Celibacy

Celibacy is abstinence from marriage and sexual relations. Most common in religion, celibacy is the gateway to sacred roles in Buddhism and Roman Catholicism. In a religious context, a person embracing celibacy often takes a vow.

Understandings and experiences of celibacy are evolving. Until relatively recently in Western societies, celibacy was equated with the unmarried state. But with sexual activity no longer confined solely to marriage, unmarried people are often sexually active. Perhaps viewing celibacy as less interesting than the widening range of sexual activities available for study, social scientists have rarely examined the topic.

In the ancient world, celibacy was often advocated or sex recommended only sparingly because loss of seminal fluids was thought detrimental to (men's) health. For many today, celibacy requires total abstention from genital pleasure, but others see masturbation as acceptable. Although many consider celibacy synonymous with sexual abstinence and chastity, there are differences. Celibacy has more-positive, volitional, and long-term connotations than abstinence.

Contemporary sexual abstinence movements, like True Love Waits, persuade young people to save sex for marriage. Some young people who pledge to abstain embrace celibacy as a positive stage in their lives. Others struggle to adhere to their celibate ideal: Researchers studying abstinence movements have found that although pledging abstinence delays the age of first sex, pledges are frequently broken. Celibacy as an ideal and celibacy as a practice are often different.

In institutions like prisons and hospitals, where there is limited contact with outsiders and limited opportunities to engage in a sexual relationship, celibacy is often enforced. Even in contexts that are integrated with general social life, there are people who wish to find sexual partners but cannot. They are sometimes called “involuntary celibates.”

Chastity, another term associated with celibacy, does not necessarily mean sexual abstinence. Its original meaning was “moral purity,” and this was interpreted as conserving sexual activity to monogamous heterosexual marriage. A married, sexually active person could thus be chaste but could not be celibate or abstinent. Virginity is not required for celibacy, although some celibates have never engaged in sex. Celibacy is normally a subcategory of singleness. However, married or partnered people sometimes become celibate while remaining with their partners, perhaps for a defined period.