She was a 'serial monogamist,' then she gave up sex: What she learned surprised her
Talking about sex is still taboo. Talking about not having sex? Maybe even more so.
Melissa Febos didn't go into her year of celibacy planning to write about it. The memoirist, known for 'Girlhood,' is a self-described 'person of extremes.' She's written candidly about her recovery from drug addiction, but in 'The Dry Season' (out now from Penguin Random House), she embarks on intentional abstinence to solve a different kind of addiction – one to romance and partnership.
Febos was a 'serial monogamist,' having been in relationships on and off for 20 years since. After one particularly fraught breakup, she knew she needed to change. The result was wholly transformative and, despite the sexual 'dry season,' the most sensual year of her life.
'The tools that I learned during that year are the ones that I will keep with me for the rest of my life in terms of how to be awake to all of my passions, not just my romantic ones (and) what true intimacy and partnership with other people consists of,' Febos says.
Febos determined early on in her journey that her problem couldn't be boiled down to a sex addiction. But she did compulsively jump into romantic relationships, which needed to change.
In her addiction recovery, Febos learned how to create a personal inventory to analyze past behavior. She applied the same to her love life – a log of past lovers, crushes and partners.
'I had a story about myself in love that maybe wasn't exactly true because it wasn't quite adding up, … I was having a repetitive experience and that I had hit a kind of bottom,' Febos says. 'If I was just a passionate person who fell in love a lot and was basically a great partner to everyone, why was my life ruined?'
When she was ready – and only when she was ready – to hear it, she had a close friend look at the list and deliver her the hard truths.
'You're a user,' they told her. 'You use people.'
Hearing that was devastating, but then came the relief, Febos says.
'I had written a story about myself in love that was more complacent than I actually was,' Febos says. 'This reflects a kind of national story that we have in mainstream culture where the task in love is to find the right person and when we find the right person, love will work out. … Something I realized during that year was that I needed to also become the right person.'
Febos met her wife shortly after ending her abstinence. They've been together for eight years now.
'The Dry Season' isn't a book about finding a spouse at the other end of celibacy – Febos instead clarifies that this period made her the independent, autonomous person who was capable of having a long-term relationship.
When you think about celibacy, which words come to mind? Lack? Absence? Dry?
Febos feared that, too, but says she found nothing but abundance. Her instinct was no longer to 'run straight into the beautiful anesthesia of another' but to enjoy the satisfaction of her own company. When she says 'erotic,' she doesn't mean in a traditionally sexual sense, but in a fullness-of-life manner of speaking. Her platonic relationships thrived. She had more time for herself. She talks of the 'vivid sense of engagement' she felt – dancing with friends, sleeping in, reading a whole book in the afternoon, eating a perfectly ripe raspberry.
'Overwhelmingly, I did not feel that I was missing anything,' Febos says. 'I had a sense of what I had been missing for years by being obsessed with love and sex."
At first, Febos felt embarrassed to tell people she was voluntarily celibate. But as her year continued, she found more and more people who related.
'Almost everything I have ever written about started by feeling unspeakable to me,' Febos says. 'I was afraid that I was alone in those experiences, but I have had those expectations upended time and time again. Every single time I've written about an experience that I felt really alone in and estranged from other people, I have found myself part of a vast community of people who suffer from the exact same burden.'
It's a growing cultural conversation. In recent years, celebrities like Julia Fox, Mýa and Lenny Kravitz have opened up about their celibacy. Some young women are going "boysober." Americans aged 22-34 are having less sex, according to a recent study by the Institute of Family Studies. That data showed sexlessness doubled for young men and increased by 50% for young women between the late 2010s and early 2020s.
Febos finds common ground with both voluntarily and involuntarily celibate individuals.
'We live in extremes and we ... have a fraught relationship to aloneness,' she says. 'We have not made friends with solitude, and I think that looking for partnership with oneself is actually the first step to having a more comfortable relationship with aloneness.'
Febos sought comfort in a long history of intentionally celibate women, like Virginia Woolf and the ancient Greek poet Sappho. She 'nerded out' over nuns (surprising for Febos, given she's not religious) like German Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen. Especially for the spiritual, celibacy was not about sacrifice but power.
'It requires incredible consciousness and mindfulness and consistent work to live against the grain of the ways that we're socialized to accommodate other people, both in our intimate relationships, but also in the world at large,' Febos says. 'Women are really taught that they're selfish if they put themselves at the center of their story and their decision making.'
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is celibacy for a former 'serial monogamist'?
