TELL ME ABOUT CELIBACY

“That’s so strange,” my gynecologist says, peering between my splayed legs. “Your cervix is running away from me.”

I had no idea cervixes (cervices?) could run. And if they can, I’m surprised mine didn’t pack her bags and skip town between babies number 2 and 3. Even this exam is an indignity. Honestly, if someone cranked my front doors open with a giant speculum, I’d hide, too. I’d run to a secret part of my house like Jodie Foster in Panic Room and slam the TOTAL LOCKDOWN button.

“Let me try again,” the doctor says, casually prodding again with what I can’t currently see, but know to be a very long Q-tip. She eventually gets her sample. But I can’t stop thinking about my shy cervix. I’ve been getting annual pelvic exams since I was 16 years old— I can’t recall ever missing one— which means I’ve been in the stirrups at least 30 times. And that doesn’t even factor in prenatal care and the volcanic, transformative act of birth (which I treated like a medical procedure at the time, but now I look back and think: shiiiittt that was wild.) In all those years, I’ve never had a shy cervix. She was always a beaming, outgoing little strawberry donut that was happy to appear for any exam or trial. But now, she’s suddenly in her Garbo era. She wants to be alone.

I thought about this a lot after the exam, because it didn’t feel coincidental. I haven’t had sex in months, by choice, and I actually don’t think I’ve ever been without it this long as an adult. As a Catholic child, I grew up familiar with the word “celibate” and have always associated it with graying men in black cassocks. And of course we have these new-ish words in our culture, incel, referring to involuntarily celibate men, and femcel for their female counterparts. I don’t identify with any of those groups (though my wardrobe is getting very black cassock-coded in midlife). My current state of celibacy is voluntary and shockingly enjoyable. How can this be? I’ve always been a horndog, compulsively sexual, so how could this 180 be fun?

Well, Jenny, I’ve never felt “naturally” sexy, so sex has always been a performance requiring prep, maintenance and stamina. And you can only play Audrey 2 so many times before you need a break from Broadway, if you know what I’m saying. I have begun to neglect my grooming and it’s the best. When my gyno was doing the part of the exam where they knead your boob like a cat, I couldn’t help but notice a TWO-INCH HAIR coming out of one of my areolae. It was kinky and glorious, an antenna to God. When I was a teenager, I use to hunt these hairs down and yank them out in a secret, hot shame-fugue. Not anymore. (We won’t even talk about what’s happening downtown.) I’ve always felt apologetic about my body, its heavy bleeds, its calloused feet, curds of cellulite on my thighs, old tattoos for old relationships. And even when partners were kind, even worshipful, I still felt this need to contort, suck in, apologize. That’s on me, I know, but it is such a relief to let go of that anxiety. My body is all mine.

And it’s not just about the fact that I can neglect my grooming. It’s this feeling of selfish, self-contained peace. Hard to describe. I feel like I’ve given so much of myself physically, in multiple ways. I have fallen asleep to the throat-singing of a breast pump. I have taken literally thousands of pills to make sex more convenient and less scary. (7,000? 8,000? What’s twenty years of hormonal birth control?) I’ve done Kegels. I’ve purchased warming lubes and lingerie. I tore UPWARD during one of my births and still made sure I was “available” within the recommended six weeks— not because it was demanded of me, but because I demanded it of myself. What else am I good for? I’ve done so much in the service of sex and reproduction. I need a vacation, Jenny. And I’m on one, and I love it.

P.S. “Celibate,” as it turns out, originally just meant “unmarried.” I knew it was chic!