Your “Body Count” Still Matters in Dating—But Gender Bias? Surprisingly Not So Much

Friday, September 12, 2025.

Everyone swears the past doesn’t matter in love.

But sit through a family wedding and watch how Aunt Linda side-eyes Cousin Derek’s fiancée number three, and you’ll see how quickly history gets dragged into the room.

A new cross-cultural study in Scientific Reports confirms this: people judge potential long-term partners less favorably if they’ve racked up a high “body count.”

And here’s the kicker: despite all the cultural noise about double standards, men and women judge each other’s sexual pasts almost identically.

What the Researchers Actually Did

Andrew G. Thomas of Swansea University and colleagues from 11 countries wanted to know if sexual history is universally factored into partner choice—or if it’s just a British quirk from earlier studies.

Instead of asking people point-blank, the team presented visual timelines of fictional suitors’ sexual histories.

Each partner showed up as a vertical tick mark, stretching from sexual debut to the recent past. Some suitors looked like they’d slowed down over the years, others like they’d kept their pace. Participants were then asked: Would you want a long-term relationship with this person?

The numbers tested were four, twelve, and thirty-six partners.

Across three separate studies and more than 5,300 participants from Britain, Greece, China, Australia, the U.S., Brazil, Norway, Italy, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic, the story was consistent: desirability dropped as the number of past partners climbed.

Timing Is Everything

It wasn’t just how many—it was when. Someone with thirty-six partners who had slowed down over time was judged more favorably than someone still maintaining a steady streak. Translation: people don’t mind that you’ve been around, as long as it looks like you’ve already parked the car.

The loudest corners of the internet love to insist that women get punished for high numbers while men are quietly applauded.

This study just doesn’t back that up one bit

Both sexes judged high-count partners as less desirable. A few cultural quirks showed up (Chinese men, for example, were a tad more forgiving), but overall, the gender gap was irrelevant.

What’s interesting is that participants expected double standards—society’s bias came up when they were asked what others think. But when it came to their own choices, the judgments were almost identical for men and women.

Sociosexuality: A Twist

The researchers also measured sociosexuality—defined as an openness to casual, uncommitted sex.

Folks higher on that scale were more forgiving of adventurous pasts, but even they preferred suitors whose activity measurably slowed over time. High numbers were never an asset, only a potentially softened liability.

The samples weren’t nationally representative—most participants were young adults, that were recruited online.

Sexual history was presented as little tick marks on a timeline, which is tidy for science but a poor imitation of the messy way people learn each other’s pasts in real life (stories, reputations, prying into their phone, or the dreaded mutual-friend disclosure).

I’d like to see future studies explore short-term flings, where the appeal of “experience” might outweigh caution, or consider how sexual history interacts with other qualities—humor, kindness, or raw charisma.

Why It Matters

This intriguing research undercuts the toxic online nonsense that frames “body count” as a battlefield of double standards.

The truth is simpler, if less scandalous: across cultures, people prefer fewer past partners, they prefer slowing down over time, and they judge men and women in remarkably similar ways.

So yes, the past matters. But the data suggests partners care about it in roughly the same way, no matter their gender.

And if your past looks like a long guest list, the good news is that time, stability, and commitment can still put you back on the short list for life-long love.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

REFERENCES:

Thomas, A. G., Costello, W., Bendixen, M., Kennair, L. E. O., Apostolou, M., Bártová, K., Burýšek, O., Lowe, R., Jonason, P., Kowal, M., Luksevicius de Moraes, Y., Jiaqing, O., Sorokowski, P., Sulikowski, D., Štěrbová, Z., Valentova, J. V., Varella, M. A. C., Wang, Y., Wisman, A., Wright, P., & Stewart-Williams, S. (2025). Sexual partner number and distribution over time affect long-term partner evaluation: Evidence from 11 countries across 5 continents. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 16482. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-56453-3