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
14 hours ago
- Forbes
Aesop Queer Library Returns To New York City For Pride
Aesop Queer Library will return to New York City, Los Angeles, and Toronto this June Aesop A beloved way to acquire LGBTQ+ books, for free, is returning for its fifth year. Aesop Queer Library will return this Pride season with pop-ups in New York City, Los Angeles, and Toronto from Thursday, June 26 through Sunday, June 29. And in a year when corporate pride initiatives are notably stifled, this Australia-based fragrance brand is continuing it's June traditions. Each year at selected boutiques, Aesop removes their products from the stores and uses the shelving space to offer books by and about queer people, all on the house. Select stores will also offer reading nooks, and guests can each leave with a free title. In 2025, the Aesop Queer Library theme will be 'In Other Words -language as liberation', with titles including bestsellers curated in partnership with Penguin Random House and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an organization instrumental in defending freedom of speech and expression. Featured authors at the library include Ocean Vuong, Tourmaline, and Miranda July. For those who can't make it to the pop-up, a full reading list from a diverse range of queer authors can be found on Aesop's website. 'In a moment when many queer voices face silencing, the act of sharing LGBTQIA2S+ literature becomes all the more essential,' shared a spokesperson for Aesop. 'These stories transcend reductive narratives, illuminating the richness, resilience, and nuance of queer experience… Our 2025 theme, In Other Words—Language as Liberation, underscores the role of words as both refuge and resistance—revealing how language not only describes the world but dares to remake it. These books are bridges: between generations, identities, and imaginations." Inside an Aesop Queer Library Aesop Aesop's connection to literature connects back to the brand's name, inspired by the legendary teller of fables, Aesop. With each year of the pop-up library, attendance has grown. 'The Aesop Queer Library continues to evolve as a sincere and intentional celebration of queer storytelling—rooted in generosity, cultural contribution, and care,' shared the Aesop spokesperson. 'Each year, we expand its reach to bring the library to more communities, reaffirming our belief in the power of literature to foster connection, understanding, and self-expression.' In 2025, Aesop's queer libraries can be found at three stores in three cities: New York City: Aesop Rockefeller Center at 610Fifth Avenue, Suite 7 Los Angeles: Aesop Larchmont at 128 N Larchmont Blvd Toronto: Aesop Yorkville at 94 Cumberland Street, Unit 3 More LGBTQ+ Books in New York City Beyond the four-day pop-up, there are plenty more spaces to find curated selections of LGBTQ+ books in New York City. The Bureau of Queer Services, General Division, located inside the LGBT Center in Greenwich Village, offers a wide selection of LGBTQ+ literature, art books, indie zines and more. In Brooklyn, Hive Mind offers new and used LGBTQ+ titles in Bushwick (plus a cafe offering seasonal coffee and tea drinks), and the Nonbinarian Bookstore in Crown Heights offers a wide variety of LGBTQ+ books and gifts.
Washington Post
a day ago
- Washington Post
First, Virgil Abloh changed Nike. Then he came for luxury fashion.
Adapted from 'Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture With Virgil Abloh,' ©2025 by Robin Givhan. Published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. As a teenager in Rockford, Illinois, Virgil Abloh saved his pennies and bought his first pair of Nike Air Jordans from a Marshalls discount department store.
USA Today
4 days ago
- USA Today
Millions from books: Here's what Supreme Court financial disclosures show
Millions from books: Here's what Supreme Court financial disclosures show Show Caption Hide Caption Ketanji Brown Jackson lights up stage at Broadway musical "& Juliet" Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson treated "& Juliet" fans to a special performance for one night only! WASHINGTON − Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made more than $2 million last year for her best-selling memoir, according to the latest round of financial disclosure reports for the justices which became public on June 17. Jackson's book, 'Lovely One,' made the New York Time's bestseller list when it came out last year amid an extensive publicity tour for the court's newest member. That's much more than the $250,000 in royalties Justice Neil Gorsuch reported earning last year for a book on the law he co-authored with a former clerk. But Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett could report eye-popping figures in the future for her forthcoming memoir, which reportedly earned a $2 million advance. Barrett's book, 'Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution,' is coming out in September. The annual disclosure reports cover the preceding year of financial activity. As is his usual practice, Justice Samuel Alito received a 90-day extension to file his annual report. Jackson, in last year's report, disclosed she'd initially received a $893,750 advance for 'Lovely One.' More: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson can throw a punch. Literally. Justice Sonia Sotomayor continues to receive royalties − $73,944 last year – from children's books she's written. And she received a $60,000 advance from Penguin Random House for "Just Shine,' another children's book to be published in September. In May, multiple justices recused themselves from deciding whether to accept an appeal involving alleged plagiarism in books published by Penguin Random House. That meant there were not enough justices to consider the appeal, which left in place a lower court's ruling dismissing the lawsuit. Other outside earnings and travel In addition to income from their writings, several justices reported outside earnings from teaching. Barrett and Justice Brett Kavanaugh each received $31,815 from Notre Dame Law School. Gorsuch received $30,379.91 from George Mason University. Travel the justices reported, without detailing their cost, included:
