A recent study found Britain to have more casual sex than any other Western nation. The study was conducted by asking more than 14,000 people in 48 countries to fill out anonymous questionnaires. Participants were asked about their number of partners and one-night stands, how many people they expected to sleep with in the next five years, and what their attitude towards casual sex was. The answers were given a numerical value, and while Britain scored 11th overall, the country was the highest of all western nations (the US was 6th).

Whether you agree with the sometimes tawdry, often, er,  “illuminating” material that makes up the content of AskMen.com, you must also know that it is the largest men’s lifestyle destination on the internet. Every once in awhile, they do the Great Male Survey, which, given the vast numbers of participants, projects an arguably legitimate big picture look into what’s going on in today’s male mind. Surprisingly, the last study indicated some startling results for all of the women out there that stereotype men as the kind of cads that might show up in a Jay McInerney novel. To wit, 42 percent of men claimed they wouldn’t bother pursuing a relationship with a woman who wasn’t “wife material,” (jeez, what ever happened to pursuing a woman for cheap sex?), a whopping 70 percent believe strongly in marriage despite overwhelmingly discouraging divorce statistics, and over half of the respondents don’t fear commitment, and wait for it—only 18 admitted that was due to sacrificing the kind of freedom that accompanies singlehood; the rest cited emotional fears. Aww…

Whoopi Goldberg recently revealed on The View that she’s had 50 sexual partners. Carla Bruni, pop singer and wife to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, has had 30. And little ol’ me has had 15. The three of us are comfortable with our numbers—though I am not necessarily psyched about the dudes in particular who occupy the notches on my bedpost. Though we retired the debate over what makes a person a “slut”, it nevertheless remains the case that each person has some general feeling on what number of partners they’re comfortable with, for themselves and for their partners. For one person, it may be five, for another 5,000—after the jump, some sound bites from women on how many notches are too many.

One of my most shameful moments as a person was in the fourth grade. I was fairly invisible within my class, but had a desperate desire to be liked. There was another girl in my class who also was not popular and was picked on fairly often for being a little grubby. One day, in what I guess was an attempt to appear cool and funny to my classmates, I picked on her too. I told her she was dirty and that she reminded me of used toilet paper, whatever that means. Then I told her she was a slut. She cried. I still wasn’t popular after that, so the point was lost, and I’ve clearly spent the last 18 years thinking about how mean I was to her. But the thing is, I had no idea what the word “slut” even meant, I just knew it was a bad thing to call a girl. I still don’t know what a slut is and that’s because I don’t think there’s any definition that everyone can agree on. The debate over what makes a person a “slut” is so…ridiculous. Can’t we just retire it already?

Admittedly, we’re not the most religiously educated group of folks on the internet, but maybe someone should take away Mitt Romney’s Book of Mormon and give him a good hard spanking with it. An ABC News blogger notes that while on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, Romney pointed out the large leaves in a couple’s front lawn and said, “Adam and Eve would not have looked as promiscuous if they had had leaves this big.” Um, correct us if we’re wrong, but Adam and Eve didn’t start rocking the foliage until after they ate the forbidden fruit and became ashamed of their nekkidness. For a man who wears his faith on his sleeve, Romney is scarily ignorant to God’s word. And second of all, if you’re the only man on Earth and you have sex with the only woman on Earth, how does that make you promiscuous?  [ABC News]