“Whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?” wrote the poet Christopher Marlowe
in the 16th century.
Fast-forward to the 20th century and we had this snippet of lyrical beauty from Homer
Simpson, “I'm going to the backseat of my car with the woman I love…and I won't be
back for ten minutes.”
We have different kinds of lovers, those we might marry and stay with until a ripe old
age, and those we only know for one steamy night in the back of a car.
Today we are going to talk about short loves, as well as the people we date for some time,
and those we pledge an oath to.
Some of us have played the field, some not, and others just stayed with one person their
entire lives.
Welcome to this episode of the Infographics Show, How many lovers will you have in your
life.
Ok, so can we call a one night stand a lover?
Well, if you made love perhaps we can call it that, so let’s have a look at how many
different people the average person might sleep with in their life.
Of course country-to-country this might vary a lot, but we’ll see what statistics are
out there.
There have been lots of surveys over the years, and we will start with a recent Superdrug
survey that interviewed 2,000 people in the U.S. and Europe.
The survey gave details about each country, and also the global average combining all
the participants.
The global average for women was 7 lovers in a lifetime and the average for men was
6.7 – almost equal.
Some of you might now be thinking, hmm, I slept with that many people in high school
and kept a healthy rate going into my 30s or 40s.
But remember a lot of people aren’t so promiscuous and many have long-term relationships.
In this survey the Brits had the most partners in Europe at 7 and Italy had the least at
5.4.
The U.S. average was 7.2, with people from Utah sleeping with the least number of people
at an average of 2.6 and people from Louisiana being the most promiscuous with an average
of 15.4.
But no two surveys are alike.
Durex has done quite a lot of studies on this subject.
In one such survey it said people from Turkey had the highest number of sexual partners
in a lifetime at 15.4.
The global average by the way was 9 partners.
In second was Australia (13.3), then New Zealand (13.2), Iceland (13), South Africa (12.5)
and Finland (12.4).
The United States’ average in this survey was 10.7 while the UK was 9.8.
Down at the lower end of the scale was India (3), China (3.1), Vietnam (3.2), Hong Kong
(3.7).
Yet another survey, this time by the Journal of Sex Research, said from the 15,000 people
they interviewed across the globe men had an average of 14.1 partners and women 7.12.
As we said, there are many surveys, but it looks like a high number for a country would
be no more than 15 and a low of 3.
How many one night stands will you have in your life going by these numbers?
Well you’ll likely fall somewhere in the middle.
Of course, some of you might rut like rabbits your whole life while others might marry their
high-school sweet heart and never sleep with another person.
The problem we have now is that these surveys don’t differentiate from one night stands,
people who pay for their carnal thrills, and people who have long-term lovers.
We can’t call paying someone for this act an act of love or having a lover, but just
so you know, one survey by World Atlas told us that the countries that spend the most
on that in order are Spain, Switzerland, South Korea, Germany and Japan.
Another survey by researchers told us that 80 percent of Cambodian men had paid for it
at least once in their life, while 75 percent of Thai men had, 45 percent of Italian men
had, 39 percent of Spanish men had and 37 percent of Japanese men had.
The U.S. was 20 percent and the UK was 8.8 percent.
We saw that China was very low on the number of sexual partners in a lifetime, but there
are scores of articles out there telling us about China’s problem of men buying their
short-time trysts.
By 2020, we are told, 17 percent of all Chinese men aged 18-61 will have done this at least
once.
The South China Morning Post wrote in 2017 that this boom was due to the economic boom,
wherein some men are left behind and can’t find partners and some women left out make
cash where they can.
So, with this in mind, we might wonder how reliable those stats are when asking how many
partners one has in their life.
It’s well known that in Cambodia and Thailand visiting an establishment where women of the
night work is not exactly that unusual.
We believe that when people talked about how many physical partners they had in their lifetime
they were talking about serious partners, or even perhaps one night stands that didn’t
involve the exchange of money.
As we said, even though these on-the-clock engagements are not lover with lover, we have
to point out that they might profoundly change the numbers regarding how many people someone
might have slept with.
It seems not much research has been done into how many boyfriends or girlfriends we will
have in a lifetime.
This question was asked on Quora and we saw replies such as this, from a man in the USA
who said he had slept with a total of 57 women in his life (he said he counted).
He added, “In university I was heroic.
I had four relationships that felt ‘serious’, two of which I thought could lead to marriage,
including the one that did, in fact, lead to my marriage.”
We did, however, find one source that told us that men will have an average of eight
serious relationships in their lifetime, while women will have an average of 7.
For men 4 of those will last less than a year, two will last over a year and the rest will
be very short.
Women will have three relationships that last short of a year, two that last more than a
year, and the rest not long at all.
The research was part of a book called “The Rosie Project.”
Looking at Reddit and Quora those numbers don’t seem too far off, as it’s likely
that an average person in a lifetime might have just a handful of serious partners, some
a few more, some less.
We might also take into account that some people start very late or don’t start at
all.
The CDC tells us that in the USA 12.3 percent of women and 14.3 percent of men aged 20 to
24 are virgins.
From the age of 25 to 29 it’s only 5 percent for both men and woman and only 0.3 percent
for both when they reach 40 to 44.
Psychology Today tells us pretty much the same in terms of figures, and says there are
very few virgins after the age of forty but also some people have taken a vow of abstinence
when it comes to getting it on.
Again, the statistics differ depending on where you are looking, but one source tells
us that the highest divorce rates are in Luxemburg (87 percent), Spain (65 percent), France (55
percent), Russia (51 percent) and United States (46 percent).
The lowest rates of divorce are in India (1 percent), Chile (3 percent), Colombia (9 percent),
Mexico (15 percent) and Kenya (15 percent).
We might look at other stats that tell us in 2013, 40 percent of marriages in the U.S.
had at least one person in that relationship that had married before.
Pew Research tells us that indeed that year four out of every ten marriages had one person
who had been married before and in 20 percent of marriages both people had been married
before.
Pew also said more people were dating online, but research has shown that this doesn’t
necessarily mean people are having more lovers.
We already did a show on dating in the digital world, so you should check that out.
All we can do now is turn this over to you, and maybe we’ll glean something that defies
the statistics we have talked about today.
How many lovers have you had?
How many one night stands?
How many do you think you’ll have?
If you’re still a young gun, from what you know about the people around you, how many
lovers do you think people have in a lifetime, both serious relationships, short flops, and
also just the one night?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other show What Is Love & Will You Ever Fall IN Love?.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.