We just had a post "Is overlooking a female's sexual past foolish?" and commenters offered their insights and perspectives.

One of the things that came up was the importance of repentance.

How true!

u/g_e_m_anscombe wrote:

N-count after conversion is more telling than total N-count. Repentance matters. Also, regardless of gender, it’s a good idea to give someone a few years to demonstrate character and to learn how to relate to members of the opposite gender properly if they have been through a promiscuous period.

[If a woman's N count is climbing after conversion, that is telling. But that's another topic for another time.]

GEM was responding to u/OsmiumZulu who wrote, in part:

Does it matter? Yes. Does it matter even half as much as the majority of the Manosphere makes it out to be? No.

There are so many factors involved here there is no clear cut answer.

Age: An 18 y/o with an n-count of 10 is a much bigger red flag than a 30 y/o with the same number.

Attitude: a hot woman with an n-count (who could easily rack up more) and is repentant about it is vastly different than the post-wall woman who is looking for bb to get off the cc with.

I want to use these two comments as a jumping off point to discuss the following:

What, if any, are the consequences of a woman's sexual past after repentance?

OZ and GEM touched on N count and age and character, N count and how a woman acts after conversion, etc.

Others (including myself and OZ) have talked about how, while a woman's N count / body count is important to weigh in one's decision to date/marry her, there are many more additional factors to consider, some far more important such as her walk with the Lord.

But for this discussion, I'm interested in hearing this community's opinion on whether the consequences of a woman's past is "wiped away" once she sincerely repents?

For example, if a woman had sex with "x" number of men, do you think every consequence of her sexual sin is removed once she repents and experiences conversion/is saved/becomes a new creation in Christ?

If she contracted a sexual disease and that condition prevents or makes getting pregnant and carrying that child to term difficult, is that gone?

Is her pair bonding ability fully restored, as if she had never had sex?

Is any "alpha widowhood" (to whatever degree) removed so that she no longer wrestles with thoughts of previous lovers?

Is any and all negative effects from sexual activities gone, as if she were a virgin/never engaged in any form of sexual activity?

I think u/Red-Curious has talked a time or two about the effect of a spiritual marriage that is created when one engages in sex. What negative effects, if any, are there when one takes that into their next relationship and marries another, and are those negative effects removed upon repentance?

I ask these question to get this conversation started and seeing where it goes.

Now, if there are real, negative effects from engaging in pre-marital sex, and if they accumulate as one racks up more and more sexual partners, then it stands to reason that a man is taking on increasingly significant risks in his marriage since a woman having higher numbers of sexual partners are correlated with greater likelihood of divorce, depression, less happiness and addictive behaviors, etc. Moreover, some have noted personality issues and other effects on some women.

If conversion/repentance erases all this, then all one needs to do is look for a genuinely repentant woman.

If it doesn't, then while one can gain insight into other things as evidenced by her behavior after conversion, it still means a man is taking on a (much?) heavier load imposed by previous lovers on the woman he is now with, and should be ready to deal with any consequences of those effects.

To try and help keep this on track (haha good luck with that, I'm sure :) we've already discussed other aspects of this.

For instance, as I've written before, whether one should date and marry a non-virgin (even a higher N count woman) is dependent on many factors.

You can paint a picture of a virgin woman (truly sexually pure, no sexual activity of any kind before marriage) who isn't "all that" and has sexual hang ups she brings into marriage, verses a woman with a few partners who has almost all of the things you're looking for, and would turn out to be a great wife and help mate and more. In that example, you may be better off marrying the non-virgin.

And, of course, you can have the opposite, with a godly virgin woman who has kept herself pure and is a good woman who would make a fantastic wife and mom verses the former slut who sincerely repented but brings a lot of baggage into the relationship and almost all kinds of examples in between.

I know some are going to get a little emotional about this, especially if one's wife or loved ones or even yourself (for any women with a higher N count reading this), but let's talk about this from (as much as possible) an unbiased view and offer constructive criticism and advice.

As an example, in some of the studies, a woman with 16+ sexual partners correlated with an 80%+ likelihood of divorce. While that is astonishingly high, that still left about 20% of women who didn't.

Which makes me wonder, OK, what were those 20% doing that kept their marriages going? (and don't say their husbands lol—although that might be true) :) Maybe these women experience all or many of the negative effects but fought on anyway. Maybe they had very little of them and it wasn't really an issue.

There's likely all kinds of additional factors going on. We simply know that, from a variety of studies, that N counts higher than one before marriage can have (and often does) serious negative effects for many women.

Also, for the sake of this argument, let's include the sanctification and spiritual maturity that takes place as one continues to walk with God and not simply the one time conversion experience.

So to ask again as I wrap up this post, what role and to what degree do you think repentance plays (and ones continued walk with the Lord) in removing these negative effects (such as incurable STDs, lack of pair bonding, alpha widowhood, etc), if any?

Or asked, differently, do you think a woman with "x" number of sexual partners will still carry negative effects from her sexual actions into her marriage even though she has sincerely repented and walking close with God?

Once you have your answer to that, it should help clarify things and make any decisions in this regard a little easier.