Miss Chastity

The course of modern love does not run linear. The chronological norm of days gone by – flirting, dating, doing the naughty, true love – is often reversed in our hook-up happy times. Everything starts with the naughty part. There’s no first base to get to but rather, as the folks at the newly-launched Sex Really site note, many of us are “running the bases backwards.” Although cricket is the preferred stick and ball game over in the U.K., we think that the baseball metaphor aptly describes the courtship rituals on that side of the pond. Indeed, many happy relationships begin in this back-to-front manner but of course, for every one hook-up that results in happily-ever-after, there are countless others that don’t. One gal, Hephzibah Anderson, a sexy and cerebral scribe for The Guardian no less, decided to try something different or rather, nothing. After hitting 30, she took a vow of celibacy for 12 months. Her sexless days and nights (plus curiosities such her “chastity wardrobe”) are chronicled in her book, Chastened: No More Sex in the City. And although, in her article, Anderson does not report a cutesy happy ending in the days after her vow expired (no prince but one relationship, a couple of ‘I love yous’ and an unintended dry spell), her findings point to the longevity of a rather old-fashioned idea: good things come to those who wait.