At the start of a new relationship, especially in the Gen-z and Millennial bracket, the question always arises of how many sexual partners you have had up to that very second in time.

Why? It’s all just part and parcel of human curiosity, we want to know, we need to know how many dicks have been inside a particular person.

We just cannot hang out with people until we are told how much vaginal intercourse they have partaken in. Even if it is not openly talked about the curiosity remains, like a sexy elephant in the room.

We all have a number, sometimes that number is zero, sometimes it’s in the triple digits. If it’s above that, perhaps seek counselling.

What I think we fail to realise is that the only person who cares about your number is yourself. Unless you’re one of those guys still stuck in the My Space area requesting a ‘virgn gf’, in that case you need to pack your bags and go home because no one is going near your balls if you don’t grow any.

I lost my virginity at 19, a fairly old age by today’s standards, and a very old age if I was in the 18th century – luckily, I’m not and neither is ye old Vagina.

Losing my ‘V plates’, swapping in my V card, catching the penis train, however you want to call it; was relativity uneventful and completely underwhelming. But I thought hey, I’m no longer a virgin; my life is about to get instantly cooler.

Wrong.

If anything, I got more boring because I thought now that that is over I can focus on more important things, like The Sims or focusing hard enough to grow boobs. Which obviously didn’t work.

The interesting thing is, when you’re in your prime sexual curiosity peak, the number is a great secret that you just must know, akin to the DaVinci Code. Yet as we age people stop asking what your number is, because the answer, is fucking gross.

It’s easy to get sucked into the notion that the higher your number, the cooler you are as a person. Vagina x 10 = Cool as fuck.

But a guy I briefly dated told me I was number 110, and all I could think was “I really need to get myself checked.” It wasn’t cool, it wasn’t in the least bit sexy. It was concerning.

But he, like many other people out there, get around. And there is nothing wrong with having a high number as long as you’re being careful. The only thing number related you should be judging on is whether or not these people are being responsible. Because if they’re not, it puts you, and every other genital they touch, in danger.

New Zealand women have an average of 20.4 sexual partners in their life. So twenty and almost one half of full dicks. Or twenty dicks and one tip; however you want to look at it. We are the only country in the world where we have more sex than our guys. And good for us, we know what we want and we’re obviously equip to get it.

On the flip side, if you’ve never had sex and are reaching the age where society is making you feel bad about it, that’s on your community, not you.

Everyone has their own expectations. Early last year a woman sold her virginity for upwards of 10k. I gave mine away for a basket of cheese fries (Thank you Burger Burger!).

I have nothing against sex, in fact you could call me an avid fan of the practise. What I’m not a fan of is how much pressure people place on themselves to have the perfect number, whatever it may be.

For some people 2-5 is a good range, for some 20-50 is the norm, for other 100+ is just where they have found themselves.

The point is, how you see it, and how others see it will always be different. There is no perfect universal number, there is only what is perfect for you at the pace you’re happy with.