In early 2010, I went more than four months without having sex. I was living in London at the time, and had become bored with my social scene. Every time I scanned the room at a party I had the same thought—everyone here who’s mildly attractive I’ve either already slept with, or have tried to sleep with and failed. I also had an obsessive crush on a boy who, though he wasn’t giving me any attention, managed to suck up most of my sexual energy. But the funny thing was, during those months, I wasn’t even really conscious of my drought. Sex, I learned, is kind of like carbs—if you cut it from your diet, pretty soon you’ll just stop craving it. At least, for a while . . .
“Dry spell” is the accepted term we’ve created to describe a sexless state. It doesn’t have the best connotation; people are often embarrassed to admit they’re in a dry spell—sometimes even to themselves—for fear of seeming undesirable or opening themselves up to ridicule. But what defines a dry spell—is it a week, a month, a year? Is the defining length of one’s dry spell directly proportional to one’s previous sluttiness? And do dry spells always have to be “bad”? Because actually, when I reflected on my sexless season, I was sort of weirdly impressed with myself. Like: Wow, four months?! Who knew I could do that? And I’ve had friends who reacted similarly to their phases of celibacy. It’s like when people don’t drink for January, and are amazed afterward, as if they’ve completed an incredible feat of athleticism.
One of my closest friends, a 34-year-old fashion photographer who I’ll call Emma, recently went more than two years without sex. During that time, she seemed totally fine about it. Sure, she’d sometimes make jokes about how her vagina had sewn itself shut forever, but she never really made an effort to meet guys, which, being an attractive, successful woman, would not have been difficult. “How you define a dry spell depends on what you want,” Emma told me. “If you feel like you’re in a dry spell, it’s because you’ve realized you haven’t had sex in a while and want to change that.”
This blasé attitude toward sex is a standard part of the cycle. Generally, when you first stop having sex you feel crazy and desperate, yet before you know it you’ve eased into the non-craving, indifferent part, which can last a surprisingly long time. But then eventually you reach a point when, either because of the lack of sex or lack of emotional attention, you can start to feel lonely or depressed, and long for some kind of contact or relationship.
And eventually, Emma wanted out of her dry spell, too. And so—like any other rational person without many good options—she got on Tinder, and ended up (somewhat uncharacteristically, I might add) sleeping with a guy on the first date. She’s since gone on a handful of dates with him, and her dry spell is officially over, and yet, to be completely honest with you, I feel that Emma seemed far more happy, productive, and sane back when she wasn’t getting any. She said she forgot how emotionally draining and anxiety-inducing dating is. And the fact that the guy has erectile dysfunction doesn’t help, either. She’s now nicknamed him ED to her friends. “We only have sex for like three seconds, and I basically have to be completely motionless during it to keep him from losing his boner, but it’s fine. Realistically he’s probably a good person to segue me out of my dry spell, because when you have mind-blowing sex with someone, it can interfere with your ability to make levelheaded decisions about the relationship.”
And yet, even with ED, she’s still having trouble being rational. “You just become a little bit more juvenile when you’re dating someone, even if you’ve been a confident adult for a long time. Suddenly you’re screen-grabbing texts from the person you’re sleeping with and sending them to your friends to help you decipher—it’s like you’re a teenager all over again. I literally felt like I was translating an ancient scroll when reading ED’s texts. I start to worry about dumb things like, ‘If I buy the multi-pack of condoms, will I jinx myself into never having sex again?’ But like, why am I doing this? Am I that in need of male attention? I guess I am, but this is the kind of distracting, meaningless, unproductive stupidity that I didn’t want in my life.”
Which is kind of the point. Dating and sleeping around take up a lot of bandwith. And it’s not just the time you spend with the person, it’s everything surrounding it: worrying about why they’re not texting you, planning date outfits, stalking their Instagram and the Instagrams of everyone they’ve ever tagged in a photo, planning funny texts in advance, obsessively staring at your phone while you’re supposed to be working for no particular reason . . . and so on and so on and so on. It can cause so much stress and anxiety, often over people we don’t even care about. Not to mention that being on the prowl is expensive. When I’m single I spend so much money going out, and then waste the next day being hungover, unable to work. I’ll be the first to admit that when I’m having sex, it consumes my brain. So clearly, going on a sex diet opens up a lot time to get stuff done. Right?
Maybe. Yet for some, not having sex creates a comparable type of anxiety and tension. There’s certainly a fantasy, especially in creative disciplines, of the artist’s vibrant sex life going hand-in-hand with vibrant creativity. The lack of boundaries in art and life (has anyone read this Vanity Fair article on Lucian Freud?) can make for a masterpiece. And I know a lot of people—myself included—for whom sex makes them feel happier, more confident, and energetic, which of course results in a better overall life performance. So the key, I guess, is to have sex, but without all the stress and distraction. But is that even possible?
My ex-boyfriend, who is a writer, didn’t think so. In fact, when working on big projects, he would induce dry spells, meaning that at points we barely saw each other and wouldn’t have sex for weeks, or even a month. He said that when one is freed from sexual desire, or sexual desire is transmuted into work, suddenly the world becomes engorged with possibilities. He would always talk about this Russian cult of eunuchs known as the Skoptsy, who were renowned for their proficiency as mathematicians, bankers, and moneylenders. He said he envied the discipline of the Skoptsy and their removal from the carnal temptations of the moment, and would often joke about castrating himself (we were clearly a great match). I thought he had mental problems, though in all honestly, the dry spells seemed to work for him.
Sex, it seems, is either a sign of great times, or simply a distraction. But whether a dry spell can be healthy for you depends on whether you can transform your sexual energy into something useful, rather than just going insane or becoming addicted to Internet porn. Emma told me, “If you’re comfortable with the fact that you’re not having sex—if it’s not compromising your idea of how sexually attractive you are, or how people perceive you—then I think a dry spell can be productive, because it probably means that you’re seeking validation in other places, like your work or your actions.” This really resonated with me, especially being someone who, as I discussed in a recent column, has often linked self-confidence and personal validation to sexual attention. And I think being able transcend that—to find pleasure, confidence, and self-worth outside of a sexual context—feels undeniably useful, liberating, and maybe even necessary.
Karley Sciortino writes the blog Slutever. Read her last post, “Setting Your Boundaries When Dating a New Ager.”
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