(NSFW) Do you believe that having (...) with someone is having (...) with every person that person had (...) with?

I don’t believe it, and I think it’s a very stupid train of unlogic for any individual to carry around and should get their head out of their sphincters.

I think so.

I think the saying is related to the possibility of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. If your partner had had a partner who had a disease, he/she may be carrying it without knowing it and you could contract it. I wouldn’t like to contract Herpes, for example, and it would make me get to know someone more than just casually before having sex. But I’m a cautious risk taker.

I think @Sunny2 has it….obviously it doesn’t really make sense if you think of it any other way, but as far as STDs go….you pretty much are “sleeping with all their other partners”.

My friends always talk about the concept of “Eskimo bros”, which describes two guys who have had sex with the same girl. So I guess that’s sort of similar…

Nonsense.

That was an explanation that came up with the need for safe sex education. At the time of the appearance of AIDS, a lot of people allowed for a lot of exchanging bodily fluids, and also tended to have sex with multiple partners; no one really used condoms except as a contraceptive.

Once the gay community realized how HIV was transmitted, many of them took on broad efforts at safe sex education amongst themselves. But education amongst women was not as intensive or considered urgent because the focus was on gay males.

It wasn’t until the infection rate of straight women started to rise that the “sex with all his partners” concept started to be promulgated.

While it’s a valid point to make for partners that don’t get themselves tested, it’s a bit over the top for people who are conscious of their sexual health.

No, that makes no sense.

No, I don’t believe that for a minute. It’s just one more trope the anti-sex brigade flaoted to try to get all people to be as priggish as themselves. So long as you do not aquire an STD from a partner, every drop of fluid exchanges between you and them in a sexual encounter is gone from your body in a short time.

I like sex that’s dirty, smelly, natural and steaming wet. Given that, I can;t let myself get into computing whose cum my mate is serving up. That’s not to say I love risks. I do believe in testing for STDs, and wouldn’t consider unprotected sex with anyone unless I knew they had been tested or I was fluid bonded with them,.And I wouldn’t consider protected sex EVER, because that’s definitely not “dirty, smelly, natural and steaming wet.”

Considering the union that comes with sex, whether you’re lovers or just fucking for the sake thereof, I’d doubt that.

I agree with @zenvelo. The concept relates to an early AIDS campaign. The notion was if you have unprotected sex with one person, you are having unprotected sex with all the people that person has had unprotected sex with previously and you are at risk of picking up any STDs any of them have.

I seem to recall a mattress with syringes pointing up, so if you lay on the mattress, you would be jabbed with all of those syringes. I just looked on YouTube but I can’t find the advert. I can’t remember if it was an Australian or British advert though.

“Believe” whatever you want. The saying rings true. It would only take one failed prophylactic or one exchange between partners where a prophylactic wasn’t used to contract a disease. The more someone sleeps with people, the higher the odds of such an exchange taking place.

It has nothing to do with beliefs. It is plain, old math.

It rings true in other regards too. If one person has slept with 60 people and the other only 4.. the person who has slept with 60 people is likely to have gathered some nasty tricks. So in a second sense, you are sleeping with everyone they slept with.

The only way I believe this is due to std’s…. like if someone has an std, then they give it to you… sort of like that.

But I don’t really think it’s like having sex with the people they had sex with.. I don’t know.

I will believe that when a strange guy on the street walks up to me and says “hey dude, stop screwing my ex because it’s making my asshole burn”.

The idea came from adverts like this

Eewww what a horrible thought, some of my SO ex GF are ‘mingers’ so yuk!! But it’s not really something you want to look at or think about when you get into a relationship. However I am always cautious about who I have in my bed for fear of catching something from someone 12th in line!! The thought revolts me actually. But I suppose you can never be too sure!

Not any more than I believe that when you shake hands with someone, you shake hands with every person they’ve ever shaken hands with. Which is to say, not at all. This is why I still have “shake hands with Eddie Izzard” on my bucket list. Because a friend’s dad shaking hands with him years ago and then shaking hands with me just doesn’t cut it.

