<![CDATA[Jezebel: Celibacy]]> http://cache.jezebel.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png <![CDATA[Jezebel: Celibacy]]> http://jezebel.com/tag/celibacy http://jezebel.com/tag/celibacy <![CDATA[Tim Gunn Has Not Had Sex in 29 Years]]> Tim Gunn opened up about his personal life on the new show he's co-hosting, The Revolution. He says that he's celibate — and happy. "I haven't had sex in 29 years," said the designer mentor and former Parsons dean. "Do I feel like less of a person because of it? No." Gunn says that an "intense" relationship that ended abruptly led him to give up sex. With tears in his eyes, Gunn said of his former partner, "He was impatient with my sexual performance." He characterized his celibate life as "perfectly fulfilled," and said, "I'm happy to be healthy and alive, frankly." Gunn has written and spoken about his personal life before, though never in such detail. In a touching 2011 essay for the Daily Beast, Gunn described the end of a nine-year relationship — "The only real relationship I've ever had" — and how he felt no twinges of love or infatuation for a whole decade after the breakup. Then, in 1992, he met someone he calls Daniel. For work, Gunn was traveling frequently to Asia at the time. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5879187&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Sensuality Of Celibacy]]> Author Helen Boyd, on how celibacy, monogamy and being picky (which can cause the other two) can be sexier (and more feminist) than actually doing it. [My Husband Betty, Image via Sarah G. on Flickr] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5666122&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Is Worrying About Sex A Girl Thing?]]> Chastened, Hephzibah Anderson's memoir about her year of celibacy, reveals a deep confusion about how to live and love in a (sort of) sexually liberated world. It left us wondering: how come dudes never write books like this? More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5580394&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Does Celibacy Make You Crazy?]]> Victor LaValle's account of his two years of (almost) celibacy — alleviated occasionally by phone sex — makes the case that not getting any will drive you crazy. But actual lack of sex may matter less than just plain loneliness. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5574380&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Lube Helps Celibate Baby-Boomers Find Love]]> "I've been celibate for two-plus years. A gal I reunited with after 40-plus years has been celibate for ten. I know it'll be wonderful, but I'm concerned it may hurt her. Suggestions? I am not sure about these lubricants." [MSNBC] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5541639&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Celibacy: So Hot Right Now?]]> Two trend pieces today allege that young people are turning celibate in droves. But maybe they're just having a dry spell. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5536412&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA["The Cats Don't Criticize": A Single Writer's Semi-Sad Celibacy]]> Kit Naylor says she's "55 years old, a spinster long past my sell-by date, no kids — and I haven't had sex in a decade and a half." In her article on Salon, she writes that she could probably score some casual sex, but she wants to be in love — and historically, she's fallen in love with unavailable men. So for the past 15 years, she's enjoyed the single, sexless life: "the toilet seat is always down, and I control the TV remote" and "the cats don't criticize." But even as she lists the virtues of celibacy, she makes it disturbingly clear that it's not really her choice. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5105346&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Sexless Marrieds Take Solace In Online Forum]]> I am going to feel responsible for bringing y'all down from your Obama high, but there's this article in the Village Voice about one of the Experience Project's most popular threads about living in a sexless marriage and it's fairly bittersweet. The Experience Project is sort of like Post Secret: the message board — it's a place for people to anonymously share their stories. The "I Live in a Sexless Marriage" forum has over 3,000 members, and according to the Voice's Bonnie Ruberg, those sexless and sad spouses "run the gamut—men whose wives have lost interest after having kids, women who fear their husbands might be gay, men whose wives are marred by childhood trauma." More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5077444&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Hard-Partying Women Choose Life Without Weens]]> Groups like sex-abstinence movement Silver Ring Thing may be marketing chastity, but since the group is endorsed by parents (and, you know, Jesus), it's not really making celibacy "cool." Enter The Prim and Proper Pussy Club (The PPPC). Based in the London borough of Hackney, this group of ladies say they could "give Amy Winehouse competition in the debauchery stakes," except that they are all celibate. The organization has nothing to do with religion. So why the hell would these girls voluntarily give up sex? In an interview with The Guardian, PPPC charter member "Miss Angeline" says:
No two girls in the club are here for the same reason—some girls were sexually abused, some prefer intimacy over sex, some think that abstinence is the new laid. For me, abstinence is part of a personal quest. It is the realisation that freedom in its purest form comprises of not being addicted to anyone, especially the male body. I gave up having sex and, though the first few months were torture, I am now as free as I can be in a capitalist world.
Whoa. So in this age of sex, sex, sex, is turning away from fucking the new punk? More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=302357&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[No Sex Please: They're British!]]> Based on the growing popularity of youth-based abstinence programs like the Silver Ring Thing, Heather Seamen (heh heh), a reporter for the UK tabloid the Daily Mail, decided to interview six celibate British women who haven't had sex for a combined total of 33 years. A few of us here are admittedly promiscuous (hell, my name ain't Slut for nothin') and proud of it, but we'd never knock other girls for preferring to put the cow for sale, rather than give the milk away for free, so long as it makes them happy. You know, different strokes for different folks! However, the six women Ms. Seamen interviewed admitted that they're laying off of getting laid because their sex drives have either diminished, or just weren't there to begin with. So it would seem that celibacy is choosing them rather than the other way around. But you be the judge: After the jump, meet 20-to-40-somethings Sarah, Loren, Mandy, Denise, Sue and Beverly. More »
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