Call me crazy, but whenever I start talking to a guy, one of the early questions I like to ask is “how many people have you slept with?” It usually gets interesting after that. I’ve found that a lot of guys are surprised that I would be so “bold” to ask this question.

I have been told by these guys as well as friends of both sexes that it is weird and pointless to want the answer. They argue that what a person has done before they got with you has absolutely nothing to do with you. As long as they have been healthy in their practices, their body count is irrelevant. They proceeded to say that I would only be turned off if the number was higher than I expected or that I would constantly think about how much more experienced they might be than me if we decided to become intimate.

I disagree. It would be different if I was asking for the names of all the people they slept with and used that information to go find out more about them. I could then see myself constantly comparing myself to the other women they had been with. But that wasn’t my reason for asking.

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I ask because just like a person’s favorite color or movie says a lot about them, so does the number of people they have slept with. Having only slept with one person could mean you haven’t had many experiences and may need help discovering what you like and dislike in encounters. It could also mean that you only sleep with people you are in a committed relationship with. On the other hand, if your body count number is 50, maybe you don’t believe that you have to have anything more than a physical attraction to a person to have  or you just really like giving/receiving pleasure and want to have as many experiences as possible before settling down. Either way, based on the answer, I have learned something about you that could help me better understand how you feel about and relationships overall.

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I’m here to tell you that there is nothing wrong with caring about a person’s body count. 

When deciding to be involved with someone  for a lifetime or for a moment, it is good to know about their history. This typically includes knowing when a person last got tested, but it could just as easily include the number of people a person has been with. Now I'll be the first to say that body count to me has no particular relation to a person's health. You could have slept with 200 people and never had one issue, or slept with one person and ended up with an STD. I more so think that body counts matters in terms of the state of mind of a person. 

I"ll use myself as an example. I usually don't sleep with someone I'm not in a relationship with or not highly considering being in a relationship with. The one time I did I felt pretty terrible about it. This partially has to do with the way I grew up. I grew up in a two-parent household so all I ever knew was being in a steady relationship with one person and then growing with that person. That growth most certainly included learning to please each other. I never had the mindset that I needed various partners to find out what I liked or that I would just sleep with someone because I thought they were attractive, no strings attached. That is why I care to know about my potential partner's views are on the matter, especially if they are significantly more experienced than me or if their views differ vastly from mine. 

But this is not the case for everyone. I know a lot of people my age (22) who would say to live your best life and explore with as many people as you please just so long as you are being safe. I'm always interested in knowing why they feel the way they do about having multiple partners and what it does for them outside of being able to say they have experience. 

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I could be wrong, but when a person has no other explanation as to why they have so many partners aside from loving and the different experiences it has to offer, I can't help but think that it has something to do with struggling to fully trust and commit to someone. This could be because they have opened up and been faithful to one person who betrayed them, and as a result, they refuse to be vulnerable again until they have found "the one." It could be because they have never seen their parents, friends or loved ones in consistent relationships. Maybe they have learned to disconnect their emotions from relations, which allows them to easily move from one partner to the next without even thinking about it. Either way, I always think there is a deeper reason behind why someone does the things they do. 

This information can be helpful in determining if a person truly likes you and is willing to build with you or if they will just view you as another body to add to their list. Their views on body counts, just like any other subject, can give you insight into what they value. If those values for whatever reason don't align with yours, you are then free to decide if you want to continue to invest time in them. But at least you can do so knowing all the facts. 

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All in all, I think that body counts do matter and that it is fair for a person to not only ask, but to choose to care about the answer they receive. If body counts truly didn't matter, then people wouldn't get uncomfortable when they found out someone was a virgin and realized that was an added responsibility for them. People wouldn't turn potential lovers away when they thought the number was too high or too low for their standards. People wouldn't be so relieved that because their partner is so experienced that they wouldn't have to teach them anything, and the list goes on and on. But it happens all the time.

No matter how much we talk ourselves into thinking we don't care about something, deep down we genuinely do. So if you're one of the people who does care about body counts then own that and you don't let people make you out to be the bad guy/girl for doing so. And if you truly don't care about body counts, don't judge the person who does because we all have something that we care about that someone else doesn't. 

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Alexis George is a writer who covers love, relationship advice, astrology and personality topics.