CELIBACY IS THE NEW SEX
In the age of stylized orgies for bored yuppies, nasty amateur videos in which hapless college students make like porn stars, the tireless production of flesh flicks from all over the world, and the never-ending stream of kinky gadgets from who-knows-where, sex has lost a great deal of its shock value. You name it, we have seen it. Hotel heiresses getting down and dirty with their boyfriends. Underage girls humping each other like manic bunnies. Bottle blondes doing the nasty with pythons.
We’re in the midst of the no-holds-barred X-rated carnival where people nonchalantly disclose that they practice the carnal techniques they learned from movies, magazines, books, or the Net. Nowadays, it takes a whole lot to make sex still seem fresh. This makes it easier for me to believe what the late American pop artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol said: “Sex is the biggest nothing of all time.”
But who says we should take Andy Warhol’s word for it? I certainly don’t want to eschew sophisticated bitterness too early in life. I choose to think that sex can be reinvented. The world of feel-good women’s magazines and a few other starry-eyed experts will back me up on this. People need sex like they need bottled water.
In her book Anatomy of Love (pardon the “L” word), Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist, confirms, “Sex is addictive. The more you have, the more you want. When a lover leaves you or dies, you can experience narcotic withdrawal. The narcotics in question are produced by our brains. In the first stage of love— attraction, which may last two or three years—the brain pours out phenylethylamine and other chemicals that create a high. During sex, oxytocin is secreted in the brain, producing that blissful glow—which encourages feelings of attachment.”
“So,” Dr. Fisher goes on to say, “celibacy is not simply an issue of choice, philosophy, or ideology. It can create sharp body-mind pain. The trauma of doing without can be physiologically disturbing. People start to crave the smell, touch, and sound of an all-body, all-mind, all-engrossing experience.”
Dr. Fisher’s romanticized musings had me saying, “Bingo!” I think I may have stumbled upon a way to make sex hot again. Yes, sexual deprivation or, to use a more friendly term, voluntary celibacy may be the answer. Just as Paris Hilton’s favorite pink shade is the new black, celibacy is the new sex!
The practice of glorified sexual abstinence has had a long history. It’s been done by gurus, yogis, shamans, mystics, and seers who simply cannot afford to expend their energy on sex. In Freudian terms, this is the healthy sublimation of the libido. Christians, on the other hand, have been taught that voluntary celibacy should be done “for the sake of purity and spiritual perfection.”
Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not turning into Miss Spirituality. I’m not espousing celibacy as a way toward The Light. I’m only saying that it should be done so that we can all once again look at sex as something wonderfully forbidden.
In voluntary celibacy, people look for the best way to channel their urges into other endeavors. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this would lead to men and women writing sonnets or baking mind-blowing brownies, it’s my hope that abstinence would make people cook up more naughty scenarios in their head.
I call this The Diet Mechanism. As anyone who’s ever been in a diet knows, there’s a point when all the sad dieter thinks about is food. It’s that point where bags of potato chips at the supermarket begin to call out your name. The same principle would apply to a person who is voluntarily celibate. There will be a point where everything will seem sexual to him or her. Even shampoo labels with instructions to work up “a lather,” would cause him or her to shiver. The sight of carrots, eggs, and oysters would make him or her have a pseudo heart attack. Imagine the exquisite agony!
Hey, I’m all for marketing celibacy as an extreme sexual sport. Let’s say a group of friends would get together and try to outlast each other in a game of total celibacy (which means no self-stimulation). The one who lasts the longest without any form of sex gets the prize money. In this game, even the losers are happy. The only difficulty in conducting this game would be in checking the veracity of the participants’ claims. They’d have to be under 24-hour surveillance just so everyone is assured that nobody “cheats.” It’d be like a sexually-oriented Big Brother. (If the players are all male, the show could be titled Big Birdy.)
Still, how long could a human being who has experienced great sex last without any sex at all? A hundred days or a thousand? At what point does a voluntarily celibate person go crazy? The risk of insanity aside, an all-out celibacy challenge is guaranteed to be loads of fun.
It is worth noting, though, that voluntary celibacy should not be confused with involuntary celibacy. There are people who are celibate by force of circumstance or the lack of opportunity. But that’s another story that I don’t care to go into. It’s simply too sad. Celibacy is only a happy state for those who willingly choose it—be it for the strange thrill, respite from sexual engagements, or, hey, even good-old religious beliefs.
