The first time I truly considered celibacy, it was six o’clock at night. My hands were gripping the edge of my ribs; I was hugging myself. I rocked my body back and forth, sitting on my bedroom floor as the knobs of my dresser dug into my back. My pants were stained with tears. The skin of my face felt sticky as it stretched between sobs—the salt gradually building on my eyelashes and coating the curves of my neck and cheekbones.
He had disappeared. I was coming to terms with the fact that he was never going to come back; see me, talk to me, or answer me.
It had been about three weeks since our argument. I wanted him to love me the same way I loved him. He wanted something, but it was swiftly becoming clear that that thing wasn’t me. I would never have to know he was using me for my body, and he would never have to know I was imagining someone else—the best version of him that didn’t quite exist.
I had always kept him tucked into what I thought of as a Cafe Bustelo tin can—the yellow, plastic lid had a small, carved slit in it, just big enough to slip in a few investments, and never enough to let any of him fall out. The occasional check-in phone call or kiss on the cheek was a sweet reassurance that no matter how much I bottled him up or pushed him away, he’d always be mine. I never stopped to think about how many pennies would want to be dollars, how much he wanted more from me, how much more he wanted to be to me.
II.
He was wary of me when we attempted to work things out. He’d take a kiss, but question my love for him and my intentions; he needed time to trust me, but not to fuck me. It was a behavior I was willing to accept and settle for.
And then came that one night. We exchanged words, hung up on each other, and then weeks went by without a single act of communication between us. I was on the floor at six o’clock and he had disappeared, for good this time.
He was creative. He was frustrating. He was smart. He was mine, or so I had thought. There was nothing else to hold onto, so I gripped my body and tried to purge the memories of his squinting eyes and quizzical smile. As I sat on my floor, every inhale was a moan for his body and the touch of his fingers. Every exhale was the craving for his mind and being.
I wasn’t sure if I was capable of forgiving myself for what I did to him, how I pushed him and his feelings away as if he didn’t matter. In certain ways I sought punishment for this; a craving to suffer for what I did. In my suffering, there was self-pity and in that pity, there was the attention that I craved.
Sex had always felt like a form of saving grace. There seemed to be a sense of self-worth between the caress of fingers; the truth about ourselves that we kept hidden between the crevices of miniature gaps of light between our rubbed bodies. After he disappeared, I began to harness sex as a way to gauge the potential of every new relationship I walked into. The thought of his disappearance made me feel diminished. But there was “power to my pussy.”
I didn’t go around having sex with every guy I was in a relationship with, because my true relationship was with sex. I fought and argued with it. I bickered with my sexual inclinations and the act itself here and there, but we always made up. In it, there was a sense of redemption.
But for the first time it hurt me—it jostled me around, fingered my hope, and never called again. I always thought vengeance was the Lord’s, but vengeance seemed to have escaped from His back door and screwed me until I fell asleep. I woke up again, feeling that mustering emptiness.
III.
I wanted to have faith, faith in myself and faith in God, that there was a chance for something better on its way to make up for this or erase what happened (or didn’t happen) between us. I kept searching for the extra bit that could fill the gap of where he was to make me feel whole or complete.
A shift began to emerge from the tears. If I were to be treated this way by sex, then I would do what it had done to me. I ceased. At first, it started as a series of choices. One day, I would not engage in sexual activity. And the next day, I wouldn’t, again. Another day, the same thing. It didn’t exonerate the feelings of betrayals and the remembered regrets, but it whispered scriptures of hope and a sense of immunity.
My faith pulled at me to turn to God and “try it His way.” Celibacy mustered a power that allowed time to heal me rather than sex temporarily fixing me. God could heal the pain, rather than me succumbing to an act that feels amazing, but is totally mind and body-consuming and stirs up the feelings and emotions that live within relationships.
I was pressed, but not crushed; struck down, but not destroyed. Each day felt like mere survival, but to deny myself was to deny my demons and troubles. To deny myself was to deny him. Suddenly, this practice had a purpose. I abstained from sex to figure out what I wanted and who I wanted to be. I was no longer abstaining. I was celibate.
There was a strange comfort in saying “no” to it all. A new life and value that wasn’t entirely my own yet, but was slowly being collected and built with each day that went by. I was making quicker decisions: There was no “this or that.” There was no “or.”
Months went by and I was surviving, not 100 percent joyous and not 100 percent horrendous. I was humming again. I matched my outfits. I did my hair. And I began to take notice of life and its various people again. One striking individual in particular, who I ran into one too many times not to wonder if our meeting was more than serendipitous. I was enamored by his character and the smooth space between the edge of his lips and his mustache.
