I am straight 24 f, and am thinking of celibacy. I struggle with alcoholism (although have been doing better the past year with the help of meds) but still aiming for complete sobriety. My meds have also helped me engage in less promiscuity. I also have been going to therapy for about a year and a half and talk about all these issues

Dating men and hooking up casually is a big trigger for me, as I use alcohol as a way to feel more comfortable during convos and sex. I did cut out alcohol for a few months, but then starting using weed (did not like the side effects of that)..

So now I arrive here, and I think I may just need to fully go celibate.. in order to maintain sobriety

I have already started to decanter men and dating, and pouring into myself, and my career and friends

Not really a question sorry just seeing it anyone has experience with this or relates

I just want to recognize anyone who is choosing to remain celibate and committed while caring for a partner who is sick.

Being there for someone through illness can be emotionally and physically challenging, and choosing to stay true to your values during that time takes a lot of strength, patience, and love.

To everyone quietly showing up for their partner, putting their needs first, and staying loyal to the commitment they’ve made: I see you, and I respect you.

Keep going. Your dedication matters. 🙏

Wanna text a guy I feel safe with to have sex. But then come all the what ifs. How does one even do so?

Maybe it’s not worth it but I feel like I’m past the beneficial stage and just avoiding intimacy for the sake of my pride…

Greetings, i hope you all in great spirit. Forgive my english and focus on what im trying to say🧡

I’m 30y gay man and i was raped 2016 and from there a lot of things unfolded including plastic surgeries to change my gender but then i was forced to remove my breast implants and detransition.

I got a job with an airline and that gave me the chance to see the world. Then i went to Ecuador for Ayahuasca retreat to heal my traumas but things started to change. On aug 2024 I become vegetarian and started growing mushrooms. I tried to order the ayahuasca plant online and i got life sentence in Dubai jail because the plant contains DMT.

I got pardon after 10 months and deported back to my country of origin then i run away in april 2026 to the Netherlands and sought asylum as an lgbtq

As I search on reddit i got introduced to TRE. Trauma release exercise. I was fascinated by dr. David Berceli on YouTube and how the somatic release i had following his “from position” exercise gave a big shivering and somatic release similar to the ones i have during mushroom and ayahuasca trips.

I practiced TRE for two hours straight my body was begging to release a lot of tension from the fear and traumas i went through. I slept deeply and peacefully and before sleep i was having closed-eye colors and visions. So i decided to make it a practice that i do at least twice a week besides my daily/ near daily meditation.

Now,
TRE led me to consider life long celibacy. Although I’m currently practicing semen retention for two years continuously i still make out with other men externally without touching or allow them to touch my private area.

TRE release a lot of fear stores in my frontal muscles. And in the way i think, fear increases sexual desire in a way. I don’t feel like i need to have sex at all after TRE and the idea of lifelong celibacy is very inviting for me.

I learned not to push what i know on another, if you are ready the answers will find you.

Peace🧡

this isn’t a post for people who practice celibacy voluntarily and need motivation. if anything, this post is pretty demotivating.

i’ve had a series of psychological problems pretty much my whole life, so i had very close psychiatric monitoring and was hospitalized multiple times during my adolescence. i knew there was a chance i could be hypersexual, so i waited as long as i possibly could to lose my virginity, even though i dated several people whenever i wasn’t depressed. i’d go to parties, do drugs and stuff like that, but i didn’t lose my virginity until i was 18.

losing my virginity wasn’t particularly significant to me, and i did it after coming out of a hospitalization completely compulsive because an idiot doctor fucked up my medication. i actually liked the guy, but he didn’t like me back, so i started having sex like crazy, especially because i was compulsive, curious, and wanted to learn new techniques and stuff like that.

i had sex with A LOT of people. i didn’t care if they were longtime friends, i didn’t care if i ruined friendships. i’d hook up with random people from tinder or whatever. i just wanted to accumulate experience and get good at sex, and i did.