We should all be so lucky.
We’re in the midst of the no-holds-barred X-rated carnival where people nonchalantly disclose that they practice the carnal techniques they learned from movies, magazines, books, or the Net. Nowadays, it takes a whole lot to make sex still seem fresh. This makes it easier for me to believe what the late American pop artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol said: “Sex is the biggest nothing of all time.”
But who says we should take Andy Warhol’s word for it? I certainly don’t want to eschew sophisticated bitterness too early in life. I choose to think that sex can be reinvented. The world of feel-good women’s magazines and a few other starry-eyed experts will back me up on this. People need sex like they need bottled water.
In her book Anatomy of Love (pardon the “L” word), Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist, confirms, “Sex is addictive. The more you have, the more you want. When a lover leaves you or dies, you can experience narcotic withdrawal. The narcotics in question are produced by our brains. In the first stage of love— attraction, which may last two or three years—the brain pours out phenylethylamine and other chemicals that create a high. During sex, oxytocin is secreted in the brain, producing that blissful glow—which encourages feelings of attachment.”
“So,” Dr. Fisher goes on to say, “celibacy is not simply an issue of choice, philosophy, or ideology. It can create sharp body-mind pain. The trauma of doing without can be physiologically disturbing. People start to crave the smell, touch, and sound of an all-body, all-mind, all-engrossing experience.”
Dr. Fisher’s romanticized musings had me saying, “Bingo!” I think I may have stumbled upon a way to make sex hot again. Yes, sexual deprivation or, to use a more friendly term, voluntary celibacy may be the answer. Just as Paris Hilton’s favorite pink shade is the new black, celibacy is the new sex!
The practice of glorified sexual abstinence has had a long history. It’s been done by gurus, yogis, shamans, mystics, and seers who simply cannot afford to expend their energy on sex. In Freudian terms, this is the healthy sublimation of the libido. Christians, on the other hand, have been taught that voluntary celibacy should be done “for the sake of purity and spiritual perfection.”
Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not turning into Miss Spirituality. I’m not espousing celibacy as a way toward The Light. I’m only saying that it should be done so that we can all once again look at sex as something wonderfully forbidden.
In voluntary celibacy, people look for the best way to channel their urges into other endeavors. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this would lead to men and women writing sonnets or baking mind-blowing brownies, it’s my hope that abstinence would make people cook up more naughty scenarios in their head.
I call this The Diet Mechanism. As anyone who’s ever been in a diet knows, there’s a point when all the sad dieter thinks about is food. It’s that point where bags of potato chips at the supermarket begin to call out your name. The same principle would apply to a person who is voluntarily celibate. There will be a point where everything will seem sexual to him or her. Even shampoo labels with instructions to work up “a lather,” would cause him or her to shiver. The sight of carrots, eggs, and oysters would make him or her have a pseudo heart attack. Imagine the exquisite agony!
Hey, I’m all for marketing celibacy as an extreme sexual sport. Let’s say a group of friends would get together and try to outlast each other in a game of total celibacy (which means no self-stimulation). The one who lasts the longest without any form of sex gets the prize money. In this game, even the losers are happy. The only difficulty in conducting this game would be in checking the veracity of the participants’ claims. They’d have to be under 24-hour surveillance just so everyone is assured that nobody “cheats.” It’d be like a sexually-oriented Big Brother. (If the players are all male, the show could be titled Big Birdy.)
Still, how long could a human being who has experienced great sex last without any sex at all? A hundred days or a thousand? At what point does a voluntarily celibate person go crazy? The risk of insanity aside, an all-out celibacy challenge is guaranteed to be loads of fun.
It is worth noting, though, that voluntary celibacy should not be confused with involuntary celibacy. There are people who are celibate by force of circumstance or the lack of opportunity. But that’s another story that I don’t care to go into. It’s simply too sad. Celibacy is only a happy state for those who willingly choose it—be it for the strange thrill, respite from sexual engagements, or, hey, even good-old religious beliefs.
We should all be so lucky.
2 comments:
So what kind of celibate are you? :)
I actually don't know. I'm probably the kind of celibate who uses food as a sex substitute. Let me make it clear that I ingest the food. Hehehe.
Post a Comment