Is Celibacy Coming Back?

I can't say it's a trend. Perhaps it's just a case of a lot of young women emulating Lady Gaga. But the New York Post reports this morning that celibacy is making a comeback among young women in New York. Link here.

In a sense it was inevitable. We knew that at some point young women would figure out that hooking up involves being used. Even if you both agree to use each other, you are still being used.

One woman had an epiphany one fateful morning as she was walking out of her latest hook-up's apartment. The last words she heard from a man she had had sex with the night before, were: "What's your name?"

If your hook up does not know your name, what does that make you?

If hooking up is random, anonymous sex, it was probably only a matter of time before young people grew tired of anonymity and grew tired of being sex objects or sex toys. Whether by chance or by choice they discovered abstinence.

As you know, abstinence has a bad name these days; thus the press labels it celibacy. Nevertheless, most of these women are really just abstaining from sex until they find a relationship. Most of them have not sworn a vow of celibacy.

But is it really a trend? If it isn't, it will become one when celibacy is denounced as a backlash against liberation, a patriarchal conspiracy to repress female sexuality.

As you read the Post article you also learn that most of these newly celibate women consider abstinence to be therapeutic; it restores their self-respect and frees up a lot of mental energy for more productive pursuits.

So much for the old notion that sexual repression is the cause of all the world's ills.

Could it be true, contrary to the message peddled by the anti-abstinence crowd, that everyone is not doing it? And could it be true that abstinence makes you feel better, not worse?