Ex-files: the sexual history?

December 18, 2007 6:11 AM

Ex files: how much sexual history should you disclose?

A couple of months ago I started a new relationship. We had the "ex talk," but it was unusually terse. I ususually tell boyfriends all about my history, including if someone cheated on me, whether I got tested for STDs, etc. Weirdly enough, I started a job with his ex last week. I overheard her bragging in the break room about how she slept with a random guy while in a foreign country while my current boyfriend and her were taking a break from their relationship.

I don't know, it's kind of something I would like to know. When I asked him he denied it until I told him I got the info from the horse's mouth. Then he said it was none of my business since she got tested for STDs afterwards. The lesson I've learned so far is that I shouldn't have trusted someone's own account of their history and we both should have gotten tested, but I'm still upset. I go in for my own testing in a week and I wonder if she really did get tested or just told him she did just to bed him. Plus there is stuff they don't ususually test for, like HPV.

Am I just nosy or is this something you should discuss before having sex?

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (23 answers total)

The safe thing to do, unless you and your partner really have just escaped from a monastery and convent, is to just get tested. The whole "I've only slept with five people and four of them have been tested and the other two only slept with a couple of people" discussion is no safeguard. People lie, people forget to mention things, and such discussions become a battleground without really acting like a health measure.

When in doubt, get tested, and then you don't need to hear about the nitty gritty of your current flame's ex's sex life.
posted by orange swan at 6:20 AM on December 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

If you're trusting him with your health, then he is obligated to tell you all relevant information. So if she got tested for STD's afterward, like he said, then it's not relevant and it's not any of your business.

It sounds like that situation was probably pretty painful and embarrassing for him at the time. I can imagine him not wanting to talk about it with someone he hasn't been with very long. The fact that it's now popping up because of her blabbing is probably painful and embarrassing to him NOW, and grilling him about it isn't very sensitive.

Unless of course you really don't trust him to safeguard your health. But if that's the case then you already have bigger problems. Though it's understandable to get upset about something you've overheard.
posted by hermitosis at 6:30 AM on December 18, 2007

I'm not sure what you're really asking. If you want to know about your partner's previous history in order to gauge your safety while having sex with him, you're really only entitled to a brief and general conversation (obviously, in my view). Since there's no way for ANY conversation to adequately cover the bases, if you want concrete information you need to mutually get tested. Asking for more than a general "yes I was generally safe, no I was generally unsafe; yes I've been tested and was clean, yes I had NGU once" answer means you're asking for another reason. If you're testing him with your health you both need to be tested, a conversation isn't going to cut it, and insisting on one is a power-play that ignores the epidemiology of sexually transmitted diseases.

If you want to know about your partner's history because you're curious, you should come to terms with not knowing. Your partner may choose to tell you about his previous sex life, but if he does it's his choice (and may well be a mistake). You don't have any claim to that information or to that part of his life. People are not possessions.
posted by OmieWise at 6:35 AM on December 18, 2007 [2 favorites]

Seriously? Of course you can't just trust his story! What if she'd cheated on him and never told him? A discussion of sexual histories is a good idea, but mostly for the emotional/kinks aspect: once they say 'yea I've slept with ', then you have no guarantees. It only takes one liar to screw up a whole chain of trusting, truthful people. And once you accept that the discussion is mostly about emotions, then you should be able to accept that some people will include things that other people won't - you can't obligate people to tell you what particular issues they have, even when dating.
posted by jacalata at 6:40 AM on December 18, 2007

Up to the individuals involved, but I'd be tempted to just get everyone tested and then call it a do-over, and start from scratch. Let's not forget it takes 6 months for some things to show up (I'm thinking HIV) and if you want to do the job right, I'd be tempted to run that again in 6 months.
Disclaimer: Some our older folks lived more unstructured lives back when there were fewer things to catch out there, and may not really want to go into gory details. They did not know at the time that later there was going to be a quiz every time they got laid. That's just kind of one "for instance" and there could be many of them.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 6:43 AM on December 18, 2007

