{"id":7386,"date":"2024-06-28T15:44:53","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T15:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/?p=7386"},"modified":"2024-06-28T15:44:53","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T15:44:53","slug":"what-is-celibacy-and-why-are-so-many-women-trying-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/strongermarriages\/2024\/06\/what-is-celibacy-and-why-are-so-many-women-trying-it.html","title":{"rendered":"What is Celibacy, And Why Are So Many Women Trying It?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When she saw Bumble\u2019s recent anti-celibacy ad campaign, Lainey Molnar felt like she was being mocked, and she was angry. The dating app had just revealed billboards reading \u201cCelibacy is not the answer\u201d and \u201cThou shalt not give up dating and become a nun.\u201d The backlash of what became known as the \u201cBumble fumble\u201d was quick, and within weeks, the company had taken down the ads and apologized. Still, Molnar, a voluntarily celibate 35-year-old who posted a response to the campaign on Instagram, wasn\u2019t satisfied.<\/p>\n

She said in the video, \u201cIt seems like women\u2019s boundaries over our bodily autonomy are so threatening to the entire concept of dating that they need to put up billboards to stop us. At least we\u2019re being seen, I guess?\u201d Molnar has a difficult romantic history. In her early 20s, she was in a long-term relationship with a man who was abusive and demanded sex daily. After it ended, she went through a promiscuous phase that lasted roughly a year, in part, she believes, to feel she had some agency over her body. \u201cI was like a freight train,\u201d she says. \u201cI had no sense of my body. I didn\u2019t own it anymore.\u201d Over the next ten years, she dated around, usually unhappily, and suffered from chronic UTIs from intercourse.<\/p>\n

She encountered the idea of celibacy in a TikTok post about sex being an \u201cexchange of energy\u201d between two people, one that should be treated with caution, and she was intrigued. Though she\u2019d had gaps between relationships in the past, her choice to step away this time was more deliberate; she has now been celibate for two years. She didn\u2019t go into it with a firm plan or the intent to make a lifelong decision, but she has very clear guidelines. \u201cMy rules are that I do not engage in any partnered intimacy unless it is exclusive or committed,\u201d she says. She is, however, in a relationship with herself: She has a ring tattoo where an engagement ring would traditionally. Plenty of people like Molnar, mainly women, in contrast to the angrier, male-dominated incel community, are eager to call themselves celibate.<\/p>\n