Celibacy Yamandu

I'm 35, male, Uruguayan and circumstantially Bolivian, celibate the last 35 years or so and still going strong. As for why I am celibate, it has to do with being tired of sex mixing up relationships (besides the obvious AIDS, pregnacy, etc.). I can't invite a woman to my home evenings, just as a good friend, because she is afraid I might not behave. And when she does come, she expects me not to behave. So unless I have several people over, if someone visits me alone it's got to be a man, and having so often single men visiting has my neighbors concerned...

Things go so much more easily when you do not feel pushed to act sexually, in the office, camp, whatever. Also, I can't afford it. Emotionally. See, I am a very loyal person, and the kind of twosome sex I want requires getting much more involved beyond hydraulics. I do not expect to be celibate forever, though as someone pointed out, with age you re-see things. But then I'd like someday to have a fine, old-fashioned, monogamous, cuddly family, and on my side, that should pose no problems. Sex would just mean having to get involved more than I care with people I don't care that much about - don't want to take sex casually.

I am for very close (in the sense of togetherness) friendships and love, I am convinced that we need much closer bonds among people than family lines, and no need for sex to be there - and thus we can have more of them, at the same time. When through love we can go beyond fears of lonesomeness when old or infirm, we might go beyond some of the need for families based on sexual servilism.

Nowadays I am exploring non-sexually-threatening closeness. It is so hard to get the concept through, but oh so rewarding, that we can be close, even get to the real meaning of intimate, without having sex. I can tell that it's still hard for me to really, lovingly, hug someone, and not feel guilty of trying to be a predator. Or of same-sex hugging being OK.