'Apparently there is an "acceptable" number of average sex partners.'

I think I just got sex-shamed by an online calculator.

Has anyone ever asked you what ‘your number’ is? It’s something that seems to happen a lot in Hollywood.

“How many people have you slept with?” Some fancy, cocktail-sipping lady will ask some other fancy, cocktail-sipping lady before snorting into her Cosmopolitan and high-fiving her own delightful wickedness.

And then, almost invariably, her jaw will fall off into her over-priced beverage as she exclaims: “Wait. How many?”

Whatever answer she receives from her overly sexed/chaste gal pal, it is never the right one.

It is ALWAYS too many or too few.

According to a survey released this month by San Diego State University, millenials have fewer sexual partners on average than their forebears.

The survey, which gathered data from 33,000 American adults, found that 25-year-olds today are likely to have had eight sexual partners, while baby-boomers had an average of 11 at the same age.

Not content to have this knowledge merely exist in academic annals, Slate used it to create a handy online calculator, so that you can plug in your deets and find out once and for all how you stack up on scale of sexiness.

Apparently, I’ve “done the deed” more times than 92 per cent of my American peers. (Thanks, data analysis, my avid sex life is certainly news to me.)

The most recent Australian Study of Health and Relationships, which included just over 20,000 men and women aged 16-69, found that Australian women said they’d engaged in sexual acts with an average of eight partners over their lifetimes.

I asked the Mamamia team what they thought of this number and how they felt about their own. For some it seemed high, for others it seemed low, but you know what they all agreed on?

It doesn’t f*cking matter. Not. One. Bit.

More than anything what bothered them was women — and men — being made to feel ashamed about their sex lives. At either end of the spectrum.

Sure, Gaz from Geordie Shore may have slept with 1000 different partners and your best mate might have slept with just one (or none), but it’s all cool on the abacus of life.

If you’re having safe, enjoyable, consensual sex, have it as much or as little as you like.

There might be an average number, but there is certainly no wrong number. And it is no one’s business but your own.

No done reading yet? Try these:

The definitely NSFW sex tips for women that don’t suck. Ahem.

It’s official: Emoji users have more sex. By a lot.

Porn ban: You guessed it, the sex acts deemed ‘not okay’ are all about women’s pleasure.

Feeling like sharing your average below?