But statistics rarely tell the whole story. While some women believe that more than one lover is too many, there are others seemingly happy to change partners as frequently as their handbags.

Here, SADIE NICHOLAS asks four women how many lovers they have had - and examines the emotional consequences of their sexual choices.

CHRISTINA KHATER was in her early teens when she made the decision to remain a virgin until she married.

As a teenager at a state school, her only physical contact with the opposite sex were kisses with a boy she dated for a few months at 14.

Now aged 22 and a film studies graduate, she is still a virgin. She lives in a flat in London with her 22-year-old fiancee Gabriel Wakim. She has been seeing him for three years - but they have never had sex.

"I decided that when I had sex for the first time, I wanted it to be special and I would wait until my wedding night," she explains, keen to point out that her vow of chastity is not for religious reasons.

And having watched her friends get hurt over the years, she feels vindicated in her decision.

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"A lot of my friends have casual flings, and I've noticed that the ones who jump into bed with someone too soon are the ones who often get hurt the most when the relationship flounders," she says.

"I'd never judge anyone for choosing to have sex with someone who wasn't their husband - but it's just not for me.

"People may be surprised that I'm still a virgin in my 20s because there's such pressure on young women to 'enjoy themselves' and, apparently, feel liberated by having lots of lovers

"Because of my choices, I never have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy or any of the other troubles which can go hand in hand with casual sex."

Kissing and cuddling is as near as she and Gabriel get to intimacy - but Christina admits it's not always easy.

"There have been times when I've felt a physical urge to make love to him and I've had to force myself to pull back," she says. "It can be terribly frustrating."

Her mother, who is Greek, is a housewife and her father is director of a civil engineering company, and Christina describes her upbringing as "normal".

"My parents are in no way responsible for my decision," she insists. "It's something very personal to me."

But while Christina may be a virgin, her husband-to-be is not. "Gabriel's had sexual partners before, but I don't know how many. I've never asked."

When they started dating, she told him she was a virgin and would be until she married. Inevitably, Christina feared that her fiancee might look elsewhere for physical satisfaction.

"But he respected my decision, and here we are three years later. We plan to marry in the next two years, and consummating our marriage will be all the more special because we have waited."

ANNETTE LEDBROOK has only ever slept with two men: the boyfriend to whom she lost her virginity, and her 29-year-old husband Daniel, a management accountant.

The couple live together in Quinton Village, Birmingham, with their children Oliver, five, and 14-month-old Harriet. Annette is expecting their third child later this year.

She says it was the sexual activity she witnessed as a teenager that put her off casual sex.

Raised in a middle-class, Christian household in Birmingham, she insists her parents were not strict, and after attending a Church of England primary school she went to an ordinary mixed comprehensive.

"As a teenager, I wasn't that interested in boys - I wanted to concentrate on my schoolwork and make my parents proud.

"Also, I comforted one friend who was going through the agony of an abortion, and I didn't want to be like that. Yes, I was the butt of jokes from friends who thought I was a goody two shoes - but I didn't care.

"I hung onto my virginity until I was 20, at university, and had been with my first boyfriend, a fellow student, for a year.

"He was a virgin, too, so it was a big deal for both of us and we planned it meticulously, booking a cottage in Wales for a weekend. We wanted it to be special."

After another year together they split up. Annette continued studying management and accountancy at a college of further education in Birmingham, and not long afterwards she met Daniel.

"We knew from the start that ours was a special relationship, and we first had sex after four months," she says. "He'd only had one lover before me.

"I did once ask him if he regretted not being a bit of a Jack the lad - but, like me, he much prefers what we have. I don't ever look back and wish I'd slept around.'

Despite their growing family, Annette insists: "We still have sex most days.

"People ask what our secret is - it's simply that we are totally in love and continue to invest the same effort in making one another feel as special as we did in those early days.

"I love the intimacy of sex with Daniel. He still makes me feel like a sexy, gorgeous woman - not just a wife and mother."

Until three years ago, 37-year-old JO KINGSTON had only had six sexual partners - but in the following two years she notched up another 15.

It happened after the PA, who works at a major London tourist attraction, split up from her long-term boyfriend and started internet dating.

"A couple of them were short-term relationships, while others were one-night stands. It sounds a lot, but it's only one every two months - which I don't think is so bad.

"I surprised myself, though, in the way that I managed to detach sex from emotion in the same way men can."

Even so, Jo, who lives alone at her house in Edgware, Middlesex, found that the consequences of such behaviour finally took their toll.

"It's fine for a while, but eventually it affected my self-esteem and I began to get a bit of a complex. Why did men only want to sleep with me, yet not date me properly?

"The answer, of course, is that when you make yourself available sexually, men are likely to have a different perception of you."

Jo grew up in London and was five when her father, a newsagent, died. Her mother, a shop assistant, remarried but sex was rarely discussed in the household.

Jo, who attended the local mixed comprehensive, lost her virginity at the age of 16 to a boy who lived round the corner from her. They didn't use any contraception.

"There was a pregnancy scare and my mother found out," she says. "She told me off but didn't really sit me down and talk about the implications of having sex."

