 per cent of the time.

So while the study shows the delicate balance of being sexually experienced without being promiscuous, it also shows us something else: More often than not, ignorance is bliss.

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