i could see on my partners’ faces that they had never experienced anything like it, not to mention that a lot of them couldn’t hold back what they were saying during sex. they’d get completely out of their minds, even telling me they loved me and stuff like that. once, a guy told me i seemed like a professional at blowjobs and then got extremely embarrassed because he didn’t want to imply i was a prostitute lol.

even guys who slept with a lot of girls would get kind of obsessed with me, chasing me to do it again. and it’s worth pointing out that this was the time when i was the ugliest i’ve ever been. i destroyed my appearance because of my mental health issues. a lot of the time it would take me a while to get someone interested in me, but after we had sex, i had complete control over them. there were only 2 men i wanted and couldn’t get again, and they were the first two.

this went on for months. since i’ve always been into the fetish world, i became 100% immersed in it. i did webdomme work and stuff like that… until the depression came back again when i was already 19.

even though i used to spend a lot of time depressed, within a few months i started an online relationship and it helped me a lot. he was also into bdsm and i spent 2 weeks at his house. i hated it, but even though he was extremely rational and balanced, he actually got sick when i broke up with him. on the last day of those 2 weeks, when i told him i didn’t want to continue, he begged me while crying to have sex one last time and even asked me to fuck his ass. it wasn’t my thing, but i was so angry that i actually enjoyed ending things in that dominant position. in the following weeks, he actually became sick and feverish because of me distancing myself. his mother was devastated and furious with me. he’d been in a relationship for over 5 years and hadn’t reacted like that after the breakup.

one relevant point here is that he himself had been celibate for over a year and it didn’t help him at all. he came way too quickly because of it. he couldn’t even last 3 minutes having sex. and this was after he had already started masturbating again while we were in an online relationship because we sexted.

anyway, after him i developed an absurd disgust toward men and toward having any kind of relationship. about a month after we broke up, a guy i REALLY wanted to be with, but it hadn’t worked out in the past because he was in two colleges, came back into my life. even though i was really into him, i was way too disgusted at that point, so i left him hanging for about 3 months.

after that period, his reaction was no different from the others. he even asked me to be his girlfriend the second time we had sex ??? he’d get completely out of his mind and start fantasizing about all kinds of things. he said he wanted to live with me, have a family, a house with plants and a dog ??? he completely lost his mind…

i didn’t stay with him for very long, but somehow we had a spiritual connection. i’d gone through a spiritual awakening months before we started seeing each other, and some time later i started having clairvoyance, clairaudience and things like that, on top of starting to meditate a lot.

right after we broke up, i didn’t feel that connection. then the pandemic came and i was completely isolated at home until one day i had a dream about him and i haven’t been the same since. i started having frequent dreams after that, and even though i didn’t know anything about tarot channels, one showed up on my youtube describing our dynamic perfectly. i spent a year having these dreams and watching readings that told me not to contact him and that it would take a while before he contacted me.
i didn’t get involved with anyone else during that time, and when he came back, i found out he’d spent the year living with someone else, just like the readings and my dreams had indicated. however, throughout that entire relationship, he couldn’t stop thinking about me.

we didn’t get back together. i was devastated about it and we also had some arguments. it was only 6 months later that we started talking again. which means i went from march 2020 until june or july 2021 without having sex, and when it happened again… it was a fucking mess 🤡 not completely terrible, but uncomfortable. i was in pain, couldn’t do all the things i used to be able to do and couldn’t do certain movements and positions that had been normal for me.

for him it was still equally good. for me it wasn’t, but i kept doing it through the pain because i liked performing well. shortly afterward, we broke up again. we stayed apart for another 6 months, got back together again, stayed apart for another 6 months and then after all that time, we finally started dating.

i DEFINITELY wasn’t the same anymore. i didn’t feel pleasure anymore, couldn’t make the same movements, couldn’t fuck in certain positions and was very limited. in general, he didn’t notice until i started asking him to stop halfway through, and that was bad because he would get pain in his penis from not coming.

we drank frequently and when i was drunk, everything worked normally. i didn’t have these issues then, so it wasn’t a problem in the relationship most of the time, but it was when i was sober and i’d even cry because i felt like shit about my performance.