I've always disclosed basic numbers, plus getting tested. I like discussing numbers not because it tells you a lot about safety, which it doesn't, but because how someone talks about their sexual past tells you a lot about them. The testing adds some safety, but a) they could cheat on you post-testing, b) they could have some disease that they didn't get tested for (eg I don't think men can get tested for HPV), or c) they could lie to you about the results, assuming that you aren't sitting there with them when the doctor delivers the news. So in the end it's back to trust -- even if you are using condoms, there is still some level of risk involved, and more if you are not using condoms. But without trust, there isn't much hope for a relationship.

So I say both of you should get tested, and you should use that as a way to create a "clean slate" where you don't need to probe too deeply into the intricacies of his sexual past if he doesn't want to discuss those with you at this time. Not everyone wants to discuss these issues in depth, whether because of feelings of shame, or a strong sense of privacy, or feelings of jealousy.
posted by Forktine at 7:08 AM on December 18, 2007

Use protection until you get to the point where you trust that your partner has no diseases or have definitive proof. If they refuse to come clean then refuse to have unprotected sex or simply dump him/her.

Just a side note on people's sexual histories. Lots of people tend to brag, sometimes about things that never happened. It's a boost to the ego to have people believe that you are something you are not. Don't take an overheard conversation as gospel. Unless you have specific reasons not to trust your boyfriend, then you should trust his word over the word of his ex. If you have reason not to trust him then you probably should refuse to have unprotected sex or simply dump him.
posted by JJ86 at 7:09 AM on December 18, 2007

There are (at least) two issues at work here:

1. How forthcoming has the new guy been? Anonymous makes it sound like he's maybe holding back more than she's comfortable with, even setting aside the incident with the ex. I'm all in favor of full disclosure here.

2. How much can we ever really know about our partners' former partners? I think the answer there is "not much." I know more about the sexual histories of my exes than I'll tell my wife. It's an understatement to say that it would be indiscreet to discuss much about them.
posted by adamrice at 7:11 AM on December 18, 2007

Disclosure obligations are limited to what could result in physical harm to the other person. The rest is whatever the discloser feels comfortable with. As for testing, that's a given, so the rest of the details are not important. He might not have even known and it might be something hard for him to discuss.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:29 AM on December 18, 2007

Yes, you should discuss sexual history. Yes, almost everyone lies about how safe they were. Yes, bringing up what you overheard is embarrassing and irrelevant. You've got to trust people to a certain extent or you'll make yourself crazy. (How sure am I that all but the most ardent lie? Okay, I'll say it. I've lied. Exaggerated. Whatever.)
posted by desuetude at 8:36 AM on December 18, 2007

You should know some details of his sex life -- not hers. There is a difference, and this one was none of your business.

I'm of the opinion that beyond information that affects you directly (ie, current STDs), he's not obligated to tell you anything, nor are you to him. In the course of a normal relationship it's natural that he'll end up talking about exes from time to time, of course. But personally I would find it invasive and creepy if someone expected me to not only enumerate my past sexual experiences but my past partners' experiences too. (Don't even ask "my number". I'll tell you if I want to.) I get a pap and full STD screening every year at least.
posted by loiseau at 8:43 AM on December 18, 2007

Protection or not, the safest thing to do is for your partner and you to get tested before sexual activity begins and afterwards every six months. I can tell you without reservation that the attitude towards safety puts people at much greater ease, and for those people that are bothered by my predisposition towards safe behavior, I find i'd rather not have them in my life anyway. I've always completely disclosed my recent history.
posted by arimathea at 8:45 AM on December 18, 2007

You do not need a sexual history. You need a new, current test. Everybody get tested again, then there is no need for the sexual history. People will lie about sexual history out of embarrassment, out of a noble desire to protect the new loved one, out of modesty, whatever.

