Day 16 of My 40 Day Fast: I Went Celibate and Realized My Power

I once slept with someone to get over someone else. It left me feeling kind of empty inside, so I decided to stay away from men for awhile.

During my 20s I’d only slept with one person - my toxic ex. You can read about him by clicking the story below.

When I left that relationship in my late 20s I felt like I had been missing out when it came to sex. Everyone around me was having one night stands and casual flings. I was being encouraged to ‘sow my wild oats.’ Not only by the people around me, but it’s also heavily ingrained in media.

I have always favoured emotional sex over physical. The desire never arose for men I didn’t like even if they were ridiculously good looking. I felt there was something wrong with me for not having random sexual urges.

My reason for my first one night stand was to be able to say that I did it. I learned that night I will catch feelings for the person I’m sleeping with if they know what they’re doing in bed. I was embarrassed. I soon learned my feelings were not reciprocated. It stung that he didn’t view me as someone worth getting to know. I felt like a silly little girl who got in way over her head.

I tried it again and this time I was very drunk. It wasn’t enjoyable and I remember looking at him and thinking that I didn’t want to see him in the morning. I grabbed my things and left. It didn’t occur to me then that I had given myself to someone who I would not have given a second glance to on the street or even gone on a date with.

I developed an aversion to one nights stands, but never spoke about it. I felt like I was the opposite of everyone else, and maybe there was something wrong with me.

Years later I started dating someone I liked who dumped me shortly after. His behaviour made me feel like he'd only used me to get me into bed. That was what led me to get with someone else to get over him.

That experience left me questioning my relationship with sex. It felt very muddled. The way I felt about sex inside was at odds with what society was telling me. I decided to stay away from men and dating for awhile and work on myself. I had a health condition, so I focused on healing.

The thing about the healing journey is that it makes you heal all the parts that need healing whether we realize it or not. The feeling of discontent towards sex gnawed at me. I took it to God. I explained how I was feeling about sex, and that I wanted to heal my relationship with it.

When I felt the nudge to become celibate I resisted. No way was I going to marry someone I've never slept with. Sexual compatibility is part of the foundation for building a relationship. What if I marry someone only to find out we’re not sexually compatible? For a long time I resisted, and the nudges persisted.

I complained to God that no one will want to date me if I’m celibate. That the pool of single dateable guys would become smaller. I was afraid men would just go towards a woman who wasn’t celibate. All the men I have ever encountered in my life were not the type who would wait until marriage.

Something happened a couple years ago that made me realize I can trust God to would send me the right person. By this point I had given my love life to God, because I was not having any luck, and was waiting on God to send me someone. I was resistant to celibacy because I wasn’t fully trusting God. Even though I hadn’t been intimate with a man in years, much less even been on a date, I became officially celibate.

I am an emotional creature. I prefer emotional sex. It is infinitely better, so why should I settle for something less than? Let the unhealed men treat sex like an animal act. Our emotional intelligence is what separates us from animals. Emotional sex is human nature.

I’m tired of society telling me that I can have emotionless sex just like men. Why are we being pushed to be more like men anyway? Doesn’t that just reinforce the concept that we’re the weaker sex? Like there's something inherently bad about feminine qualities?

I wasn’t expecting empowerment when I went celibate. I am not vocal about my celibacy. I figure that information is on a need to know basis. When I engage with men knowing sex is off the table and they don’t know, it makes me feel like I have the power. I don’t have to worry whether the guy I’m talking to is a player. He won’t get what he wants from me.

A lot of men speak to women with an agenda to hopefully bed them. I no longer worry about phoney relationships. I want men to talk to me because they genuinely want to talk to me and not for a sexual reason. I have dealt with that too many times. There were times I’d worry I was leading a male stranger on unintentionally simply because I was talking to him.

I’m realizing the power my body holds, and how men will put in work to get their hands on it. For a lot of unhealed men it’s the main thought that runs through their heads. Imagine what would happen if we just stopped giving them what they want. We would hold a lot of power over them, and I think that makes some men very uncomfortable.

Society claims that when we think like this we reduce our value to just our bodies. I think that concept devalues us. When we realize the value our body holds we treat it like a prize. That makes us picky about who we let in sexually. When we hold our bodies in high regard it changes how we see and feel about ourselves mentally and emotionally. We become truly in tune with our power and this exudes a different kind of confidence, one not wholly based on physical appearance.