Is it a lot? It depends on the person. Some people just happen to be very sexually active at a relatively young age and sleep with people they found very attractive and only because of that. Fair play.
But then there are the people who just never knew how to say "no", or who did it to fit into a group, or to feel attractive by sleeping with random people, or because they were emotionally messed up.
It is just a number but quite often, when someone tells you about their past and how they are with other people, with people of the opposite sex, it can make a lot of sense so to anyone who says that the number doesn't mean anything, it can mean a lot. Of course, we'd all like to believe we're free spirits, not held down by what our social class, ethnicity, age, nationality, job, sexual past are but the fact of the matter is that they do.