Should I tell my partner how many men I have been with?

I’m not ashamed of my previous encounters, but I don’t want my new boyfriend to think differently of me

I have been with my partner for six months. We’re both divorced and in our 50s. We’ve never really discussed our previous sexual encounters (he only knows about my ex-husband). I have refrained from doing so as he seems to take a judgemental tone when talking about women who “sleep around”, which is odd as he’s fairly liberal in other ways and our relationship is going really well. I’m not ashamed of the number of men I’ve been with, but I don’t want him to think differently of me. I know how silly this sounds. Should I tell the truth in the hope of a closer union, or let sleeping dogs lie?
– Discreet
Discretion is, perhaps, under-estimated. We are all entitled to a private life. There is a kind of open-book culture at play that compels us to package ourselves – and our pasts – up in order to make everything palatable for public consumption. We are not suggesting, for a second, that you lie. We are recognising, for a moment, that you haven’t been asked the big body-count question: how many people have you slept with? But you are anticipating it. Worrying about it. Doing that woman-y thing of absorbing his perceived attitude and feeling like the problem. We wonder how much he is broadcasting genuine judgement and how much you are hearing judgement because it is panicking you. Will your track record, you wonder, make him think less of you? When we were in our 20s, there was a vaguely acknowledged and accepted idea that, if asked how many people they had slept with, men would tend to triple the real number while women would tend to divide it by three. Female purity and male machismo, eh? We were all running scared. The sluts ‘n’ studs ruling of old has, to some extent, fallen by the wayside but…has it? And how much of this adjudication is internalised because of the wallpaper of our youth? 
First of all, this man may be new and lovely and liberal and marvellous but he is not the arbiter of all moral justice. He is not the index through which you calculate your self-worth. But if you are sparing his feelings then that seems wise because talking about ex-lovers will not, generally, enrich new relationships. Your language is oddly confessional and old-fashioned. You talk about “telling the truth”, but he has not asked and you haven’t offered the information. You have “refrained from” talking about past lovers. Really? Would you normally have grabbed your soapbox and started proclaiming: “Okay. So. I think I had sex with 23 men but two were just “put-ins” so they don’t really count, and are we factoring in the orgies?” We’re joking. Sort of. 
And “sleeping around”. Gosh. There is a phrase from our school days. Haven’t heard that in years. What does it mean? In what context has he used it? Has he only used it when talking about women? Do men sleep around or do they just…conquer? Are we meant to be virgins, flowers waiting to be plucked? But the plucking must be done within the parameters of official, committed, long-term relationships or the plucking becomes a problem.
Listen, maybe he is a bit judgy. A lot of people are. It could be the wallpaper of his parenting, schooling, friendship group, the patriarchy, whatever. The point is, you do not need to see this stuff as he sees it. It doesn’t sound as though you are offended by his attitude but, rather, that you are nervous of his reaction should he know the terrible truth. Does a part of you want him to know? Need him to know? Please remember that you do not need to confess and repent. You do not need to make excuses. You do not need to lie. You do not need to cleanse your sins on the altar of his maleness. You could just let it lie because it cannot be changed and it changes nothing and it is no one’s business but yours.
You could also, in the spirit of clarity and communication, take the temperature a little. Next time this stuff comes up you could ask, lightly, something along the lines of “Do I sense a bit of disapproval?” and see where that takes you, bearing in mind it might take you nowhere good. It might take you into that tedious “used goods…I just think it’s a question of self-respect” territory where battle lines will be drawn. Frankly, Discreet, provided there is no trauma that you feel you need to share, we would counsel you to enjoy your private memories (not the yucky ones, they can get conveniently lost in the mists of time) and enjoy your new boyfriend. The two things are not mutually exclusive. In the end, he probably doesn’t want to know where you learnt those hot moves. Joking. Sort of. Happy plucking. 
Read last week’s Midults column