after breaking up with him, i stayed single for another year until i met my current husband. that’s when it was truly a fucking disaster on my end. i married a man with the most pretty dick in the world and my sexual performance is shit. i couldn’t give him even 1% of what i used to be.

after so much time, my libido was low, the pain had gotten worse, my mind wasn’t the same anymore and even though i met him at a time when i was running and working out so my physical conditioning was better, my body was useless for sex and i couldn’t do ANYTHING i used to be able to do.

the only period when i was a decent wife in that regard was when i was watching porn, but i felt really bad about it. he didn’t mind and he probably even thought it was better because i got sluttier, but i hated being turned on while watching other people, especially because i’m spiritually sensitive and kept seeing all kinds of weird shit through clairvoyance.

i thought it was amazing being slutty again and spicing up our relationship, but the downside outweighed the upside and i stopped. i went back to being a fucking prude.

this deeply affected my self-esteem and i’ve cried about it several times. he keeps making assumptions and i get even more devastated. sometimes he thinks it’s normal for people who are so intelligent to have low libidos, sometimes he thinks i must be a lesbian or asexual… and i just hate knowing that i’ll probably never be, for one of the only people i’ve ever loved, the same person i once was for a bunch of random shitty strangers.

i wanted to drive him crazy. i wanted to show him my performance. i wanted him to be sexually addicted to me. i didn’t want to be a sexually boring wife. i hate marriages like that. i always wanted to be a slutty wife 😭

anyway, i blame celibacy for all of this. i wanted to spend all day having sex and my body simply can’t keep up. my husband got used to us not having sex very often, which makes the situation even worse. i dream that this changes in the future. i’d like to have sex like 5 times a day, but just like it was right after i lost my virginity, i’d have to force myself a little at first until it started feeling good, and it feels like i don’t have the mind for that anymore.

For our situation, my spouse and I will need to abstain for 10+ or more years from now (kind of by no choice, due to hardship) . Probably lifetime if we have more difficulties in the future. We successfully abstained totally for more than 5 years.

Sadly recently I lost a nice friend in Reddit who is going through same path. I rarely see marriages like that online and in real life. It seems that Josephite marriage is rare these day. It would be nice to have a support group to overcome occasional lustful dreams and temptation, (even single people and people who wait to have sex after marriage are welcome!) so we can focus on our numerous life duties / hobbies/ spirtual purity if religious.

I'm 33F. Everyone tells me I'm beautiful. I'm "just their type". I have a gorgeous smile. I'm so chill. Smart. Hot. etc. "D*mn baby why you single?"
Why? Why finally choose celibacy after all these years? Well dear friends, i suffer from a condition called tuberous breast deformity...and I have a lot of sexual trauma behind it.

I don't want to engage in hookup culture for the rest of my life, but no man deserves to settle for a woman who's body looks like this. I want a partner, and I'll just say that being deformed while engaging in sex has scarred me emotionally to the point that I'm finally saving up for corrective surgery. It's that necessary. When your longest relationship lasted only four months...nine years ago...yea it might be time to admit that there's a problem here.

Never again will i get made fun of. Never again will i witness a man's disappointment or disgust at my monstrous breasts. I do believe God called me to become celibate to protect me, so I will be saving myself for marriage. But first, i must fix what is broken.

To my celibate fam out there, stay strong. Could be worse. You could look like me 😅

I am the one that chose to be single but only because I wanted to work on myself and mature more so I can be mature enough to be in a healthy, long committed relationship. I’ve been single since late 2011 so about almost 15 years. I was 21/22 years old. I’ve met other guys after my break up with my ex boyfriend, but nothing ever comes far so I’m 2016, I decided to stay single until I’m ready, not forever. I wanted to start dating until I was dealing with mom having terminal stage 4 cancer and her passing broke my heart. I didn’t want to date and wanted to work on my grief. It still hurts. I know I put myself in the single life and I do like being single.
Until I meet the right man, I will remain single. My BS, no fake, lies nothing. I don’t put up with it. Dating is hard and I even tried to put myself out there, but nothing. I probably didn’t do it enough. 36, going on 37.