6 degrees of Kevin Bacon is really a horrible, convoluted, incorrect way to describe how contagions work, much less how sexual pairings work. It’s a good way of reminding everyone that they don’t live in isolation, but the actual number of partners isn’t really relevant, it’s if they have any STDs or not.

Of course it is true. Commonsense tells you that when you have sex with someone you are opening yourself up, so to speak, to whatever emotional and physical experiences this person has received from past partners as well as any STDs, viruses, crabs, scabies and other gifts this person may have lurking inside and on their body.

Only due to STDs. But if you wash your hands, people aren’t shaking the hands of everyone else.

Obviously it’s just a saying not meant to be literal. If I slept with one of George Clooney’s ex, would that mean I slept with George? Yikes. : )

It would mean if George Clooney’s-ex harbored a virus given to them from George Clooney and then they shared it with you, you could thank George Clooney for sharing the love with you, @mazingerz88.

No, I do not think that it is true. It is only true in the context of sexually-transmitted diseases. Have your partner use a condom or get tested, and you have nothing to worry about.

You are certainly exposing yourself to any sexual disease any of them had at the time that hasn’t been caught or cured, but I wouldn’t consider that having sex with them.
A guy I used to work with told another coworker that he used to date the coworkers girlfriend, and said that since she used to blow him, the coworker must know what his cock tastes like.
That didn’t go well.

@mazingerz88 If he gave her some strain of HPV and then you pick it up during sex, then you at minimum slept with George Clooneys strain of HPV. You could have just had sexual contact with George instead to get it, but it doesn’t sound like you are into that.

I to agree with @Sunny2

Funny story here, I have a male friend who is quite the Casanova.
Super smart guy, funny, sharp, witty personality and an ex lover from about 9 years ago.
Recently he was it was so obvious feeling me out to see if I might be interested in recycling some friends with benefits sexuality, he was flattering me mercilessly, claiming I am in the top 3 of great relationships of his life and his memories of our sexuality are the best ever. lol
He was talking about how making love to any woman is really making love to every woman as we are all one.

Cracked me up and I told him, that while that may be true on a deep intrinsic “spiritual” level, that it didn’t fly with me in body parts reality.
I went on to tell him that if that is the case than he has already slept with every woman in the world about 10 times over, including me and there is no need to revisit that realm, infact, he should just become celibate as there were no new sexual frontiers to conquer. lol

He shut up pretty quickly.
Men, and their absurd seduction tactics. lol

I want to add that there are many STD’s still not understood or isolated by the scientific/medical commn ity. Getting checked for STD’d does not guarantee you will not get sick. Chlamydia 50 years ago was considered normal flora and women were not treated for it and they became infertile and when they were lucky enough to get pregnant their babies many times were born with Chlamydia infections of the conjunctiva. Within the last ten years they have started testing and treating women before giving birth for a specific type of strep. I’m guessing that infection is passed between partners, it is difficult to the think it isn’t. Women get BV, and for now the medical community has decided it is the woman’s fault, her flora is just out of balance. I say bullshit to that. I think it is hard to cure because they don’t know what they are treating, and probably they pass it back and forth with their SO’s who never get treated. We only figured out the HPV cancer connection about 35 years ago, cancer you basically catch from your SO.

@Coloma Well, apparently a lot of women are falling for it. You can see why he’d try. =)

@digitalimpression Haha, yeah, or…they aren’t falling for it so he has to try to recycle some old sources. lol ;-)

@Coloma

Maybe you opened the door for the type of change encountered in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and he is going through a mental metamorphosis, developing an obsession for you.

Or… he just wants to sleep with you. I’m guessing it’s the latter.

@digitalimpression

Yes, it’s the latter, his name is Franc, but I call him Slick Willy, and he calls himself ” The playful letch.”
I told him they ought to name a Tarot card after him. haha

As everyone said, only as it pertains to STDs. It would be a stupid statement in any other context.

