10
That's the number picked by the most users of the cheating website SeakingArrangement in a (non-scientific) survey as the ideal for men and women. Nikki Howarth, a party planner, opined on the survey to the Daily Mail: "You want to date a man who is confident and knows what he is doing sexually." But for women, it's different: "My advice to any girl is: don’t tell, particularly if your figure is above ten. Most guys will think worse of you."
5
When AskMen surveyed male readers on how many sex partners made a woman promiscuous, the most popular answer was 5. But that was the lowest number available — it's possible that given the choice, guys would've gone even lower.
20
That's how many men Anna Faris's character in What's Your Number? had slept with when she decided she absolutely couldn't have sex with any more people, and thus had to marry one of her ex-boyfriends. To the credit of society at large, viewers were unimpressed with this premise.
30
Last year, blogger Naked With Socks On said that "there's no universal answer" to how many men a woman should sleep with. Then he added, "If a woman is in her mid 20s and already has 30+ partners I'm definitely going to give her the side-eye."
17
AskMen columnist Heidi Muller wrote, "No matter what people say, hearing that your girlfriend has bedded 17 men before you and she's only 23 years old, yeah, that's kind of a stretch (no pun intended)." It's possible that older women get a little more wiggle room — later she mentions 20 as the number men consider "horrible."
5-10
Ed Housewright wrote on Single Dad House, "What’s the maximum number of sex partners you could accept for a woman you’re serious about? For me, I’d say less than 10. Actually, closer to five." He doesn't have a reason, other than that those numbers "reflect my comfort zone with a woman’s sexual history."
25
The Frisky conducted a poll on this issue, and respondent Liz said, "More than 30 sexual partners for anyone is too many…actually maybe more than 25." She's a fan of gender equality — this number apparently holds for men and women.
100
Another respondent to the Frisky poll, Megan, was a bit more forgiving: "I think over 100 is really excessive." Her limit also applied to both men and women.
1
Of course, many religious conservatives argue that all people should have just one sex partner over the course of their lives: their spouse. Last year, for instance, Glenn T. Stanton wrote at Focus on the Family, "Science is now showing us what our grandmothers and pastors knew all along. Having sex with someone who is not our spouse can have a real, measurable and harmful impact upon later relationships."
23.89
According to a very scientific average of all the above numbers (using 7 for that 5-10 range), the absolute perfect number of sexual partners for a woman to have is 23.89. If you haven't been with that many yet, get to work. And if you've already topped that number, we guess it's too late for you to be perfect!