Isabelle’s Reviews > Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year without Sex > Status Update

(2/2) For some, chastity is inherently problematic, allied too closely with the notion that women want sex less than men. But here’s the thing: most of us do want sex less than men — a certain kind of sex that is. Plenty of men would rather not have that kind of sex either (253).

Why is it so much more shocking to withhold sex in order to make a man love you than it is to go to bed with him, hoping against hope for the same outcome? Let’s face it, neither tactic is wise (252).

Clearly, understanding that “no” means no it’s not the same thing as feeling you have the permission or the safety to say it in the first place. We’ve lost any sense of healthy, emotional entitlement, leaving us with fewer and fewer reasons to say it (252).

(2/2) Yes, it works for some, but for the rest of us can feel as if equal rights as morphed into the right to the exact same things that men have — subtly but profoundly different from giving us the right to the things that we as women need (250).

(1/2) Our desire for, and right to, sex has been it into an enslaving necessity that has too many women making do, taking with they can get rather than holding out for what they might secretly yearn for: love (250).

Sex is becoming more and more of a performance… Blame it on the Internet, blame it on porn, blame it, if you like, on Internet, porn – but whatever the cause, this apparent need for external validation suggests that people are failing to fully and have it their own most intimate experiences (249).

It also told me about emotional self – efficiency. In a consumer society, our desire is constantly being manipulated…it’s our more intimate hankerings, too… In tuning out those subtle and not so subtle come ons, I have found within myself some of what I formerly looked to sex to provide. Ultimately, this makes relationships more fulfilling — you have more to offer as you get back will you put it (257).

If you hold back physically, I learned, it makes it easier to open up emotionally. There are some conversations that you feel too vulnerable to have naked; slow the pace, and you’ll find you can risk a little more candor… It takes the pressure off those bewitching early stages of relationship, and yes, it helps support the cards from the keepers(247).

My 20s had created a disconnect between what I hoped for from sex and what the men in my life seemed willing to offer. I had begun to doubt my own expectations, but those 12 chaste months reaffirmed my faith in romance, and taught me much else besides (246-247).

… Female desire, psychologists say, necessarily contains elements of narcissism. While men want women, women want to be wanted.