There followed a number of back-to-back long-term relationships. By the time she was 18, Jo was living in a flat above her mother's and planning a wedding to her then boyfriend.

"But I knew I would miss out on so much in life if I settled down so young,' she says.

Jo moved to Berkshire and, starting as an office junior, worked her way up through companies such as Columbia Pictures and the BBC.

"All the men I've slept with I met through work," she says. "I wanted to settle down and get married, but there was always something not quite right that stopped me from doing so."

Her last long-term relationship lasted five years. "I loved him like a friend," she says, "but the chemistry was not right. Finally, I plucked up the courage to end it."

She embarked on the dating scene in London's bars and clubs, expecting to meet someone quickly. Instead, she found herself in a world where sexual encounters are often all too brief.

"With hindsight, I think 15 is actually too many men to have slept with in two years. I don't regret it, because it was something I felt the need to do.

"I always practise safe sex, because HIV terrifies me, but I would never be that promiscuous again.

"No-strings sex wasn't all it was cracked up to be, either physically or otherwise, and it meant I let myself date unsuitable men because I knew it would never last long."

Last summer, she was dumped by one man by email. Embarrassed, she vowed to become celibate for a year.

"I was attracting men who only wanted one thing. I can't deny there was a certain excitement being intimate with lots of different men, but it's made me realise I much prefer sex in a long-term, loving relationship.

"I stuck to my vow of celibacy for nine months and worked at getting my self- respect back.

"Then, three weeks ago, I started dating a new man. I met him at a time when I really wasn't looking for sex, so it took me a bit by surprise that we got together," she says.

"Now, for the first time in years, I'm really enjoying getting to know a man, and looking beyond sex to something more meaningful. I don't want to go back to casual relationships."

JASMINE SMITH, a 21-year-old part-time photographer and dressmaker from York, admits she was shocked when she added up all her lovers and realised there had been 90.

"Sometimes I really regret sleeping with so many men because it makes me feel cheap and a bit ashamed," she says.

She was 15 and at a mixed state school in York when she lost her virginity to a 19-year-old boy. A year later, she fell pregnant by another teenage boy.

Feeling desperately ill-equipped to be a mother, she terminated the pregnancy, but after being dumped by the 16-year- old father, she embarked on four years of reckless promiscuity.

"Some men were friends of friends; others I picked up on nights out. There were a few I developed feelings for, and when they ended things I felt that same hurt I'd felt at 16 all over again."

Jasmine is not the first young woman to confuse sex and love and find herself on a never-ending search for lasting affection.

And her experiences certainly contradict the idea that sexual promiscuity is somehow "liberating", or that women can detach themselves emotionally from their sexual behaviour.

A painful family history may also have contributed to her behaviour.

Jasmine was just two when her mother, who works with autistic children, and her father, who runs his own small business, separated. She saw her father only sporadically.

Her mother remarried and later separated from her stepfather.

"It had a real effect on my attitude to sex," says Jasmine. "I've never had a man in my life who's cared about me consistently, and that's what I've been searching for - even if I've gone about it the wrong way."

She was bullied at the mixed comprehensive she attended in York.

"I didn't look like the other girls," she says.

"I didn't wear make-up and short skirts. I used to hang around with boys a lot because I found them less judgmental than the girls, but I used to get called names for it."

As she got older, her interest in boys grew. "Mum was quite open-minded about sex, but I don't really remember her giving me advice or telling me how I should behave.

"Several girls in my year at school were pregnant by the time they were 14, but my immediate group of friends didn't lose their virginity until much later.

"I sat somewhere between the two, and was 15 when I first had sex with a boy. It wasn't an experience to boast about."

Having embarked on a sexual path, it seemed impossible to turn back.

At 16, she became pregnant and had an abortion. She and her boyfriend got engaged, but two months later he left her for another girl.

"After the abortion, I was an emotional wreck for a long time," she says. And yet the terrible irony is that it made her even more selfdestructive. "I decided I would treat sex as sex, and try to detach it from feelings."

So followed a four-year period when Jasmine slept with more than 20 lovers a year.

"It became a vicious circle," she says. "While I was having sex, I'd feel needed and wanted, but as soon as it was over I'd feel emotionally vulnerable again.

"Lots of women think they can detach themselves emotionally from sex in the way men do - and I thought I could.

But now I don't believe women can: it's just not in our make-up to be that physically calculating.

"A year ago, I decided something had to change. I didn't want to get a reputation and, above all, I wanted a man who didn't just want to use me for a bit of fun.

"So I vowed not to have sex again until I found a man I could stay with, and who would respect me."

At the start of her bid to turn over a new leaf, Jasmine visited an STD clinic. "Stupidly, I haven't always practised safe sex - and I panicked. I remember thinking that I could be HIV positive."

Thankfully, all the tests were clear. And since that day, Jasmine has remained celibate.

"I feel much better about myself. When I think about how many men I've slept with, I can't believe it was me, and my friends are shocked too.

"My mother doesn't know the extent of my sexual encounters, and she'll be sad when she finds out that I felt vulnerable enough to let men use me that way.

At least I've made the change now, before it's too late.