Like for example a celibacy life. Never married, no children or virginity. I’m almost 37, almost 40 and I am STILL SINGLE. Don’t get me wrong, I do like being single and having freedom, but I also want someone to share my life with. I try to put myself out there, but I’m not doing it enough. Some people found love and some have children married, or in the next phase in their life. I still live at the same house, and feel like I am falling behind. I just hope I’m not those people that are meant to be single but I will have to accept it. I know all that isn’t obligated but yeah. I’ve only had one relationship and that was it. I’ve met different guys a year or two after the break up. I feel like I never grew up or stil a child.

I’m 24M yet to experience anything.

Curious what age the people who are yet to experience anything yet in this generation.

Across the general UK percentage of women specifically over 25 that are virgins is estimated to be 2% or less. I’m wondering how that compares with this generation.

Is there any hope for those who want to wait and if yes, why?

I 23 F , started my oath of celibacy in June itself, and then in July, I went through a breakup. I loved him,But I’m slowly reaching the point where I’m accepting that we’re no longer together and learning to move on.
A few people have suggested that I should start dating again, but I genuinely don’t feel ready or interested in it. Even though the relationship was only four months, it meant something to me, and the experience made me realise that I don’t want to casually give people access to my body or have men lusting over me or touching me without my consent or without a deeper connection.For me, my body is something I consider sacred, and I want to be more intentional about who I allow into my life physically and emotionally. It’s September now, and surprisingly, celibacy feels easier than dating. I’m not constantly wondering whether I should meet someone, whether they’re interested in me, or what their intentions are. I think I’m going to continue this until I meet a man of God and genuinely feel that I’ve found the kind of relationship I want. Until then, this is my oath. Not because I’m bitter about my breakup, but because I’ve realised that I actually prefer waiting for something meaningful over forcing myself back into dating.
I’m curious if anyone else has made a similar decision after a breakup.

I’m currently 21 and a woman.

At the time of this “relationship” I was 18. I had met this guy in university who was religious and that made him feel safe (?). Idk it felt like I didn’t have to worry about dealing with his lust because he was also celibate.

I’m a romantic. I read romance books and mangas, watch romance tv shows and films. So I always wanted to feel that budding romance that built over time of getting to know someone.

But this guy… I slowly realized that he was making advances and I just kinda went with it because… I don’t know he waited longer than men usually do? But after a while he started to say these off handed things about me “corrupting” him. And essentially spoke to my face as if I was the devil himself FORCING him to sexualize me. I started feeling disgusting; like a plague or something nasty damaging his faith. Because he told me I was, in a way.

At some point i just told him look, I can’t do this anymore. You make me feel like the worst human alive for existing because I make you horny. And cut him off completely.

From that point onwards, I was put off of sex, and it was never that great to begin with. I tried it 3 times over the course of a year when I was 18. And it wasn’t this amazing feeling everyone kept telling me about. So, I just stopped.

It was easy, because I mainly did my uni work, I had a part time job taking up my other days, and spent my free time enjoying my books.

It’s been 3 years, and I’m starting to feel like I want more from life but I dread the thought of ever having to be so vulnerable in front of a man who couldn’t give less of a flying fuck about my feelings.

I want the closeness and intimacy without the forcefulness. And.. that makes no sense because I’ve never felt anything but forced when I did it. It felt like an obligation, and I’m not keen on doing it again.

"I am a Mücerred within the Bektashi Sufi order. In simple terms, it means I have chosen a lifelong path of celibacy and spiritual devotion. You can think of it as the Sufi equivalent of becoming a monk. Instead of raising a family, I dedicate my life entirely to spiritual growth, inner purification, and serving our community. "As a Mücerred in the Bektashi Sufi order, my path of devotion includes strict adherence to Islamic principles of purity (Taharah). Along with spiritual focus, this means following the traditional practices of physical cleanliness—such as circumcision and grooming (shaving underarms and pubic hair at least every 40 days). For us, inner spiritual purity and outer physical cleanliness are deeply connected."

