But list-keeping is where we draw the line?
Sex lists are more or less the backbones ofLittle Black BookandWhats Your Number?
The only way to keep count is to keep a list, even if its just mental.
©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
I quickly found that Do you keep a list?
yielded far less interesting data than Why do you keep a list?
And, spoiler, Why?
Anna Faris and Chris Evans inWhat’s Your Number?
It got deep (pun intended).
Every single name in this article has been changed.
Others had more specific reasons for laying their lists to rest.
Matthew Settle and Kelly Rutherford as Rufus and Lily inGossip Girl.
That number, she later told me, was 50.
But now its useful to remember my long but forgettable situationships.
Remembering the past was an enjoyable exercise for many.
She called her list such a fun memory log.
Anna Faris and Chris Evans inWhats Your Number?
And it was never that serious to begin with.
The mind forgets for what reason, though?
Because old hookups are unimportant?
But theres a darker implication, too.
Which made me wonder if they were doing sex wrong.
Much like pizza,sex is great when its great, and when its not, its still pizza.
Would you really hate to remember your past pizzas?
Or maybe its just shame.
For men, gay or straight, an itinerary of past partners is a list of conquests.
But a woman doing the same thing at the same quantity would be…crazy.
Matthew Settle and Kelly Rutherford as Rufus and Lily inGossip Girl.
Sadly, at least one woman, LA comedian Tina, was the victim of list-as-weapon.
She got rid of it after they broke up.
Thankfully, Tinas experience was seemingly uncommon, though negative feelings around keeping a list werent.
I still see myself as a gangly teen no one wanted to date.
She wasnt alone in using a list as an ego boost.
I recently started to compile a list and have been keeping it updated for about a year now.
Also, crudely, I wanted to know my number.
Its been helping me get over deep-seated and lifelong body issues.
[It] also makes me feel gauche, to find validation from a number.
So the number for me is a curiosity, and not really anything more.
A friend-of-a-friend told me about another friend, a gay man, who keeps a PDF with pictures.
So: Self-flattery is not cool, but self-reflection, of course, is.
Dont we all find a little validation in bed?
I considered the quasi-paradox of the sex list.
And its entirely possible that most or all of these partners were meaningful to you.
The societal stereotype, though, is that the longer your list, the less an individual entry means.
As in, if youre promiscuous, you must also therefore be casual about sex.
Yet to make a list is the opposite of casual.
Maybe the haters were right.
Maybe whatever cool points you get from sleeping around are nullified by the act of logging them.
Self-perception collided with list-provided factual reality when I spoke to Priscilla, a writer who lives in Chicago.
I have a list!
Its truly just a list of names, years, and locationsJosh, Denver, 2014.
I told them I needed some important tax documents.
(Drew Barrymorenamenotchangedalso lost her list.
Specifically,she left it at Danny DeVitos house, and he apparently never found it.
A list that, to hear her tell it, she made for no apparent reason one day.)
The second time I spoke to her, she had dug out her list.
And another hard truth: I am less of a hot slut than I thought.
Only 11 sexual partners!
This is the plot ofLovesickon Netflix, and just in terms of sperm transmission, also helpful inMamma Mia.
I do think theres an aspect of wanting to document who I did this intimate act with.
You would think a pelvic floor physical therapist would advocate for some kind of…pelvic self-assessment.
We live in an age of logs.
With all that context, sex seems way too important not to keep track.
Elizabeth Logan is aGlamourcontributor.
