Should you reveal how many people you've slept with?

Alison Taylor was genuinely stunned that this would even be a topic of conversation for mature(ish) people

What's your "number"? I was asked this recently and it left me dumbstruck (which doesn't happen often). At first, it took me a while to twig what I was being asked. But I was tipsy and it was 3am.The time is relevant; 3am is the sort of hour when some folk seem to think it OK to ask you the number of people you've slept with. What's next? Spin the bottle?

It was one of my boyfriend's mates who brought it up, in relation to a conversation he'd had with an all-male group a week earlier, and I don't know why but I was genuinely stunned that this would even be a topic of conversation for mature(ish) people. I also began to rack my brain for the number and honestly had – and indeed have – no clue.

"I stopped counting years ago", was my (drunken) reply, but then I realised that sounded a little flippant, if not boastful, given that I was sitting with my relatively new boyfriend and his friends. It also suggests that the number is so big that it's impossible to keep count.

There was no further questioning about my "number" but the discussion did evolve into whether the men present would like to know their girlfriends' totals. The conclusion, broadly, was no. "I'd just rather not know what went on before me", was one reply. At this point, I'm sitting mute and chain smoking, thinking, nobody needs to know about numbers because it's stupid. Who gives a damn? We shouldn't even be discussing this at our age. Bear in mind that none of us have children, we're still getting wasted on a Friday night in our late thirties, we've all "lived". Why does this even register on the radar?

But let's be honest – even now, a woman's number still carries a stigma. It almost makes me want to shout out – 200! 1,000! 2,000! Like I'm bidding at an auction. Bidding for lost virtue. Just say it.

@lovefoolforever