In the 2010s, the discourse around slut shaming shifted in American culture. Through girl boss propaganda and Buzzfeed articles, feminists went from advocating for women’s sexual expression without societal punishment to pushing the idea that having sex with many men is a form of empowerment that should be celebrated. Women who questioned such advocacy were often viewed by its proponents as puritanical misogynists, traitors to their gender. In the 2015 Vogue article, Breathless: In Defense of Hookup Culture, Karley Sciortino accuses Nancy Jo Sales of perpetuating gender stereotypes after Jo addressed the dangers of rampant casual sex in her Vanity Fair article, Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse.” Rhetoric such as Sciortino’s led me to believe that having meaningless sex with meaningless men was a necessary form of feminist protest. But is it?
In the summer before college, I began to question the personal effects of this attitude toward sex. Several mentally and physically dangerous sexual encounters left me scared, disturbed, and embarrassed about my willingness to engage in hookup culture. Over months of difficult reflection, I realized that casual sex was no longer for me. Even when it pleasured me physically, hooking up with near-strangers or emotionally unavailable men left me feeling empty and used. I made a pact that I would remain celibate in college unless I felt a genuine, mutually respected connection with another individual. I entered freshmen year nervous that this decision would exclude me from a pillar of the college experience—its social life.
But through intimate, late-night dorm chats with my new girl friends, I soon realized that others on campus felt the same. One such girl disclosed to me: “I guess I’ve just never felt comfortable doing super intimate things with people I’m not comfortable with.” Another friend corroborated this sentiment: “I think that if it was someone that I trusted and felt no judgment from or felt comfortable with and felt invested in, that’s probably when I would break my celibacy.”
A social divide exists, however, between those who choose to participate in hookup culture and those who abstain. One female student who is waiting for marriage to have sex told me she feels left out of certain events, like Sex Week and Sex Weekend. These initiatives are led by Sexual Health Education & Advocacy throughout Harvard College, “a student organization dedicated to empowering members of the Harvard community to explore their experiences with love and sex,” according to their website. But this pro-sex narrative can alienate those who don’t want to “explore their experiences with love and sex.”
The student adds that the Independent’s survey “normalized being sexually active. It’s just normalized, though, in the sense that everyone expects that everyone’s sexually active.”
Perhaps feelings of exclusivity could be credited to celibate individuals’ privacy about their sex life, or lack thereof. When asked if she felt any social stigma for remaining celibate, one student said, “Not necessarily. I just think that a lot of people feel social pressure to engage in hookup culture so they don’t talk about being celibate. But I think a lot of people on campus are [celibate], they’re just not vocal about it.”
Another student said: “If people are like judging me for not having sex, that’s more like a them problem. I guess I’m not embarrassed about it at all, so like, if people are judging me for it, then I am embarrassed for them for seeing that much value in having sex. But I don’t feel judged probably because I choose not to feel judged.”
All of these statements ring true for me. Celibacy is both an act of isolation and an act of self-love. Even though I find myself sidelined in giggly conversations with friends recounting their Saturday night sex sprees, I have a newfound sense of ownership of my body that is not weighed down by feelings of violation or vulnerability.
When I asked female students how celibacy affected their self-esteem, several said they were unsure or that the effect was neutral. One student said it probably improved their mental health: “A lot of girls who have sex end up the next morning feeling really uncomfortable about it, especially in these hookup situations, and they feel uncomfortable or upset about it and chasing it just to have it.”
Promoting celibacy is not equivalent to slut shaming or judging others for sexual promiscuity. Women should be liberated to make their own choices regarding their sexual expression. However, we must offer young women an alternative path to the hookup culture promoted in feminist literature.
It’s not easy to not have sex. But it can be a beautiful, empowering choice, and it shouldn’t be overlooked any longer.
Sophie Gochman ’25 (sgochman@college.harvard.edu) is happily leaving guys with blue balls.