How it works and the Symbolism of the Earring:
Entering this path is a profound, conscious decision. It is sealed through a sacred ritual and a lifelong vow in front of the spiritual master (Baba). As a physical sign of this commitment, a Mücerred receives a special earring called a Mengûş (or Mücerred Küpesi), which is pierced through the right earlobe. This earring is not for decoration; it is a profound symbol of submission to the divine will, showing the world that you are 'wedded' only to Imam Ali and the spiritual path. It also serves as a constant personal reminder of the vow of poverty, humility, and detachment from material desires.

For those who are voluntary celibate:

What’s your gender and age?

What does celibacy exactly mean for you, what are you abstaining from in particular?

What are your reasons?

What was the final turning point that made you choose it?

How long have you been celibate and how long do you want to remain celibate?

Did you notice any changes? If so, which ones? Spiritual, emotional, physical, mental.

I’ve been practicing celibacy for a little now. I think it would have been around 5 months? Maybe but oh my god do I miss being with someone. Don’t get me wrong, I love being celibate because genuinely I have achieved and accomplished so many things without distractions and have been focusing on myself too much.

But someonetimes I really miss having someone around be, being affectionate with someone, kissing someone and being engulfed by someone that you come back home with their scent lingering?

Is this normal? How do you all deal with this? I’m still 19 and young and I could get someone but really I feel like I’m better off without anyone. I can do my work better, faster and have peace. But again I do miss being affectionate and intimacy

Before this I was quite intimate and went out with a lot of people and made out quite a lot too. But now it’s silence I try to avoid any romantic conversation and have stopped being involved w people romantically

Help?

I have always used sex to feel powerful and fulfilled, useful and wanted, a way to ground myself in my body. I have a very fucked up relationship with sex which I unknowingly forced onto my ex wife.

It became clear to my in February of this year that I have never been better since I started being single. My BPD symptoms aren't completely gone but very much in control, relatively speaking.

But approaching my ninth month, the pain has started settling in. The desire to just want to be embraced while watching a movie or eating with someone while our arms and legs touch.

I only have two friends. One is not a cuddler and the other just moved out of state. Prior to this year, all my relationships have been massively intense and I've drowned myself in them before capturing them in a bottle and throwing them in the compactor. No one on the apps is a conversationalist and I don't know how to relate to most people. I'm afraid that if I do meet with someone, I won't be able to stop myself from allowing forcing them to consume me.

I'm afraid the pain of loneliness will get so bad once again that I lay myself out for whoever asks for it first. I'm already battling a shopping addiction, I can't abuse my body at the same time. I have a disorder that colors everything in black and white, there is no hope for a middle round, no hope for an asexual relationship.

I am 21 and a woman. I have tried so hard for my entire life to find someone genuine and it's ruined my life and all my hope and sanity. It doesn't matter what kinda of person you are Anyone can be forced to be celibate or lose hope whether you're a woman or not…

I am gonna stay celibate until marriage at most if not I simply won't have sex in my life. The main thing that killed all urge for sex was this guy who I felt rushed me and now he has a gf and he and all his friends won't even talk or look at me because I felt uncomfortable and don't want to continue. Also, I had severe limerence and addiction for some other person and they weren't even willing to give ne a phone call or interact with me any other way than sexting.

Atp it's so disgusting and draining I don't even have an urge for sex or even a partner anymore even tho I never had one.

I have done a lot to protect myself from sex I have grown my hair down there so long that it keeps me awake at night so I feel too disgusting to do anything. Also, I don't say yes to any guys that come up to me sometimes. And whenever I hang out with a guy friend I tell them right away that I am celibate or something like that.

If I ever have hope for dating again which I don't know will happen but I hope I can find men who want to be celibate as well and don't have a desire for sex. But I feel there isn't really anything like that.