Thoughts on celibacy?

[dean]

Animals never marry. I wasn't talking about monogamy not existing in nature, I was talking about marriage. You can still be monogamous and not be married, by having one GIRLFRIEND for life. Marriage causes problems.

I couldn't help but chuckle, imagining a Monkey wedding.  Come on, everyone do it, it's fun! 

I bet the Father of the Bride went bananas when he heard his little girl was getting hitched.   


In any case, is there even such a thing from abstinence from being married?  Isn't that just being not married?


Anywho:

To those who practice celibacy willingly [and effectively]

To those who are thrust onto it only because of a lack of interest 

To those who bump and grind their way through life 


Personally I'm in it for the companionship, and the physicality of having someone to share your time with [not necessarily sexually].  All the better it happens to be with someone I care alot about and who lets me get near their swimsuit areas, though to be perfectly honest I'd be perfectly happy doing the nasty like a rock star with meaningless hookups. 

As long as I had somebody to share my time with I'd be pretty happy, despite me being the happy monogamist that I am.     Whilst I'm happy in love, I recognise that realistically love and sex don't have to be joined at the hip. 



Celibacy is a tough mental task, if only for the fact that our brains and bodies are wired against it.  I think people put too much pressure on it either way.  At one point I actually benched myself for about a year, and as Bees mentioned, sometimes being 'out of action' can make you realise a few things about yourself and for me it was that the act of sex is just a fun thing to do.  I love doing it, but to be honest, I could just as easily spend my time doing something else more practical [then months later probably snap and do something stupid...] 

As long as you don't let your promiscuity or your celibacy define you then I don't see what the problem is. 


Anyways Trevor, good luck in your endeavours, be it getting closer to this colleague physically or emotionally.  Because that's really what I'm hearing: that you want to get to know this person better because they seem like a good sort, and if you happen to get to know them more while doing the horizontal tango, all the better!

[Flick James]

We have urges. Those urges are there for a reason. Sex is something we are driven by nature to do.

We have brains that have the ability to reason. That ability is also there for a reason. Reasoning and making decisions is something we are driven by nature to do.

Somewhere in between those two truths we have the capability of making sound choices AND satisfying our natural urges, however much we as humans may fail to do, either a lot or a little.

As a board I think we should feel flattered that you would want our input on this, Trevor. I appreciate Newt's probing and I'm with her: go for it!

[The Gravekeeper]

What's the purpose of marriage? Well, going by my anthropology class (yeah, yeah, I've only taken the one but I still have to take more classes in departments other than Art, so you can bet that Anthro, Archeology and Psychology are the top of my list of subjects I intend to learn more about), one of the basic, secular purposes of marriage is to place social pressure on a couple to stick together so that any children they have are more likely to get properly looked after. Can single parents raise children? Sure. It's just a hell of a lot harder to find the time to both raise the money required for meeting their basic needs and to sit down and raise. Young kids don't need "quality time," they need quantity.

[JaseSF]

I firmly believe in abstinence until you are with the person, that special somebody, you feel is right. I don't think it's very smart to have as many partners as you can and that seems kind of sad and meaningless to me although I hope those who do practice this take as many precautions as they possibly can. I went many years before I found the right person and while I didn't wait unil marriage, I never rushed into anything thoughtless or with somebody I had no feelings for...