STROLLING down the street wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Ban Sex Now!”, 29-year-old Bella Whiteway is met with bemused stares and double-takes.
After all, she is part of Gen Z, born between the late ’90s and 2012 – a demographic that has come of age in a “sex-positive” era, where women arguably have more freedom than ever before to explore their desires.
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Yet, six months ago, Bella decided to stop having sex altogether, after becoming fed up with casual encounters that never amounted to anything serious.
“I became aware that the way I was having sex was making me feel used and not very happy,” says Bella, a prison resettlement officer from south-east London.
“I realise the idea of going on a date and saying: ‘Actually, I’m not going to sleep with you,’ is alien to many people, but I have found it freeing.”
While the slogan on her top is tongue-in-cheek, Bella is serious about abstaining from sex long-term, intending to do so until she is in a committed relationship, possibly even waiting for marriage.
“Celibacy gives me agency to think about what gives me value, and that is not how ‘sexy’ I am,” she says.
Bella is part of a growing number of heterosexual Gen-Z women who are embracing celibacy and fully abstaining from sex.
The term “celibacy” has racked up more than 39,000 mentions on TikTok, while “boysober” – avoiding romantic interactions altogether – has amassed 25 million.
Of all the age demographics, Gen Z is the most likely to be intentionally celibate, according to one US study, with 30% opting to abstain from sex.*
In London, last year celibacy was the fastest-growing desire on the dating app Feeld, whose users connect over shared sexual kinks, with a 235% uptick of the tag on profiles.
Bella is not surprised.
“There’s a freedom that comes with choosing celibacy,” she says. “We’re sold the idea that sex positivity is really freeing, but it can also have the opposite effect – there’s pressure for it to mean having a lot of casual sex, which doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.”
Dr Natasha McKeever from the Centre For Love, Sex And Relationships (CLSR), explains that there is now greater acceptance of non-traditional relationship models, compared with previous generations.
“Young women today have more options, so may just be prioritising other things, including friendships, careers, education and hobbies,” says Natasha, who is also a lecturer in applied ethics at the University of Leeds. “Being single is less socially stigmatised than it once was, too.”
Bella lost her virginity at the age of 16. While deep down she felt that sex was something that was “sacred”, she recalls peer pressure to rack up sexual experiences as “a way to be seen as cool or popular”.
As she entered her early 20s, she encountered some of the issues that have become synonymous with modern dating, like being ghosted and worrying that sexual partners were comparing her to women in porn.
“While I don’t judge other people, for me it never felt good to have multiple casual sexual interactions,” she says. “I found it difficult to disentangle the idea that my value was entwined with physical appearance.
“I was bullied as a young person, particularly over the way I looked, and I developed a need to prove that wrong. An easy way of feeling attractive is by judging whether someone is sexually attracted to you.
“Apps made that worse, the idea of swiping through people – it felt transactional. In some cases, I felt conscious that people I was with might be comparing me to whatever they’ve seen online.
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“My experience has been that people who are the most into porn have unhealthy relationships with sex. And I became aware that the way I was having sex was not making me happy. I felt empty.”
For Bella, things changed in 2020, when lockdown restrictions essentially banned people from having sex with anyone outside their household.
“I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. It gave me time to reflect on the idea of sex and what it meant for me. At that time, nobody was really talking about celibacy, though it was common for people to take breaks from dating every so often.”
When restrictions were lifted, Bella went on to have spells of abstinence and realised that she found the concept liberating.
This February, having recognised that sex is something that she only wanted to explore within a committed relationship, she decided to become long-term celibate.
“Sex can be fun,” she says. “But I never spend all day thinking about it.
“There are times when I feel horny, but it’s not something that takes over my brain or clouds my judgement. I notice it, am aware of it and it passes.”
In recent months, she has been in an “on and off situation, currently off” with a man she met through a friend. She admits their differing approaches to sex may be “problematic” in future.
“I place a lot more importance on sex than he does, it feels more sacred to me. This person definitely wouldn’t call himself celibate, but it’s something we’ve spoken about,” she says.
“People have different love languages and, with dating, I think you can be intimate with someone without being physical. Holding hands or sitting with an arm around someone’s shoulder is intimate.
There are times when I feel horny, but it’s not something that takes over my brain or clouds my judgement. I notice it, am aware of it and it passes.
Bella Whiteway
You can also see this through people who have relationships that are solely online, and the real emotions that they feel. Sex doesn’t have to be an indicator of how close you are.”
But Bella has found it tricky to discuss celibacy with her peers.
“People sometimes assume I’m judging them,” she says.
“Sex is such a personal thing that’s often entwined with people’s identities, so it’s hard to navigate a conversation about celibacy without making someone think you’re saying: ‘What you do is wrong,’ which is obviously not what I’m saying.
Bella is unsure about what the future holds for her when it comes to relationships. “In an ideal world, I’d want a partner and a family, and I’d obviously need to date to do that.
“But I would also like to be in a place in my life where either option is good – being single long-term or with a partner.”
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She and her male friend Alex Honey, 30, run a light-hearted Instagram account @Bansexnow, which aims to start healthy conversations about celibacy.
