The average Briton has slept with four people, but most also see that as a small number
Earlier this year, OnlyFans porn star Bonnie Blue grabbed headlines and shocked many by announcing that she had had sex with more than 1,000 men in one day, a world record.
A thousand sexual partners is a large number for anyone over the course of a lifetime, let alone a single day. Indeed, a YouGov survey in 2023 revealed that the average Briton said they had slept with only four different people in their lives.
When we published that figure, there were many who reacted on social media with surprise at how small they felt the number was. And indeed, that appears to be the public view, with a new YouGov survey showing that 59% of Britons consider four to be a low partner count – including 19% who consider it a “very low” figure.
By contrast, one in three (33%) see the figure as neither a large nor a small number of people to have made love to.
In the public mind, between seven and ten sexual partners seems to be the most ‘typical’ figure. This is the point at which the number of Britons saying this is a “neither large nor small” number of sexual partners peaks, at 49-50%.
At the point by which someone has had 15 sexual partners, the public become divided, with 43% continuing to say this is neither a large nor a small number, while 42% now consider this to be a large figure.
Most Britons (52%) consider 20 sexual partners to be a high figure, rising to 71% for 30 sexual partners, 83% for 50, and 90% for 100 partners – the highest number we asked about.
How do attitudes to numbers of sexual partners differ by the number of people someone has slept with themselves?
The results also show that the goalposts move somewhat based on the number of sexual partners respondents themselves have had. Simply put, the more sexual partners a person has had, the higher they set the level for what ‘a lot’ of sexual partners looks like.
For instance, while 48% of British virgins see ten people as a large number to have slept with, and 27% of Britons who have slept with four people (about the average) say the same, this figure falls to just 8% among those who say they themselves have had 10-14 sexual partners, and a mere 1% among those who say they’ve slept with 50 people or more.
How do attitudes to numbers of sexual partners differ by age and gender?
At an overall level, the attitudes of men and women are effectively the same across the range. However, the generations do take differing views, with young people being the quickest to start saying that a number of sexual partners is ‘high’.
This is not necessarily surprising – the older someone is, the more chances to have sexual encounters they have had, and it is probably fair to assume that respondents are basing their answers on the tally of a person about the same age as them.
Breaking the results down by both age and gender shows that young men are more likely to consider certain numbers as large compared to young women the same age. Older women (those aged 65 and above) are likewise generally more likely to consider a given number of sex partners as ‘large’ compared to men the same age.
Full tables coming shortly
What do you think is a small and large number of sexual partners, do you think it makes a difference how many sexual partners someone has had, and everything else? Have your say, join the YouGov panel, and get paid to share your thoughts. Sign up here.
Photo: Getty