I gave him the spiel. “To be celibate is to gain back control and power over my own flesh. To refuse myself, for the hope of something better,” I said. “We can focus on God, ourselves, our dreams and each other, completely and totally uninterrupted.”
He was open to the idea, but the commitment to celibacy was impending. I’d lay next to him in bed and every twist and turn of a wrestled sheet unveiled a sliver of delicate, smooth black skin; a hand that brushed a centimeter too far down my waist.
I had hope. Early in the evening, I was prayed up and repented out, fiercely ready to fight my flesh, no matter how good he smelled. But by a quarter ‘till eleven, the house hung quiet; Netflix lost its ability to distract and his arm fit almost too perfectly underneath my neck. By two in the morning, his hand caressed my temples as it caught every tear, trying to console my self-hatred for failing to keep my promise to myself all over again.
I didn’t want to have sex, but it felt so good. I didn’t want to have sex, but what else was there?
I didn’t want to have sex, but I couldn’t stand being by myself next to him in the same room.
I didn’t want to have sex, but if I were to think of the past and where this all began, then I’d surely go insane.
I didn’t want to have sex, but I didn’t not want to either. I didn’t want to have sex, but I didn’t want to begin thinking about him all over again.
IV.
Time passed and we were starting to understand how our outside lives affected one another within our life together. He was overwhelmed, flustered by the demands of family, work, and school. I was tired. This was beginning to feel like post-traumatic stress of neglect. Again, another man, disappearing right before me.
I had stopped my celibacy practice, giving up all hope and belief that abstaining from sex was a viable thing I could accomplish. It had been several months and neither of us could commit to the commitment of just saying “no.” I could no longer latch onto a good enough reason to deny myself of something, anything. I had sacrificed enough.
I could get lost in my feelings and past. It was the cheap escape that allowed me to harness and the shame, pain, hurt, and guilt that I couldn’t walk away from. I had already failed God as I had lost faith that He was more than enough for me and that I was enough for Him. That’s how it was with every other man in my life, so it must be true for Him, right?
Every now and then I’d longingly peek back into the old rusted tin can and reflect on my poor judgment and self-disdain for the part I had played in the breaking of the last relationship. The failure of the current relationship all seemed to point back to his squinting eyes. Every so often I could feel the wrestled sheets and would cry deeply for myself and for what never was.
Either something was missing, or there was too much of something festering that shouldn’t have been there, a toxin that ate away at whatever dignity I had left. I was the common denominator of two failing relationships. That meant something.
V.
I found myself wandering around church one evening, waiting for it all to be over: the relationship, and my sister’s dance rehearsal, too. I poked my head in a few rooms to find a beloved church aunt I hadn’t seen in awhile. We caught up on life’s new developments, including my recent troubles.
“I love him very much. He’s a great guy, but things aren’t going too well right now,” I said. “I feel like it might be over.”
“Just make sure you stay pure,” she said.
My brow curled into curiosity. “What do you mean?”
“When you share a bed, when you have sex with a man, a piece of his spirit is left behind,” she told me. “He’ll always stay with you—inside you—and with it, all the good and the bad of him.” I could instantly feel that grip of hands hugging my ribs all over again. “You don’t want that, you know. You want to stay whole.”
Perhaps I had crossed a threshold into a space I could never really return from. Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t stop thinking about this man, and that man, and the one before, and the one that could come after him. If I chose not to have sex, I would always know what I’d be missing. The desire to say “no” tumbled and bashed into my “need” to feel pleasure, then suffering, then forgiveness.
I did not see sex as a bad thing. It is not a sin in my mind nor in my heart. What warped me was my own inability to control myself. What I could not deny would surely become my master. If I could say no and ferociously run in the opposite direction of this crutch, then I could be free. I could be liberated from all the men still inside of me.
Yes, to be celibate was to deny my flesh. It was to deny him and his hold on me, his presence inside of me. But it was also to choose a much greater presence of my own spirit and identity that had been there all along, patiently waiting. In retrospect, it was not me gripping my ribs, but rather a heartfelt embrace from deep within.
My prayer was, “Teach me, Father, how to love you and myself, enough to at least believe that I am worth more than the stupid sins I feed into. Teach me to fall back on you.” God was not the temporary fix, the “meanwhile.” I could not earn his forgiveness. I was already redeemed. To follow his way of waiting was to settle for nothing less than the best He had for me, for what He would have me wait for, only if I am willing to wait.
Sex was not the sin. What I had done with it was.
