Bleachable Moments

I went through a crazy party girl period in my 20s. My boyfriend recently asked me how many men I'd slept with before him. I told him, and he freaked out at the number -- despite his having his own wild past. Now I wish I hadn't been honest. What should I have said instead?

--Glum

It's usually best to keep mum if the number of men is something like "I'm not exactly sure because the census takers keep fainting from exhaustion while they're tallying up my total." There is a sexual double standard, though it doesn't come from men wanting to keep women's sex drives in park (which wouldn't exactly serve their interest). What's telling, however, are sex differences in jealousy -- specifically, jealousy over infidelity. Evolutionary psychologist David Buss finds that men across cultures are most distressed by sexual infidelity -- the sex acts themselves. Though women aren't exactly "yeah, whatevs" about their partner's doing the nudie tootie with another woman, women are substantially more distressed by his being emotionally gaga about someone else. (A woman's first question is inevitably: "But do you luvvvv her?!") These differences in freakouts dovetail with men's and women's differing evolutionary concerns. Women evolved to worry that their partner would divert his investment of time, energy, and resources in her and her children to a rival. Men, however, have a different worry. Because a man can never really be sure whether a child is his ("paternity uncertainty"), any sex act his partner has with another man could lead to his spending decades feeding and caring for some other dude's genetic offspring. The thing is, having a crazy party girl period doesn't mean you're unethical. It's possible that pointing that out to your boyfriend might help. If, in the future, another boyfriend asks for your sexual tally, be generally honest -- you were a bit of a party girl -- but avoid giving any specific number that suggests that this involved much of the Democratic Party (and a few straggling Greens).