No, that’s some goofy shit the abstinence-only crowd came up with to make you feel bad and ashamed. It’s silly.

Yes, you should be aware of any STI history your partner has, but when you have sex with them, you are… Well, having sex with them. And that’s it. (Unless you’re having an orgy with them and all of their past partners simultaneously, but that’s a horse of a different color entirely!)

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Right, and, it is those different colors we all want to avoid. lol

So what if the STD or virus hasn’t surfaced at the time you are having sex with them, @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard, and you contract the STD or virus and continue to have sex with others before it is discovered?

Actually, Planned Parenthood promoted the public service announcements that got this “goofy shit” going, not the abstinence -only crowd. So blame PP for the feelings of quilt and shame.

@bkcunningham, well, in my mind, that’s why it is far preferable to only engage in intercourse with people you trust who have been tested, but I am well aware that isn’t always possible or the way it goes. And I always heard the “you’re having sex with everyone they’ve ever banged” argument from the abstinence people at my school. Regardless of who came up with it, I still feel like it only creates shame and distrust, and that there are better ways of telling someone to “watch out for stds.” Am I in the wrong, here?

@Coloma, Lolololololol well played.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard It was not and is not the abstinence only crowd that promotes the idea as @bkcunningham pointed out. It is actually the crowd who believes in sex education and talks about these matters who is trying to tell people to have safe sex, and STD’s are a real thing. The abstinence only crowd focuses on morality, religion and pregnancy. They were the same crowd who felt AIDS was and still is a gay disease, they don’t worry about gay sex much in that abstinence only crowd.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard there are window periods where certain viruses like HIV won’t show up even if you’ve tested clean.

Well in the sense of VD, yes. Its the gift that keeps on giving and giving and giving.

@JLeslie, ok ok, I concede, but are you implying I don’t believe in talking about educating people about STDs? Because I do. 9 times out of 10 I’m going to side with Planned Parenthood on a reproductive issue. I just think that the specific model this question is referring to is not a good one for doing that because of the shame issue. Yes, people should talk about STDs, safe sex, prevention, and whatnot. No, I don’t think telling them that they are actually having sex with every single person their partner has had sex with is a fair, accurate, or effective way to do this. Like I’ve said, it’s because of the underlying shame issues that I am opposed to this. I feel like this paradigm inherently makes people feel dirty, and I don’t feel like that’s how educated people should progressively approach sex ed. Go back and read @filmfan or @marinelife‘s or even @ETPro’s answers. I’m arguing the SAME thing they are arguing, just for slightly different reasons.

@bkcunningham, I know that.

Most likely they aren’t getting any @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard, and I figure you are. I want to keep you healthy. ; )

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard It’s more a statement of if one of those people in the past gave you something, then when I have sex with you, I now get the disease. So my risk of getting something is related to the other people you have slept with. If they gave you nothing, no big deal, I get nothing, but the phrase is trying to drive home that when we sleep with someone we have sex with their past to.

I think if you knew a lot of women who are honest about their STD history you would understand better why it is so important. Women suffer more with STD’s, and what I mean is they are more symptomatic typically. They are diagnosed with HPV and men are not tested at all. They are more likely to be symptomatic with Chlamydia and Trich, and men can walk around for years with no clue. Men rarely are tested for anything, while women go in yearly to the doctor, and even if they had zero to very mild symptoms, they are more likely to have it discovered. The guy who gave it to her could be three sexual partners ago, and she would not be able to pin point it. That guy is still infecting other girls.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I realize you said you concede, I am not trying to beat up on you, just supplying more information,

@bkcunningham, don’t worry about me, friend, I’m not nearly as cavalier as I come across at times. :-)

@JLeslie, I see what you are saying, and you are right, but I still think that the first part of your response to me, basically “you can get stds that your partner’s former partners might have given them, so get tested” is more logically and intellectually honest than saying “you’re having sex with everyone your partner has ever sexed up.” And I do know a lot of women who are honest about it, and I know a lot of men who take responsibility for themselves as well in a similar way. I’ve only ever had two partners my whole life but I still get checked out every now and then just because I feel like it’s a good idea and it’s the responsible thing to do.

