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first person accounts of celibacy


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http://www.glandscape.com/celi4.html

you can read all the stories, but you'd probably be more intersted in the last two(marie and zoe)
I didn't have time to look around the rest of the site yet...

2012 Mod Edit: The above link is misleading today. The right content can be found here. For future reference:

First-Person accounts of Celibacy, part four


This is part of an archive of first-person accounts of sexual abstinence. You can go to the index, return to Martin's home page or read the Celibate FAQ.


Erica

I am a 28-year old single parent (my son is 7-years old). So it is fairly obvious to others that I am not a virgin. In the urban environment in which I live (Los Angeles, California USA) some men take this as a sign that I sleep around. Admittedly, for a while I did. From the time I lost my virginity until the time I got pregnant with my son (roughly five years) I slept around quite a bit. However, with the birth of my son, I resolved to do better. I didn't want him to see me with one man after another. With his father gone off to pursue other women, I was at the time hoping to find another relationship. Didn't happen. What I kept running into, were men who were into the "hit and run" game. Of course, I didn't realize that I wasn't helping things any by demanding the respect to which I was entitled.

This all came to a screeching halt when I got pregnant, again, in early 1996. For the second time in my life I was pregnant by someone I hardly knew, and I wasn't making enough money to support the child I had. What became of the pregnancy is not important. What is important, is at that moment, I decided that celibacy until I found a good solid relationship based on mutual trust, love and affection was going to be the best bet for me. Don't get me wrong, though. It's not as if I haven't wanted to jump off the celibate bandwagon, but fortunately for me the guys were not interested so I was protected from myself.

Celibacy is a good choice for people that have been in any number of bad relationships. During this time I have been able to analyze my motivations and make a blueprint for what I really want instead of what all the magazines tell me I should. Also, I have become more spiritually centered, now that I don't have any of those "other" distractions. The sexual attractions are still there, and I still flirt, but I no longer feel compelled to act on those urges. Celibacy has taught me more about my self, and self control than I ever imagined.

Jude

I am mid-forties, female, and became celibate less than two years ago. I just decided my privacy was more important to me than the pressure to conform and perform. I have always felt overcrowded in relationships anyway and sought some element of solitude. Now, having satisfied my curiosity about sex I've come to the end of that road. I get all the social contact I need, and plenty of it, in my work. I have also travelled a lot and explored the major religions and cultures. I have been most strongly inspired by the Muslims I know, who have a far more sophisticated appreciation of arts and human values than most Westerners. May I stress inspired by -my sexual status has nothing to do with religious reasons and I'm not interested in corresponding with those who brandish celibacy as a religious sword. On the contrary, I wear my celibacy as a statement; a reaction against (what I see as) bullshit. And almost no-one I know can grasp it.

Yamandu

I'm 35, male, Uruguayan and circumstantially Bolivian, celibate the last 35 years or so and still going strong. As for why I am celibate, it has to do with being tired of sex mixing up relationships (besides the obvious AIDS, pregnacy, etc.). I can't invite a woman to my home evenings, just as a good friend, because she is afraid I might not behave. And when she does come, she expects me not to behave. So unless I have several people over, if someone visits me alone it's got to be a man, and having so often single men visiting has my neighbors concerned...

Things go so much more easily when you do not feel pushed to act sexually, in the office, camp, whatever. Also, I can't afford it. Emotionally. See, I am a very loyal person, and the kind of twosome sex I want requires getting much more involved beyond hydraulics. I do not expect to be celibate forever, though as someone pointed out, with age you re-see things. But then I'd like someday to have a fine, old-fashioned, monogamous, cuddly family, and on my side, that should pose no problems. Sex would just mean having to get involved more than I care with people I don't care that much about - don't want to take sex casually.

I am for very close (in the sense of togetherness) friendships and love, I am convinced that we need much closer bonds among people than family lines, and no need for sex to be there - and thus we can have more of them, at the same time. When through love we can go beyond fears of lonesomeness when old or infirm, we might go beyond some of the need for families based on sexual servilism.

Nowadays I am exploring non-sexually-threatening closeness. It is so hard to get the concept through, but oh so rewarding, that we can be close, even get to the real meaning of intimate, without having sex. I can tell that it's still hard for me to really, lovingly, hug someone, and not feel guilty of trying to be a predator. Or of same-sex hugging being OK.

Marie

[Extracts from her web page]

I can relate to celibacy, but I know the term antisexual describes me the best (asexual is ok too, but doesn't really describe the "real" thing in my mind). Bet you wonder what I'm talking about here, hen? Well, it means that I wish not to have sex for my entire existence. But careful here, it doesn't mean I wanna become a nun or something. It's just that I'm totally disinterested in sex, in fact I even think it's disgusting. It's clear to me that I wouldn't enjoy it, in fact it would make me very uncomfortable.

I never dated anyone (I'm now 19), and I only will if I know it could lead to a sexless marriage. Because I'd love to get married, like everyone else I need to love and to be loved (I'm still human, I have emotions). Now back to my antisexuality or asexuality. Please don't tell me I need therapy or that I must have had a traumatic experience earlier in life. That is not the case. But I have always had that feeling that I wasn't normal. When I became a teenager, I assumed I would feel all those things the other teens around me felt. But it just wasn't there. There was nothing. So I kept on waiting. Still nothing. I knew I wasn't a lesbian, that was really clear, so what the hell was wrong with me? Ever since I was a little kid I just knew it wouldn't come. It's always been there in the back of my mind. I couldn't talk about it to anybody, I would have been to ashamed. I never had much self-esteem, so it was even harder for me.

These days, sex is everywhere. People talk about it all the time, it's on TV, on song lyrics, on the ads, on the magazines, EVERYWHERE! Could sex really be that important? I never had sex, and I'm feeling great, so what's the matter with me?

The rest of the essay is available through this link.

Zoe

[Taken from an article in the electronic magazine StarNet Dispatches, the full text of which is here.]

I'm out and proud to be asexual. My people are a definite minority group who wish to be recognized like all the others. We want a colored ribbon, a national holiday, coupons for fast food. We want the world to know that we are out there.

As far as the rest of the world is concerned, asexual organisms with more than one cell don't exist. That makes it quite difficult to come to terms with your lack of sexuality. I'm not one of those people who makes a big deal about abstaining from sex. I don't have the self-righteous air that's required and my spare time isn't spent thinking about how I don't have sex. I just don't bother about the subject at all.

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bard of aven

The sort of people you wnat to know more about. Too bad their source links are dead.

boa

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  • 3 weeks later...

You CAN find out about them....with the help of archive.org! Use the 'wayback machine' to look at old versions of websites. Not all websites are archived, though...

Here are some old versions of that site:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.gl....com/celi4.html

For example, here is one of the dead links...

http://web.archive.org/web/20011121003313/.../zoe/amoeba.htm

And some interesting comments linked to from that page, including one by the AVENguy:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020612021943/...zoe/amoeba2.htm

although googling for Zoe's email address turned up this quotation

"January 12, 1997

I read Bill's story and it was just so powerful. He sounds like he was a wonderful boy. I was openly bisexual in high school myself and although I did have harrassment and problems because of it, it was never as hateful as what happened to your son. I really admire your family for being so wonderful about him. So many people would take his sexual preference as a personal insult or something hell-sent. I think the page you put up is great and I hope that many, many people will see it and do whatever they can to change things so this kind of thing won't happen.

Zoe [zoe@azstarnet.com]"

So either she changed her mind about her sexuality after high school, or just likes writing with a firebrand style. Well, I'll stop snooping on someone's sexuality...I guess I don't trust people who write like firebrands :(

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