Michele, 39, a divorced mother of two, has been celibate for six months. She
broke up with the man she loved because he "didn't want to be accountable." She
decided: "Not only do you not deserve my body, you don't deserve my time."
"I was in love with him. It hurt. I learned that I am not willing to settle for
anything other than everything I want in a relationship," said the Hyde Park
resident. "To move into a realm where I am no longer trying to please anyone
but myself is growth. I'm proud of myself for not being willing to settle."
She jokes, "I hope that I won't one day break into a sweat and a frenzy and say
'I just can't take it anymore!' "
Some people take a break from sexual relationships to focus their energies on
careers, children, spirituality or non-sexual aspects of their physical selves.
Angela, 42, is three years into what she calls "a very conscious 'my body is a
temple' move."
"At first, I was just busy doing other things. A relationship ended and I
didn't pick up a new one," she said, answering her cell phone between meetings
in a balmy city far from her South Side home. "When no one came along, I
realized: 'I don't want to go back into all that. I think I'm going to stay
celibate while I do this other thing.' I know I can't grow my business and
surrender myself as a woman the way I want to."
There's no shortage of books on the subject. This month brought Dawn Eden's The
Thrill of the Chaste, about her decision to please God, not men. And, though
The Cult of the Born-Again Virgin didn't spawn the term, it started a tizzy
nonetheless when released seven years ago. Taking a different angle, Sensual
Celibacy showed women how "to use abstinence to recharge their spirit, discover
their passions and achieve greater intimacy in their next relationship."
Some celebs have spoken publicly about keeping their pants on. Kirstie Alley
told Oprah she was celibate for 4½ years; singer Pink wore white to her wedding
after a celibate engagement; Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo eclipsed his two-year
celibacy pledge by six months before getting engaged a year ago and married
last May.
"There is a long tradition in most religions for the practice of celibacy. The
renunciation of worldly pleasures is a way not to be distracted," said Laura
Carpenter, author of 2005's Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First
Sexual Experiences.
"We are in a moment culturally where there really is a resurgence of moral
conservatism, where there's been at least an attempt by a lot of people to make
it cool to be chaste or virginal, which wasn't cool in the late '60s or before
AIDS," Carpenter said.
Fear of sexually transmitted disease is another reason people choose to be
chaste. When it comes down to saying no, the language they use is: "I'm taking
a break from sex" or "I don't have casual sex."
"We talk about 'secondary virginity,' but usually we just say 'starting over,'
" said Cori Moschberger, executive director of Caris Services, a 10-year-old
abstinence education program serving 37 local public schools. "No matter what
you did in the past, you can always make a decision to be abstinate until
marriage."
The staff plays by the same rules. The instructors, ages 22 to 32, are either
married or abstaining. Some are virgins, some are not.
"I think that makes the point to the kids. We know it's hard, but it's
possible, good ealthy and you can do it," said Moschberger, a divorced
"secondary virgin."
"I feel my decision to be sexually involved with my husband before marriage
blinded me to character issues, created a false sense of intimacy and
distracted us from building an honest friendship," she said. They were married
nearly five years. After the breakup, her decision was to practice abstinence.
"He was the only person I had sex with, he was my first, there were no
pregnancies, no STDs [sexually transmitted diseases], but the consequences were
much greater than they would have been if we'd waited," she said.
Wendy Keller, who grew up in Hoffman Estates, still does a few interviews every
month stemming from her 1999 book Cult of the Born-Again Virgin. The book's
impact lasted longer than her celibacy.
"As I was finishing the book tour, I met a guy, got serious, got engaged. In
the end it didn't work out," she said. "I still believe in the message of the
book. When I'm not in a relationship, I tend to go through long periods of
celibacy. I use celibacy as a tool for enhancing my life, and refrain from
sexual activity until I feel the relationship is worth that investment."
While researching her book, Carpenter, an associate professor of sociology at
Vanderbilt University, encountered many people who became celibate after "a
lousy virginity loss." Many others, she said, take time off from sex "and use
the term virginity as shorthand for what they're doing." Some "born-again
virgins" are holding out for marriage, like 24-year-old Lisha. The daughter of
a minister, she chose celibacy after a pregnancy scare at 16.
"Sure, I have been tempted to give it up," she said, "but I have to realize
that if the man isn't willing to wait for me until I am ready, then he is not
worthy of having me. The man who is willing to wait until he places a diamond
on my left ring finger is the right man for me."
Carpenter said it's "newsworthy" to be chaste in a culture as highly sexualized
as ours.
"We as a culture seem to think that teenagers should be into having sex," she
said. "We praise them for being chaste and think it's less common than it ought
to be. But when someone is in their 20s or 30s or heaven forbid the 40-year-old
virgin -- that seems strange."
She found it's easier for women than men to admit they abstain. "It's so much
more stigmatized for men," she said. "They're out there, they're just not
admitting it."
When Weezer made the cover of Rolling Stone in May 2005, the headline read:
"Rivers Cuomo Hasn't Had Sex in Two Years, and Boy, Is He Ready to Rock." Cuomo
is a practicing Buddhist.
Jonak Gonzalez, 25, of Evanston, has been a "secondary virgin" for six years.
When he traveled to Puerto Rico around Christmastime with his girlfriend of 14
months, they stayed with family members.
"There were a lot of safeguards we put into place so we didn't put ourself in
the mouth of the lion thinking we can hold up his jaws," he said.
As a teenager, Gonzalez said, casual sex caused "a lot of negative consequences
in my life, broken relationships, objectifying women and using them for my own
purposes." Instead of intimacy, sex brought "more brokenness." When he became a
Christian, he vowed no sex until marriage.
"Being a strong male is not about sexual activity, it's more defined by
standing up to pressures, having a revolutionary mindset against the status
quo, the norm," he tells teenagers in the abstinence education classes he
teaches for Caris Services, who respond with disbelief when he tells them he --
a man -- is abstinent.
Then he points out, "Women are not asexual. They have desires and passions as
well."
"I do believe that something that comes together to create life stays with a
woman -- regardless whether a life is created or not," Angela said. "That's
what sexual intimacy is about. It's a cerebral and a physical connection. And
since I think sex is predominantly mental, I don't feel like I'm missing
something right now. It's an investment and commitment."
While Michele's focus is on her work and children, she worries "Is this it?"
for sex.
"I was in tears talking to my girlfriends. 'Is this it -- I'm 39 and I'll never
have sex again?' To find yourself in a space where you're 39 and trying to
date, and an African-American woman, that's difficult in itself. Some of my
mother's friends have written off sex altogether -- sometimes I gasp, thinking,
'Is this it?' "
Friends who have been through the same experience assure Michele that "one day
it will happen in the context of how I need it to happen." She's not so sure.
"The other day I was watching some movie and it ends up being this passionate
love scene and it was like, 'Oooh. What did that feel like?' " she says.
"If I'm in a place and see a couple holding hands or expressing intimacy, I
think about it. Sometimes I think how nice it would be. It definitely is a
choice. If I wanted to, somebody wouldn't kick me out of the bed for eating
crackers. But that's not enough," says Michele. "This is my conscious choice,
not being willing to settle."
