A year later, and I hadn’t budged on my stance. And I’m not the only one: celibacy is on the rise. A study from early 2024 found that 16.5% of women described themselves as “single by choice” and reported that they are not sexually active right now.

In recent years, more celebrities from Orlando Bloom to Julia Fox have been open about their celibacy journeys, with rock star Lenny Kravitz declaring in an interview in May with The Guardian that he has abstained from sex for the last nine years. There’s even such a thing as “celibacy TikTok” – an emerging subsection of the app where users explain that they’re practising celibacy because “guys only want to use you for your body” and as a means to “reclaim sexual energy”, heal trauma and slow down their love lives.

“I swore off sex for an entire year – and I’ve never felt so sexually fulfilled”