The New Scarlet Letter

If there's something people have an opinion about, it's sex.  When to have it, where to have it, with whom to have it with, even how to have it.  I somewhat expected people to thrust their sexpinion (it happened so often I made my own word for it) on me after my divorce.  I even knew that if I divulged the fact that I had been with my ex since I was a teenager, the sexpinions increased.  If I really wanted a lengthy in-depth sexpinion, I'd let slip that I can count on one hand how many girls I've been with and that even those girls were over a decade ago.  I could watch the urge for listeners to voice their sexpinion manifest in their eyes.  It was like watching a gasoline covered moth figure out I was an Olympic-sized torch.  I do admit, sometimes I did it just to see the delivery of their reaction and solution.

Little did I know that hiding in the shadows is actually a larger less accepted catalyst...  abstaining.

Abstaining from sex in America is like wearing a scarlet letter.  Once people see it on you, you are immediately considered an imbalanced extremist.  Either extremely religious, extremely mental, or extremely in the gay closet... or all of the above.  I mean, really... if there's no physical reason from stopping you and you can find a willing partner, you would have to be certifiably insane to make the choice to abstain from sex, right?  I was told by a good friend of mine that the lack of sex has been proven to cause mental illness.  So not only am I insane to begin with, but I'm going to get more insane the longer I go without!

So here I am, a bible-thumpin medically certifiable mentally disabled in the closet gay man (figuratively speaking).   The funny thing is that I'm feeling great!  For me demoting sex to a bonus instead of a baseline for a relationship is one of the best decisions I've made.  Over half my life I've been engaging in sexual activity.  That means that for more than a quarter of my life, if I were to go more than a week without sex, something was wrong.  Being married at an early age definitely had its benefits.

I'm sharing some of my sexual history so that you understand I'm no one special.  I wasn't born in the mountains of the Himalayas. I didn't grow up saving my virginity for  marriage.  I just decided one day months after the divorce that it was time to refocus.  Let me be completely honest... it wasn't just about refocusing.  It also had a lot to do with being thrust into the singles world after a decade of being married.  Having sex with someone you don't necessarily trust is scary.  Diseases are scary.  Crazy women are scary.  Fear definitely played its part... in the beginning.

The largest factor for choosing to abstain wasn't the fear.  It wasn't the hassle or my rebellious spirit to go against what most people advised to do.  It was love.  In an earlier blog I mentioned that at one point I decided to attempt to fall in love with the people surrounding me... and I did.  Funny thing about love like that... you have no choice but to see a person's heart.

When you love a person's heart, you see their needs even if they don't.  Not once have I seen a person's heart need sex.  If anything, I've seen the exact opposite.  Most women have not met a man that wants to love them without sex.  In previous history women would find this love from their father.  Now with the ever increasing number of absentee fathers, the search continues to find that love in all the wrong places... sex being the most popular... but guess what ladies... you're not going to find love there.

So sew an "A" on my clothing if you wish.  Tell me all the ways that I am destroying myself by choosing to abstain from sex.  Women- don't date me because I'm not willing to use you for my own pleasure... but know this... if a man really loves you, if a man really knows your heart... he will respect you and wait.  He will respect himself and show self-control.  The benefits I have personally experienced from abstaining have far outweighed the fun of having sex.  Yes, it is fun and exhilarating.  That's why it is a difficult choice.

I'm not saying I'm going to be abstinent the rest of my life.  I'm not saying that anyone should be, but what I am saying is that if you haven't... try it out.  Re-focus.  You will learn more about yourself and others than you ever imagined.