Celibacy

[JessFR]

Hey, I remember this thread.

Fuck celibacy, I see no reason it would be better for your spirituality or anything really. Not spending lots of your energy pursuing sex might have positive effects, but I have a bf, I don't need to pursue it.

I posted that here almost exactly 2 years ago. Woulda just turned 27 at the time.

I still can't say I really understand celibacy for health and spiritual reasons. I had a boyfriend at the time I wrote it, now we aren't together. Maybe one day we will be again, but for now I'm focusing on my heroin problem. One of the things that was a problem for us, one factor among many that caused us to drift apart, was that we weren't having sex very often. I like sex, I do, but it's something I've long had all sorts of emotional problems with.

Sometimes I think I'd be better off just embracing asexuality. I'm not asexual, but I often feel like sex is more of a negative in my life than a positive. I just don't know how to change that. People always talk about how sex should be special and romantic, and it's just never seemed like that to me.

But its hard to keep a relationship going without sex. Especially if you're a girl with a guy.

But, having said that. I still think it's crazy for anyone who wants to have sex to intentionally practice celibacy for spiritual or religious reasons. Why must people be so weird about sex. For all the emotional issues I have with sex. I still think I'm positively sane compared to the crazy obsessions with sex our species has been experiencing since forever,

 

[herbavore]

For me celibacy not only had nothing to do with spirituality, it had nothing to do with sex. What I decided to do (stay out of sexual relationships for a year) had more to do with what I used sexual relationships for--but what they ultimately failed at providing in any meaningful way, namely self-worth. I bought into the female myth that you do not exist without someone (gender unspecific) telling you that you are wanted, the more obsessively the better, and that you are elevated above all others in someone's universe. This made for years of needy, doomed-from-the-start monogamy. I still practice monogamy but it helped me clear the neediness out of the way. Getting over having to be worshiped in order to feel loved was freeing. Learning how to have non-sexual intimacy (deep and meaningful friendships with all genders) was even more freeing.

 

[Xorkoth]

I agree that celibacy with the goal of improving your own relationship with sex can be a really healthy and perhaps needed thing. I still disagree that celibacy is somehow better than non-celibacy, if your relationship is good and you're able to experience intimacy without it (because there is so much more to intimacy than sex). Though if someone wants to practice it for whatever reason, more power to them.

 

[Foreigner]

I'm happy to see this thread resurrected. levels, it's great that celibacy has worked out so well for you and led to the reduction of your drug habits! I've read similar stories elsewhere.

This thread is timely as I decided a couple of months ago to become celibate in a more permanent way. I'm physically quite unwell right now so it makes sense not to tax my body, but the decision will remain going forward anyway. For me the decision doesn't just mean no fap, it means that I don't want to be in a sexual relationship with anyone for the foreseeable future, choosing a more ascetic lifestyle. There are negative and positive reasons why I have chosen this.

The positive reasons are that I feel much stronger and more grounded in my own human level experience when I don't become sexually intertwined with someone. My sense of rootedness has given me a clarity of mind I haven't had since I was last single and not ejaculating. The negative reasons are that I find the biochemical addiction of lust to be too compromising to my sense of integrity as well as a waste of time that has led me to some blind decisions that I never want to risk experiencing again. I find that human intimacy in the modern world is in a state of total decay and selfishness, and I'd rather stay single and focus on self-development that way. If someone comes along who shows me respect in a longstanding way then I can reconsider but for now my bodily energy is mine and mine alone.

This all comes part and parcel with the more ascetic lifestyle I mentioned. I have almost no interest in the goings-on of the modern world anymore. The state of modern humanity is such that I haven't felt I belonged for a long time, and after much inner searching I have come to realize that there's nothing wrong with me, I am just surrounded by idiots. I hope that our society grows out of this phase of selfish idiocy and until it does I'm going to stick with myself.

