Choosing Celibacy

June 23rd.... 2005.  That's the last time I was physically intimate with a man.  To many, that seems like a very long time.  (It does to me as well.)  And most of you are probably asking the usual question:  WHY?

I googled "choosing celibacy" to see if there are others who are making the same choice I am, and I found the answer is a big YES.  Most of the media posts about teens and twenty somethings who abstain, waiting for marriage.  There are four very good non-religious reasons to choose celibacy, health being the most obvious.  STDs are rampant and who needs that?  Intimacy is another reason:  Sex is bound to intimacy. The lack of desirable partners or just having been burned really badly is reason enough to turn some of us off from sharing our bodies and emotions with others.   Time, of course, has become another issue as well.  With both partners working, sometimes long hours in order to get ahead, no one's in the mood after a long day at work. The last reason I found was Power.  This one surprised me, I hadn't thought of it in that way before.  "Choosing celibacy can be an empowering move. As with anything in life when we make a conscious choice to do or not do something, it gives a sense of control and purpose in our lives."

I think my reasons are a combination of all of those.  I was in a marriage that failed, and given that it takes two -- part of the blame falls with me, I'm certain.  Wanting to get back to being a 'whole person' again, I waited a while after I was divorced to have sex.  When I felt the time was right, I dated and had a few ... encounters.  While it was pleasurable in the moment, it just didn't sit right with me that there wasn't a deeper connection, a relationship with them.  I tried dating steadily with one man, but we never had a good connection that would build into something deeper.  (The first time a date ended at his place, he showed me a drawer with a ping pong paddle in it and asked if I wanted to spank him.... wasn't my cup of tea!)  My last date was with a man I'd known for over a year, we decided to meet and because there was a connection outside of a sexual date, it was a very good sexual date!! 

I've had a couple other dates since that time, but right from the start, I've told them I'm not interested in a relationship that centers around sex.  It must be part of the Male Conquest Gene that made them think they could change my mind.  Usually within the first couple of hours, there were hints about "going back to my place" .....  sorry, dudes, this old gal doesn't work that way!!

So ... just how do I work?  I wish I had an answer.  But the one thing I'm certain of:  I am not willing to settle, nor to give out favors in order to win affection.  I'm too old for games.  I need to feel a bond, have things in common with a person.  to be able to talk, laugh, read, do things together.  Hard to find that when the world's way is summed up this way:  Men need to have sex to feel loved; women need to feel loved to have sex.