Just to give a stat, from what I remember over one million people a year are diagnosed woth Chlamydia in the US. I am not sure if you would consider that a lot or not. I think the estimates for exposeure to HPV is approximately 80% of the population. Somewhere around 15% of the US populations has genital herpes.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard You get checked? You have a culture done, q-tip up the penis (very painful) or you get a blood test? What do you have tested? Doctors don’t test for herpes unless you specifically ask them to. They usually don’t care about exposure, which would be the blood test, the only time they actually test for herpes is usually when there is an active sore to culture. Men are not tested for HPV unless they come down with tongue or throat cancer or anal cancer.

@JLeslie, blood several times and q-tip (yeah, no fun at all) once.

Both women I’ve been with were tested regularly and came up negatively consistently. I came up negative as well. I don’t do the hookup thing, and it’s unlikely that I’m going to enter a new sexual relationship soon, but I still did what I did because I felt it was right and because I don’t want to be a typical douchebag male like the ones you referred to. My roommates, as well as a lot of other guys I know do the same thing for the same reasons.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Honestly, I am not really talking about you specifically, but rather men in general. What bothers me most, is what medical science doesn’t know yet, I have spent many many years dealing with infections, I won’t get into details, but it has left me infertile, surgery finally basically proved what I said along, I am scarred up very badly around my reproductiive organs, in pain, and all my cultures are beautiful. But, I am very symptomatic, and the only relief I have had was mega antibiotics that the majority of doctors will not prescribe. That surgery I had left me unable to get pregnant after getting pregnant very easily (but not holding onto the pregnancies). That doctor did not treeat me like I had an infection, didn’t give me antibiotics after the surgery and I got extremely sick afterwords. My tubes probably scarred and twisted even more than before after the surgery.

So it’s lovemaking by association and/or lovemaking by infection, depending on what happens next…

If that was true, then the same could be said about all the people that the person you had sex with would have had sex with and the people they had sex with…..
Or, in short, you would have had sex with about a zillion people.
It just doesn’t make sense.
Really, it is no question of believe; you were there when you had a physical rendez-vous with someone.
Were there other ‘physical’ persons around, or did you ‘sensed’ others?
No, one does not.

From the standpoint of STI and STD exposure, yes- absolutely!! Take Person A, who has… chlamydia, we’ll say. Person A sleeps with Person B, who is unaware A has anything transmittable. B is now an asymptomatic carrier who becomes intimate with C. C now has acquired chlamydia, because A was infected… Even though C and A never were together.

What would be nice is if by the time we slept with someone they gained all the bedroom knowledge of those that have slept with them in the past.

It is obviously not meant to be taken 100% literally. Doing so is idiotic.

^^ Understandable. To be fair, I first heard this when I was a child… I was in a room where I heard it being said, along with an explanation. I was not even interested in having sex then, but it scared me off it for a long time anyway.

I am grateful for all of the answers here as they have helped me shape another opinion that seems more realistic to me and I am more content with. Thank you all. :)

I am open to hearing other viewpoints, so this thread does not have to end here.

When it comes to STDs, the saying is true. If you have unprotected sex with someone who has had unprotected sex with other people, you’re at far more risk of catching something icky.

I didn’t bother to read every other comment, so I’m probably just repeating what’s already been said.

@AnonymousGirl Yeah, I was more talking to the people who were giving “literal” answers like (and feel free to insert sarcastic robot hands here) “oh my god, I just had sex with 59 people at the same time because its like, you know.. I had sex with everyone they had sex with….that’s so ridiculous, zomg u guys!”

@digitalimpression It might seem obvious to you that the saying isn’t intended to be literal, but for those of us who didn’t grow up with it in the context of HIV, it was just this weird statement floating around with no disclaimer telling us it was supposed to be figurative, so the saying seemed idiotic.

@digitalimpression I took it literally, so that’s why I felt your answer applied to me also.