One of the interesting things I've noticed, like levels, is that sexual imagery no longer really does it for me. I find it puerile and objectifying. When I'm watching a movie or TV show that tries to bait me with sex, I see it for what it is rather than it hitting my body. It's interesting how your perspective changes once you get a handle on the leaks in your sexual energy. When I compare that to how modern doctors are saying that jerking off is good for you and you should do it as much as possible, it makes me question their agenda. Doing it as much as possible would make me an ungrounded, disembodied air head. Maybe that's the point.

 

[Jabberwocky]

^ thanks for sharing Foreigner. Hope you feel better soon and best wishes with that. Let us know how that goes for you.

I've certainly been spontaneously gravitating towards a more ascetic lifestyle myself so I salute your effort. Asceticism wasn't a real possibility for me in the past because I was too uncomfortable in my own skin. I'm being gentle with myself and applying constant pressure to rid myself of habits, attachments and constructs that no longer serve me but damn it is pretty insidious. Even food is a drug I've come to realize and the way I relate to it has been changing. Anyways, I'm in it for the long haul. If I push too hard I get too emotionally attached to the efforting and then when I fail I get upset and a bit discouraged about it and it takes me a while to try again. I'm sick of that pattern which has overtones of guilt and anger and it doesn't really serve me.

After a series of 4 intense relationships over 5 years ago that either really hurt me bad or hurt the other person I can relate to your feelings about relationship. Aside from a couple hook ups I haven't been in a real relationship for about 6 years. I got tired of how it was affecting me and decided I wasn't ready for a relationship — that I'd keep attracting the same dramas. So I understand your desire to be relationship free. At some point that might change for you but if you're not feeling it right now, no need for it. I didn't really miss relationships that much these last years. Of course I fantasized about sex and intimacy a lot and that gets kinda uncomfortable after a while and I experience the usual tenderness looking at two people in love, but I was struggling enough to find stability in my relationship with myself, so saw very clearly that I wasn't going to find stability with another.

Like you said, the really powerful thing about not ejaculating is that over time it has changed my thought patterns. Aside from porn which felt toxic to my outlook and which I am very glad doesn't have a pull on me anymore, I've experienced a complete decrease in sexual fantasies. Sexual fantasy was my modus operandi when it came to relating sexual pleasure to myself. This is a distortion I've come to appreciate. On the one hand there is the pleasure of touch, physical sensations and energies moving through ones sexual centers. On the other hand there is a cinema display of erotic imagery superimposed on that. That cinema display has no qualms bringing a random stranger I just met the other day, undressing them and having sex with them to help me ejaculate faster. I took all this for granted my whole life that this is normal, that fantasies are harmless, but it's kinda twisted when you stop and think about it. The quality of my thoughts affects the quality of my experience and so when I begin to take responsibility for my own thoughts a new way of relating to myself emerges. Beyond the conditioned thoughts and fantasies is sexual pleasure, and that feels really good. I'm not interested in suppressing it or shutting that energy down. And without orgasm being the goal, sexual pleasure just is; it is not destination or a means to an end. Now when I do masturbate, I just focus on the pleasure and physical and energetic sensations in my body and try my best not to indulge in sexual imagery. I've been having some success, though I'm not entirely free of this way to relating sex to myself.

 

[Volsam]

IMO celibacy in men can help you channel a lot of energy within to a higher levels - it has something with testosterone and higher adrenergic activity than in women.
In other words, by jerking off, especially when using strong images on immediate demand, such as online porn, IMO, we, men, limit our self expression and force ourselves to dwell on the lowest energetic level, constantly feeling deprived or incomplete.

I think it has direct effect on our root chakra - dumping off whatever energy we got originating there while doing self-pleasures on a regular basis is even bad for health IMO, not to mention creativity and being able to be truly compassionate and sharp minded.

I salute those who conquered their sex demons! It takes a lot of self-control.

I have nothing against sex, especially if it's accompanied with deep romantic feelings, if you are in love. Sex without love is one-sided and egoistic so in a long run it's not beneficial. Trying out tantric sex could be very great, especially combined with a little LSD...8) The key is to keep channeling your deep emotions in the name of God, towards God, from both partners, also keeping an aware mind, focusing on your partner. When releasing, say within that all that pleasure and emotions go towards God, not to just satisfy your needs - it makes a world of difference IME!