How Many Lovers Have You Had? Why I Stopped Counting at 50

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I’ve always loved boys and sex. Before I hit puberty and even knew what sex was, I used to lull myself to sleep at night and during long car rides by fantasizing about kissing David Cassidy and Scott Baio. I had no idea why the accompanying hum between my legs relaxed me so thoroughly. But I knew I liked it.

I’ve had between 40 and 50 lovers in my 45 years of sexual activity. Not bad, considering I was married and monogamous for most of my adulthood. I’ve never had a one-night stand with a stranger. My theory is that women need an emotional connection to enjoy sex. It’s no surprise to me that my favorite lovers were men who knew me for decades.

My first two sexual partners were disappointments. Teenagers themselves, neither boy knew anything about girls’ bodies or how to elicit pleasure from them. One had a penis that bent sideways like a banana, which alarmed me. (I now know it's a medical condition called Peyronie's disease.)

Luckily, the year I turned 17, I met a long-haired man-boy, two years older, who turned me into an unabashedly enthusiastic lover. He treated my body like a wonderland to be explored and mined. We never actually went out on a date. Instead, we spent a year of Saturday nights pleasuring ourselves on his futon, then sloshing bubbles out of his clawfoot bathtub, and turning his walk-in closet into a pitch-dark love nest.

From top to bottom, we tried it all. We talked openly about our desires and crazy new things we could try together. I learned a critical lesson: enthusiasm and lack of inhibition, not skill, experience or six-pack abs, form the foundation of truly mind-blowing sex.

In college, I experimented with celibacy. For three years, I eschewed makeup and men and had sex only with myself. I learned how many times I could orgasm in one hour (three). Self-love was another building block to reliably stupefyingly good sex.

My next experiment came during my last year of college. Misguidedly, I decided to date a close friend — a steady man who would be “good for me.” He was a brainy and irreverent human who adored me. Unfortunately, I’d never found him physically compelling.

I had to close my eyes and shut down my body to have sex with him. I ended up cheating on him. He hates me to this day. Another lesson: raw chemistry is essential to sizzling intimacy. This raises a troubling, unanswered question I have yet to resolve: can you sustain incredible sex with someone with whom you also want to grow old?

For the next two decades, sex faded in importance. I focused on my career, marriage, home ownership, caring for my dying mother and raising my children. Both of my husbands were like dildos. I felt little intensity or sexual connection with either man, but their bodies got the job done. Plus, they had wonderful attributes like knowing how to pay our taxes, and coach peewee soccer, both of which seemed more fundamental than erotic compatibility. I assumed the sexual experimentation phase of my life was over.

I could not have been more wrong.

I went through menopause around the same time my second marriage ended. Then, my libido roared back like a grizzly coming out of hibernation. In my early 50s, I slept with a slew of delectable younger men who made me feel like a wise, sensual, older goddess. I began plowing through unrequited love interests from high school, college and even elementary school.

I learned so much about men and sex in my 50s. Some men can’t climax no matter what. Some surreptitiously gobble blue pills to cover the perceived shame of their waning virility. Some tie their self-esteem so closely to your orgasm they destroy the erotic build by repeatedly interrupting with “Did you come yet?”

Fortunately, in my later 50s, I connected with two of the best lovers of my life. The first was a never-married high school boyfriend who, like my first electric lover, was devoted to understanding how my body worked. We had sex repeatedly — in the woods, in restaurant bathrooms, on the hood of his car. It was almost embarrassing how loudly he made me scream during orgasms.

The second four-star lover was a married man I’d also known since high school, but never dated. He was similarly adventurous and skilled, and the softest, best kisser ever.

One of the most puzzling lessons I learned firsthand is that certain men — and maybe women too — channel all their intensity and vulnerability into sex. These folks make the finest lovers. But they also make terrible partners, because the only kind of intimacy they can achieve is between the sheets. All of my favorites cheated on me or were so distant and unreliable that I couldn’t count on them as friends. This dichotomy makes for extremely confusing relationships. How can the sex be intergalactic, and then you can’t resolve what to eat for dinner or which route to take on a road trip?

Looking back, my most balanced lover was a younger blue-collar man (I was 52, he was 32) raised by a confident single mother. The sex was beautiful and satisfying, albeit lacking the obliterating fireworks I experienced with others. But Mishka told me he loved me before I could even fathom saying the same to him.

He begged me to sleep over after sex so he could hold me all night long. He took care of my cats when I traveled. Six years into our on-again, off-again affair, he called to explain he’d met someone his age he wanted to marry. He asked me to help him pick out the engagement ring. Love does come in utterly unexpected human packages, yes?

Every few years, I try once again to come up with a reliable count of how many people have shared my bed. I’ve considered inviting women to explore my secret garden, too, but have never gotten past the fantasy stage on that one. What I’ve learned along the way is far more significant than an exact headcount, anyway.

Sex is good for us. Enjoying our bodies is a blessing, a joy, an adventure. I’m grateful to the men who made me whimper, cry out and cry for real. I hope the men I’ve been with — however many there have been — feel the same about me.

 
Would YOU ever reveal how many sexual partners you've had? Let us know in the comments below.