Sunday, August 3, 2008

Celibacy

Before my present relationship, I had been celibate for 13 years. Not everyone knows this about me, but enough people do, for me to know that this is something most people totally do not understand. I had been divorced for 17 years. During that time, I was busy. I raised my boys, worked two jobs and was going to school. When people find out that you are celibate, they make alot of assumptions. People tell me that there is no way they could go without sex. I want to know why not? Sex is not a necessity, it is not like air, water or food. You do not die without sex. People assume that you are a deeply religious person, that you do not have sex because it is a sin. I do not think sex is a sin, I am spiritual, but not what I call deeply religious. People assume that you were terribly hurt or abused at some point, which led to your giving up sex. I had been hurt in the past, I had been in a fucked up relationship. In that relationship, sex was not good. That is not why I was celibate. People assume that you are frigid or an asexual person. I think that I am a very sexual person. I like sex, I enjoy sex, just not for long time.

I never made a conscience decision to become celibate. I just did not go out and seek sexual partners. I did not have time for that, it was not a priority. My family and responsibilities came first. I knew that running around having sex and seeking men was not something that would benefit me or my family. I was in a fairly long relationship for a while. He was a religious person, I knew that if we had sex, he would feel that we should get married. Marriage was not something that I wanted, so I did not want to make it an issue. Eventually marriage was a topic that came to the table anyway, and that led to the end of that relationship, because I knew that that was something that I could not (or did not want to do). He is now married and I hope he found what he was looking for.

Did I miss sex? Certainly, at times. Had I been some kind of pure and conservative person all of my life? No, I do not consider that I have ever been pure or conservative. Probably the opposite. In my younger days I was pretty wild, I did party, sleep around, and had sex for the sake of having sex. I am definitely not a conservative. Come to think of it, conservatives seem to get caught in sex scandals quite a bit. They may preach about it, but they just hide their "sin". In fact the more they preach about it, the more they are probably doing it. Remember when Jimmy Swaggart condemned Jim Bakker for his sexual sin? It was right before Swaggart got caught.

I do not expect everyone to act as I did or prioritze things in my way. This is just what worked for me. Did I ever expect to have sex again? I certainly hoped so, if the time and situation and other person were all right. If I did not have to worry about hidden agendas and know that we both were not expecting too much. But, if I never had sex again, I knew I would not die, pine away, or shrivel up. People expect way too much from sex. They ususally do not have sex simply for the sake of having sex or to just enjoy it. At least this is true of women, I cannot speak for men. They expect a commitment, relationship, an epiphany, rockets, fireworks, or some other such bullshit. That is a pretty tall order for one act to fill. People expect that a sex act will lead to something else, that will never happen, unless something else was already in the stars (so to speak).

People think that after that many years, something spectacular would have to happen for me to break my streak. I just viewed it as, one day the situation would present itself. What I did not know was that something spectacular would happen, I would meet J. He would make me feel safe and sexy and make things easy for me. He made me want him. Funny thing is, I did get what I was not expecting, I did get an epiphany, rockets, fireworks, and a relationship. He still seems to make those fireworks happen for me every time. It certainly was worth waiting for.

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