In the past couple of years, they have made and sold around 200 T-shirts featuring the phrase.
“We’re trying to open a space for people who have felt how I felt, but maybe didn’t think it was cool to admit it and to have those conversations,” she says.
Like Bella, Sophia-Charlotte, 27, from south-east London, became celibate after breaking up with her partner of 10 months in October last year.
“I’d had a number of short-lived romances, since losing my virginity aged 17,” she explains. “But they were causing anguish.
“The break-ups made me feel disrespected, and the drama of men not wanting to commit was too much.
‘Positives celibacy can bring’
“I was focusing on what my exes wanted, meaning it was impossible to focus on me, my interests and my business running a modelling agency.
“In the summer of last year, I felt no desire to have sex with my then-boyfriend, as it had become mundane and I ended our relationship after 10 months.”
Around the same time, Sophia-Charlotte was travelling to different countries for work.
“I didn’t crave sexual relationships because I was on a new journey. It was thrilling in a different way to sex – it was proper me-time.”
”I’m Gen Z and we’re open to all different kinds of sexuality. But if you’re actively dating, the pressure is on to get sex out of the way. But I wasn’t finding it fulfilling.
“More and more of my friends were talking about the positives celibacy can bring, like having complete freedom to be yourself. I started following the celibate hashtag online, and saw how much other women had achieved in their careers.
“I realised that being in a couple or prioritising sex can often take your mind off your career, business or travel goals.”
So, in November, Sophia-Charlotte decided to go celibate.
“So far, I am loving it,” she says. “I get chatted up and asked out regularly, but I tell them I am on a celibacy journey. Some men think I am bonkers, but others think it’s cool.
“I’d rather have meaningful connections with people on a friendly and intellectual level. I need that now before even considering anything like a relationship or sex.
“I need the relationship to be about me as a person — not me for sex.”
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Being celibate has brought her a sense of calm. “I feel so much lighter without the added stress of worrying about sex.
“I feel more confident, more alive and actually sexier. It comes from embracing my confidence. And as a liberated woman, I can masturbate if I want to.
“My celibacy will end naturally. I have business goals set and once I achieve those in the next couple of years, I’ll consider my options. I have a list of men who accepted my celibacy journey.
“They may get a phone call when I’m ready to find a man to settle down with on my terms.”
For some heterosexual women who have felt as though the sexual agenda is dictated by men, deciding not to have sex can be liberating.
Psychotherapist Susie Masterson
Psychotherapist Susie Masterson says “dating app fatigue” is partly driving the celibacy movement.
“For anyone looking for connection – emotional or sexual – dating apps are a difficult place to be,” says Susie, who runs relationship coaching business UltraLiving.
“Being in control of our bodies is particularly potent for women, given that much of our social conditioning is around being a receptacle or vehicle for male choices.
“For some heterosexual women who have felt as though the sexual agenda is dictated by men, deciding not to have sex can be liberating.”
Mandana Zarghami, 29, believes that remaining celibate for the majority of the past five years has helped her spot red flags when dating.
The content creator decided to take a year off from sex, dating and even flirting with men in 2020, after the breakdown of a six-month relationship.
“I felt like sex had clouded my judgement on some red flags – I gave 110%, but he wasn’t emotionally available,” she says.
“I realised this was a pattern and that, to attract the right person, I needed to step back.”
Despite finding the first six months tough, Mandana, who runs health and wellbeing business Bloom Within, soon began to feel “at peace”.
“I could think a lot more clearly. I felt like I was taking back my energy and pouring myself into dreams, thoughts and aspirations,” she says.
After the year was up, Mandana dated, but continued to abstain from sex. “Some men would fall off the face of the earth when I mentioned celibacy, which showed they just wanted me for my body.
Marriage potential
For the men who were understanding, I have had such positive feedback – they ask questions and respect my choice. Celibacy meant I could figure out men’s intentions earlier, rather than seeing them through rose-tinted glasses.”
Last year, she got into a relationship, and was intimate with her partner after around four months, but says: “It wasn’t worth it.”
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They broke up seven months ago and Mandana has returned to celibacy. Despite missing sex, she plans to abstain until she meets someone she thinks has marriage potential.
“It is very hard – you crave physical closeness with a person, but many women are so tired of giving themselves to men who don’t deserve it.”
While praising women for setting boundaries, psychotherapist Susie says she’s saddened that some are resorting to celibacy as a “protective armour” from male behaviour.
“It feels like the opposite of female empowerment,” she adds. “Shows like Love Island can sensationalise toxic masculinity, which has a normalising effect.
“This can make it really difficult for some women to calibrate their relationship expectations.”
This year’s series has come under fire, with Women’s Aid calling out “misogyny and sexism” by the men, who are largely Gen Z.
Bella acknowledges that staying celibate might reduce the pool of potential matches, saying: “People don’t seem as willing to wait these days.”
But she insists that anyone who has an issue with it isn’t the man for her.
“If someone thinks that wanting to have sex is more important than what would make me comfortable, that person would not be right for me,” she says.
“If that’s a deal-breaker, that’s someone I don’t want to be with. I would rather do what feels true to me than compromise what I believe in.”
