NOTE: During proof reading this sounded like an alibi for men. Not intended. I labor for truth and clarity and hope my writing confirms each.
Men don’t respect others until they earn it. Women lay the foundation for earning masculine respect through usage of their sexual assets.
The male psyche is guided, albeit unattractively to women, by this conviction. Respect for females begins with respect for how they handle their sexual assets. It’s not the only but most important female behavior that impacts respect early in relationships.
The conviction is stimulated by the male primal drive to compete with Nature and men and to shape human events. Every discouraged conquest means a competitor failed, which adds respect for her. Every conquest means a competitor succeeded, which reduces respect for her. Marriage provides the only exception, because a husband earns his conquest; it wasn’t given to him.
The fewer her experiences and closer to virginity, the more respect is due a woman. His sense of significance is partially based on his ability and success of beating out his competitors for conquest or nearest thing to it. Men mostly fear insignificance. Discovering their woman to have been promiscuous activates those fears, and spikes his interest in restoring his significance, which could be at considerable cost to her.
Consequently, men have an insatiable appetite to know their woman’s sexual past. However, the more details they hear about, the more details they want. It becomes ‘not enough’ once she starts to reveal her history. As she describes whoever and whatever preceded him, his curiosity grows to determine how many, meaningful, lovingly, and legal were her experiences.
He’s really in pursuit—however clouded by disguised intentions—of how his performance ranks in her mind and heart relative to his predecessors. He starts from the conviction that he’s by far the best lover, and so every revelation of hers that enables him to think otherwise sinks their marital ship just a little deeper in the waters of separation. A man can’t live very long with the thought that his woman thinks more of another man’s sexual abilities. He can even be jealous of a dead husband.
Modern women have had enough sex partners that it clouds future relationships. A woman’s next man wants certain reassurances that flow from knowledge about her past. She may provide it, she may withhold it, or he may find out from others.
Political activists and political correctioneers declare it unfair. Her sexual history is none of his business. However, modern sex practices change the dynamic of what’s best for each woman with each man.
Her man wants to know her past. He knows she’s been active. So, he probes until she reveals the details. Even counselors preach mutual candidness. That does not make it good, only acceptable to continue whatever relationship they have.
Advantage accrues to her, if she can keep her sexual history secret or as nearly so as possible. The less he knows, the less he can judge her in jealous or other incidents. The fewer the details, the fewer the thoughts that energize more inquiry. The less he knows, the less he can use against her in future squabbles.
The more he knows, the more likely he will make her pay some price for her past. She may never know or understand what’s happening. Yet, her man may strike back because of her earlier sexual events. It takes very little for reminders of her past to grow into self-generated humiliation for him. Her history affects his sense of significance, whether she knows it or not, accepts it or not. And he’s always eager to restore any loss to his sense of significance; saving face, as it were, by blaming her.