What's Your "Number"?

We aren't talking telephone number either. Can anything good come from telling your partner(s) how many people you've slept with before you met them? Many people would say, "no way." The very idea of revealing that number can be terrifying because they're afraid that they'll be judged for having had too many intimate encounters -- or too few -- and they worry that the information could harm their relationship. It's also probably not a good answer when you say, "Um, I lost count. The orgy in Italy threw my numbers off a bit." Yeah, not a good answer, but some of us were sluts when we were younger, had more hair, and were better looking.

"[What happens when you reveal your number] depends on what are the attitudes and values of the people involved and what their reactions are going to be," Dr. Zhana Vrangalova , a sex expert and professor at New York University, told the co-hosts of HuffPost Love+Sex Podcast, Carina Kolodny and Noah Michelson . "My husband has actually had that experience with a couple of his friends and girlfriends. They would share the number and he would be so accepting of whatever the number was that they walked away thinking, Oh my God — I’m not this dirty slut that everyone has been telling me I was. So if you have a positive reaction to that, or your partner has a positive reaction to that, it can be a really empowering and really anti-slut shaming that I think a lot of [people] could benefit from it.”

To hear more about what can happen when you share "your number," as well as questions about everything from the above question about "numbers" to "what should I do if I only want to date 'daddies' and they all think I'm too young for them," listen to the podcast go to iTunes to download it.