How To Be Celibate For An Entire Year
Think back on all the times you had sex with your ex and realize you took it for granted. For the duration of your relationship, you always had someone who liked to see you naked and give you an orgasm. If you wanted to have sex, you could have it. Just like that. Insta-sex! Begin…
Be recently dumped and go from having sex daily to not having it at all. At first, don’t let it bother you. You can’t conceive of having sex with someone else so just start masturbating again.
Two months go by and your friends will start encouraging you to find a rebound. They’ll say, “The quickest way to get over someone is to get under someone else!” You’ll laugh uncomfortably and respond, “Yeah, I know. But who is there to get under?” No one. That’s the problem.
After three months, admit that you’re in a sexual dry spell. Think back on all the times you had sex with your ex and realize you took it for granted. For the duration of your relationship, you always had someone who liked to see you naked and give you an orgasm. If you wanted to have sex, you could have it. Just like that. Insta-sex! Begin to understand what a luxury it is to have guaranteed regular sex.
At six months, start to feel a strange sense of empowerment. Feel like all your senses have been heightened in the absence of sex and sincerely believe that you’re getting back to who you are as a person. You’re not actually sure what that means but it’s what you’ve been telling people. Your parents will telephone you and ask if you’ve been seeing anyone since the break-up. Tell them, “No, but it’s okay. I can get back on that train. It’s always waiting for me. I just need to buy the ticket!” It’s moments like these when you really just want to kill yourself.
Hit the nine month mark and have a pit of despair develop in your stomach. Feel undesirable and ugly. Have nothing to contribute at brunch when sex conversation comes up, which is like the ultimate tragedy. Believe that your value as a person is diminishing. Friends will ask you gently, “So how long has it been?” and you’ll reply “Oh, just a decade. No big deal. Actually, it’s only been nine months.” They’ll immediately respond with, “Nine months? That’s nothing! I thought it was like a year or something.” Ask your friends what was the longest time they’ve gone without having sex. Watch them tense up a bit. “Um, I think like four months but, you know, I’m just really sexual. I think I’m more sexual than you.”
Consider doing something drastic like making a Craiglist ad or joining a dating site. Go out to bars four nights a week in hopes that you’ll find someone to have sex with. Have great conversations with cute strangers and be sure that tonight will be the night when two becomes one. But for some reason, they never go home with you. Become paranoid. Wonder if you exude something that screams, “I haven’t had sex in a very long time!” Stop going out to bars.
Start to actually panic around the eve of your one year anniversary with celibacy. Obsessively think about the last time you had sex. It was with your ex and it lasted about 30 minutes. The mood was tense and the sex itself felt mechanical and loveless, the way it had been feeling for quite some time. It was in your bed and the sun was peaking through your window, casting a light over your body. Your mind was elsewhere; you were thinking about how you needed to pay your cable bill and call your friend about getting lunch. Your focus would go in and out. You’d stare at your ex’s body and smooth your hands over it and make a pleasurable noise. But the effort would exhaust you and you would go back to thinking about unsexy real life things. You can’t remember if you climaxed but you guess that you didn’t. Four days later, you were dumped. Could that really have been the last time you have sex? Your heart breaks a little.
Meet someone after a year. At this point, feel so unsexy and dejected that you’re terrified of someone who turns you on. Have this person be aggressive and maybe even sexually-experienced. Hook up with them around four in the morning on your friend’s couch and feel your body tremble a little. After getting over the initial fright, it will begin to remember how to have sex. It will happen so effortlessly that you’ll struggle to understand how sex eluded you for an entire year. Resolve to never be celibate again, to never let yourself feel unwanted and to never be scared of someone who could potentially give you the best orgasm of your life. Hold sex in a tight grasp and never let it go. 
