DO you ever play the numbers game? The numbers game of sexual partners, that is. Are you wondering how many is too many and if you've crossed the line from acceptable to promiscuous?

Is "experience" now the norm and should you enter the double digits before settling down?

Does inequality of the sexes still exist in relationships to the point where men are merely "sowing their oats" if they have a high number, yet women are considered too easy?

Once upon a time, a woman's number was expected to be one and only one in their lifetime: her husband. Any more, and they were a "hussy" - or, in even more vulgar terms, the "town bicycle".

But the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s has seen increased acceptance of sex outside traditional monogamous relationships, helped along by the development of the pill and other forms of contraception.

So is it too much to expect anyone other than the future queen of England to be a virgin these days?

All these questions were swirling around my head on a plane recently as I watched the latest-release DVD What's Your

Number? - a fairly risque but thought-provoking romantic comedy starring Anna Faris.

In the film, marketing executive Ally Darling (Faris) begins to panic after reading a magazine article which insists that if a

woman has slept with 20 men or more, they have already missed Mr Right.

On top of this, Ally seems hellbent on keeping her final number of sexual partners at 20 - especially since she discovers her number is much larger than that of any of her friends at a hen's party.

Suddenly, I found myself looking around the plane at other passengers and even some of the crew, wondering what their number might be. Now I know you're doing the same around the cafe, workplace or worksite where you're reading this.

This numbers game is a common theme in Hollywood.

In Four Weddings and A Funeral, for example, worldly American Carrie (Andie MacDowell), after shopping for her wedding dress for the upcoming nuptials with a Scottish MP, tells infatuated Charles (Hugh Grant) about some of her 33 lovers.

The previously confirmed English bachelor - No.32 on Carrie's list, following romantic liaisons after two wedding receptions - is embarrassed to admit he has had nowhere near that many.

Thankfully, Relationships Australia Sunshine Coast manager Sue Miller believes there is no "magic number" these days. Western women in 2012 had choices and "if there's a certain number that's right, it's the one that's right for you - not one that's politically correct", she said.

Nought, one, 10 or 1000 ... it doesn't matter.

Ms Miller said a woman's number was relative to her, especially according to her cultural perspective and upbringing, and one she needed to be comfortable with because "you're never going to please anyone else".

She said most men and women kept tabs on "their number" because it was important psychologically to remember the people we had been intimate with and with whom we had shared a special part of ourselves.

While today's society almost always judged women harsher than men in areas of sexual activity, she agreed "we're making progress".