Are men who obsess over your "body count" just insecure?

Or are we finally ready to talk about power, projection, and purity culture?

Let’s just start with the uncomfortable truth:

If you’re deeply fixated on how many people a woman has slept with… it’s probably not about her. It’s about you.

Let’s dig in.

Obsession with “Body Count” is a Fear of Female Power

The more a woman explores, experiences, and expresses herself sexually, the more rooted she becomes in her own sovereignty. To some men, that’s intimidating. Because an empowered woman is harder to manipulate. She’s not easy to impress. She doesn’t mistake control for love.

So what do we do with that?

We shame it.

We call her “used.”

We paint her body as a ledger rather than a landscape.

But here’s the twist: the number of lovers someone has had doesn’t diminish their value—it just threatens systems built on control.

While we're here. let's just take a moment to highlight the absurdity of this mindset:

If a woman’s worth drops the more sexual partners she has—but a man’s doesn’t—then what you’re really saying is this:

that men devalue women… but women don’t devalue men.

And that’s wild, because it’s not just an insult to women—it’s a subconscious insult to men themselves.

You’re implying that a man’s presence tarnishes a woman, but a woman’s presence leaves a man untouched.

That women are passive recipients of worth… and men are active removers of it.

That’s not protection. That’s projection.

It’s Not About Morality—It’s About Possession

The body count narrative is rarely about emotional intimacy or health. It’s about ownership disguised as virtue. The idea that a woman must arrive “untouched” serves one thing only: patriarchal comfort, at the cost of diminishing women and reducing them to "lesser beings" within relationships, a pattern that often doesn't end there.

It’s insecurity dressed up as standards.

If a man’s sense of worth crumbles because a woman has had other lovers, he isn’t looking for love—he’s looking for control.

Which is concerning enough on it's own, yet he is also trying to exert ownership over the versions of you that existed before he even arrived in your life.

Women Internalize This Narrative—And It Hurts Everyone

Many women still carry shame for their past, even if their choices were consensual, joyful, or healing. Why? Because we’ve been taught to filter our worth through male perception. To be desirable on someone else’s terms.

This disconnection leads to performance, suppression, and self-abandonment.

Healing means reclaiming your history.

Not erasing it. Not hiding it. Owning it.

Understand that your value does not come from male perception, your value is inherent. To take a step further: your past experiences and relationships, sexual or otherwise assisted in shaping the very woman he has found himself attracted to, you.

But now he wants you to be ashamed of connections you experienced before him? Just no.

This may also suggest feelings of inadequacy within men, a sense of having to "measure up" to previous lovers, pushing the focus off her unique flavour of connection and onto the men the preceded him instead, when the reality is that women don't discern performance in this way, they generally value quality of connection, attentiveness, effort and feelings of acceptance and protection, with sex being an enhancement of everything else he brings.

Reclamation is Not Rebellion—It’s Return

When a woman no longer carries shame for her past, she becomes unhookable. Not defensive, not closed off, just rooted, clear, free.

That’s not rebellion. That’s return.

To truth, to wholeness, to self.

And for men willing to grow—it’s an invitation too.

To drop performance and step into real intimacy, based on respect, depth, and emotional maturity.

Women are just as entitled to enjoy sex as men, many women enjoy a deep emotional connection before they ever engage, but others choose to explore and even celebrate their sexuality.

Neither woman is more or less valuable than the other.

So… Are Men Who Obsess Over Body Count Losers?

No. They’re not losers. They’re just lost.

Lost in a system that teaches them to fear what they desire most: connection.

But there’s another way. Trust me.

Let's make an important distinction too

As couples grow closer and discover more about each other, conversations about history will inevitably arise, but there is a huge difference between sharing to understand each other better, more deeply, and being asked inane questions that serve to "disqualify you or dehumanise you" right out of the gate.

The latter should absolutely be taken as a warning and a red flag, every single time. Not only does it signal that a man has fallen into fear conditioning that fuels deep division between men and women, but it also reveals that he is not yet in the maturity required to truly meet you, connect with you and honour you as a representation of the divine feminine.

Of course there will be men who clap back to this perspective with anger and further attempts at suppression "only a woman with a high body count would defend body count!" *laughs, but this is how fear is, it changes form fast, it dodges genuine reflection and becomes reactive, forceful, it demands that you shut down instead of shining brighter.

Don't dim yourself to fit a wounded lens, shine brighter instead! Because their fear isn't yours to carry, lay it down.

My lovely, reflect on this...

If this article has stirred something in you—maybe some anger, maybe some relief—sit with that. What are you still carrying about your own history or your partners? What stories are you ready to lay down?

Meditation prompt:

What would it feel like to own every version of yourself without apology?

And if you’re ready to explore what real emotional attraction looks like—not based on shame, performance, or people-pleasing get in touch with me now for a no nonsense, compassionate and empowering coaching session that is 100% confidential.