Not all Celibacies are Alike

“You’re not celibate, Hugo. You’re temporarily abstinent.”

So writes a friend to me this week. I had, in a previous message, described myself as “resolutely celibate” in the aftermath of my separation from Victoria. My friend cares about words and what they mean and wanted to draw distinctions.

The problem is, when it comes to the words we use for refraining from sex and romance, we all use the words slightly differently.  One website, for example, announces that “celibacy” refers to a lifelong vow of the sort taken by a monk, while “chastity” is the expected state of every serious religious person until marriage. Another site declares the exact opposite. It’s a bit like getting people to parse out the distinction between “liberty” and “freedom” in a way that makes the difference obvious and apparent to all.  Sometimes, it’s best to accept that English is a well-endowed language, and – calm down, grad students – it’s okay to use close synonyms interchangeably.

This is not an overshare about my intimate life, at least not by the standard I’ve set in the past.  Nothing especially salacious follows.

It is about drawing distinctions.

When I was a teenager, I was, as they say, an “incel:” involuntarily celibate. Sex for me arrived at 17, but I had been dreaming of girls constantly for at least five years before that. Had I been presented with an opportunity any earlier than I was, I would have seized it. I lacked both the confidence and the appeal that would have made me more successful with young women.  Yet even at my most hormonal, I was not what is commonly meant by an “incel” today. I did not get angry at young women for not finding me desirable. I attributed my complete lack of success with girls to my own failings, not to their poor judgment.  Low self-esteem and good manners (a gentleman is always reluctant to blame others) ensured that the lust I felt was unaccompanied by resentment.

From age seventeen to age forty-six, I was not celibate. The public record of my life makes that clear, and the only detail that matters is that I could not be alone. The longest I was single in that nearly thirty-year period was, I think, six weeks.  It wasn’t just sex I wanted. I wanted a partner. Unkind but not untruthful people would say I wanted a mother figure. I protested that that was impossible when the women I was dating and marrying and having affairs with were always younger than I was.  “Don’t be so literal,” said a cousin. “They can be half your age and still taking care of you.”

In the aftermath of the loss of my fourth marriage, my career, and my reputation, I took a vow of celibacy at the end of 2013. It was not a proper vow in the religious sense. It was not taken out of any sense of a higher calling.  I gave up sex and dating the same way I had given up drinking – recognizing that this thing that other people could handle so well was destroying my life and breaking the hearts of my children.  I wouldn’t so much as kiss a woman for two and a half years. 

This wasn’t involuntary celibacy rooted in the absence of sexual self-confidence. It was voluntary celibacy rooted in guilt. I was no Brad Pitt, but by 2013, I had little doubt about my ability to attract someone; what I did have was colossal shame about my compulsion to seek out sexual affirmation. The involuntary celibacy of my early teens was a function of normal developmental awkwardness. The voluntary celibacy between forty-six and forty-eight was a consequence of sheer horror at the mess I had made of my life and the pain I had caused. At sixteen, I was sure any woman I touched would be disgusted by me; at forty-six, I was disgusted by my own need for validation.  I was celibate either way, and self-loathing was the constant.

And now? I’m fifty-six, and I look it, and I am keenly aware that I have slid into a kind of sexual invisibility.  That’s hard on the ego, but it doesn’t quite mark a return to how I felt at fifteen. I’m also aware that I am not good in relationships, mostly because I lack the capacity to respond honestly to someone else’s anger. I cannot handle conflict. The difference between now and ten years ago is that I don’t shame myself for that apparent shortcoming.

If I were diabetic, I would not shame myself for being unable to properly metabolize sugar. I have a brain injury, and I don’t metabolize anger properly.  That’s a fact, not a failing. Or it may be a failing, but it’s one that I have accepted as part and parcel of who I am. (I live in Los Angeles, the world capital of self-improvement, but at some point, there is something to be said for embracing oneself as one is, not endlessly pursuing what one thinks one should be. God wants us to become transformed by the renewing of our minds, says the apostle, but you can make a cruel idol out of constant transforming.)

The thing is, it’s not nice to date people and tell them “I’m happy to pursue something with you, but you must never raise your voice or show other signs of being cross.”  To understate things considerably, it’s an insane request. It's like asking someone to drive on the freeway with the emergency brake on. I can’t reasonably ask that of any woman, and I wouldn't trust any woman who could promise me that she would never get upset. 

It's only been six months, mind you, since Victoria and I separated. I wouldn’t bet money on my staying alone forever.  Recently, though, a different friend suggested I consider being intentionally celibate until Heloise and David are both out of high school. David will turn eighteen and graduate in the spring of 2030 – barely six-and-a-half-years from now.  It’s hardly a long time, really. Why, six-and-a-half-years ago we were already well into the Trump presidency. 2017 seems just moments ago. I’ll only be sixty-three in 2030, still not eligible for either of the great entitlements we bestow on seniors. Surely, I can wait that long.

I make no promises. What I am making is a set of distinctions. There is the singleness of adolescent longing; there is the sexual anorexia of middle-aged shock and shame.  And then there’s the chosen celibacy of this season. No self-hatred, no sense of inadequacy, no feeling that I am any more undesirable than any other aging man.  Just a keen awareness of what I can offer and what I can’t -- and what is fair to ask, and what isn’t.

I sleep alone. I am untouched, and as far as I know, unwanted. I am happy. That the preceding three sentences could all be true at the same time?  Miraculous.  Perhaps the God whom I am too reluctant to acknowledge has bestowed His grace. Perhaps the ancestors to whom I pray have intervened.  Perhaps it is just the changing brain chemistry that happens in the autumn of one’s life. I don’t know, but I’m not complaining.  I am, however, quite clear that not all celibacies feel the same.  It is good to draw distinctions.