I am more concerned that you confronted him with information he knew was correct, and yet he still lied about it. Why lie when it's true and you both know it? At the very least, he could have said "You're kidding? She said that? Man, I knew I should never have trusted her." So he's not only a liar, he's a *bad* liar. You might want to think about that.

Just sayin.
posted by nax at 9:27 AM on December 18, 2007

He was upfront about HIS sexual history, and anything beyond that is not really you business, but I am going to Nth both of you get tested again.
posted by BobbyDigital at 9:50 AM on December 18, 2007

As others have pointed out, a discussion isn't a substitute for getting tested.

It sounds like you are feeling a little unsettled, since he didn't tell you all that you wanted to know about his ex in the discussion. It's personal information about her, and probably has some emotional ties for him that he would rather not relive. I wouldn't expect someone to share their ex's personal history, just their own. You heard it because she chooses to broadcast her own personal information to all and sundry. Perhaps the reason you didn't hear it from him is that he respects the privacy of women he's seeing, even after the relationship is over.
posted by yohko at 10:08 AM on December 18, 2007

Wow. It is important for your partner, and you, to feel comfortable that you are both free from STD's before you continue with a sexual relationship. If that requires testing, get tested and ask him to as well.

That being said, do you really need to sit down and go into detail about all the men you've had sex with? No. This "terseness" you are describing sounds to me like natural reticence, since he did give you the information you needed (I've been tested and I'm disease-free). Is it so hard to accept that someone you are involved with now may not want to know about every man that's come before him and that he may not want to talk about what was surely a devastating event like his last girlfriend cheating on him?

Again, if you have doubts that he is a safe partner for you sexually, you can both get tested to ease your fears. That's really all you *need* to know. The details he wants to share about his life before you are up to him.
posted by misha at 10:19 AM on December 18, 2007

What loiseau said. His ex's sexual history is none of your business.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:45 AM on December 18, 2007

Well, I'll break with the consensus here and say that people shouldn't feel an obligation to disclose any sexual history beyond last week. I don't want to go into the messy details of my previous relationships and try to create a timeline of who boinked whom and when. Why relive old mistakes and bitterness? Better not to pick at old unhealed wounds in that case.

However, I certainly won't be engaging in sex that involves significant exchanges of bodily fluids either.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:28 AM on December 18, 2007

Well, I'll break with the consensus here

I'm pretty sure you mean reiterate the consensus, since most everyone is suggesting that beyond general answers about disease states, tmi is tmi.
posted by OmieWise at 11:37 AM on December 18, 2007

I tell the truth about my partners. My boyfriend has been completely honest as well. (For the skeptics, there is proof). Personally, I'd rather know a guy's full sexual history because of certain aspects I value, so I'm truthful as well.

Anyhow, getting tested is the best and only real solution here.
posted by cmgonzalez at 12:09 PM on December 18, 2007

OmnieWise: I saw the consensus as providing many details about one's own sexual history, but not providing much beyond one degree of separation.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:13 PM on December 18, 2007

It's pure nosiness loosely disguised as something relevant. You are just as able to catch shit loosing your virginity as you are on any occasion in a year long crazy gang bang whirl-wind. As if where someone caught that shit is at all relevant! Is there a diference between finding it in the gutter or paying top dollar in a swanky boutique?

If you require these details in order to satisfy some obsessive need or pass moral judgements then just ask them...?

If you need to know if they're clean get tested. But always question whether they understand that sharing the responsibility for your health is something very serious. Fidelity is one thing but there's no excuse to scar your life in such a thorough way.
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 9:36 PM on December 18, 2007

I don't think there's any obligation to talk about anything further back than your last STD test. Beyond that, if someone wants to share, that's fine, but I don't think there ought to be any expectation of it. Particularly early on in the relationship. (Sometimes the topic of exes can come up naturally later on, and I think that's totally fine...but there's no reason to lay it all out at the very beginning.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:03 PM on December 25, 2007