"Antinatalism Explained."

I'm not endorsing this idea, and I can even see why one would want not merely to resist but to actively suppress it, but I would recommend courageously hearing out the argument. It's quite challenging, but why is it wrong?

Related: there's a big new movie out about the Shakers:

"So what are they going to get me for?"

Nick Shirley defends himself preemptively:

NICK SHIRLEY: "I don't drink alcohol, I don't do drugs, I'm a virgin, I don't have sex with random girls, I don't have addictions, I don't have vices, so what are they going to get me for? I believe in God. I'm religious. I'm everything that they hate."pic.twitter.com/kZhPBXnoDs

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) January 1, 2026

Can the phrase "virtue signaling" be applied to this (jocosely?)? 

Pretty unusual for a man to tell the world he's a virgin.

I don't drink alcohol, I don't do drugs, I'm a virgin, I don't have sex with random girls, I don't have addictions, I don't have vices, so what are they going to get me for? I believe in God. I'm religious. I'm everything that they hate.

"It’s important to note that 'sex is gay' is an idea found among the incel—or, involuntary celibate—community..."

"... most notably from neo-Nazi and self-styled incel Nick Fuentes. In 2022, Fuentes went on a rant on his show, in which he argued that his lack of sexual experience with women 'actually makes me really more heterosexual than anyone' As Fuentes explained: 'If we're really being honest, never having a girlfriend, never having sex with a woman really makes you more heterosexual, because honestly, dating women is gay, having sex with women is gay. And having sex with men is gay. Really it's all gay. And if you want to know the truth, the only really straight heterosexual position is to be an asexual incel. That's it. That's all there is…Having sex in itself is gay, I think. I think that it's really a gay act to begin with. Think about it this way: What's gayer than being like "I need cuddles. I need kisses…I need to spend time with a woman."'"

Writes Alan Elrod, in "Sex Is Gay, Rape Is Epic, No Fatties: Young Right-Wing Men Are Obsessed With Male Power and Male Bodies/The group chat leak reveals what over a decade of incel messaging and Bronze Age Pervert have done to Young Republicans" (Liberal Currents).

"'Why am I reading this' were the first lines of my latest memoir. I sat in my small apartment hearing the beautiful sounds of morning..."

"... and realized that as the sounds faded I had become stuck, almost against my will, in someone's head as began the torturous recounting of her sex life, legs firm, my mouth tight, I firmly withdrew myself from the dark spaces I was then inhabiting, back into the light. No thank you, NY Times, not this time. And coffee in hand, I went about my day, proud I had not succumbed yet again."

Writes MDH, a commenter over at the NYT Magazine, spoofing an essay that that I didn't read either. 

The essay, by Melissa Febos, is "What I Learned Trying to Spend a Year Celibate/Giving up sex was both harder and more rewarding than I could have imagined," which is adapted from her book, "The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex" — to be published by Knopf.

How can you spoof — or recognize a spoof of — something that you haven't read? If one person can write about the sex she hasn't had, another can write about the essay she hasn't read.

But can you believe going an entire year without sex? I don't know if she made it, but we're told she tried, and we can see that she extracted an entire book, apparently full of descriptions of her pleasure, out of this ordeal.

Note: The topic of the distinction between "celibacy" and "chastity" has already been addressed on this blog, back in 2010, here. Why do edited publications use "celibacy" for "chastity"? I think "celibacy" feels spiritual/philosophical and "chastity" sounds prudish. I don't know who they're trying to impress.

"A new straight-studies course treats male-female partnerships as the real deviance."

Subheadline for a New York Magazine article titled, "If Hetero Relationships Are So Bad, Why Do Women Go Back for More?" The teaser title on the front page is "Do Straight Women Really Exist?" The author of the article is Jessica Bennett.

“In this class, we’re going to flip the script,” [said sociologist Jane Ward to her students on the first day of class]. “It’s going to be a place where we worry about straight people. Where we feel sympathy for straight people. We are going to be allies to straight people.”...

Flipping the script is a good approach to studying the topic, and the topic is worthy of study. However, I don't like being directed to "worry" or "feel sympathy" or "be allies." I'd look at the subject head on. But neutrality is cruel, and women want to present as empathetic. 

The online world seems to get weirder and more retrograde about heterosexuality every day. Idealized masculinity has become more aggressive, more jacked up, and also more high maintenance... while femininity gets ever “softer,” more nurturing and domestic, and somehow still more sexy....

"She doesn’t believe in labels for her own sexual orientation and has little interest in dating other women, but she does believe in political lesbianism..."

"... as a way for women to establish lives separate from men — with an emphasis on the 'political' rather than the 'lesbian.' 'I don’t need to try being a lesbian, because in political lesbianism, I can just be a person, like a normal person — a human being. I can be in a safe place,' she told me as we drank sweet-potato lattes at a campus café. The most important thing, in her view, is the absence of men. 'Always, when I use the word "safe place," it means the place for women.'"

From "A World Without Men/The women of South Korea’s 4B movement aren’t fighting the patriarchy — they’re leaving it behind entirely" (New York Magazine).

That's featured on the home page, but I see: "This story, about women in South Korea who identify as part of the 4B movement, was originally published on March 8, 2023. In the days following the election of former president Donald Trump, interest in the movement has spiked dramatically."

Yes, I showed interest in it yesterday, here, linking to the NYT article "A Sex Strike Is a Losing Strategy for American Women."

And I blogged the New York Magazine article the day it came out, here, March 8, 2023. I quoted more of it at the time, and — I see now — I included that "political lesbianism" quote. 

"After mostly avoiding interviews as her campaign began, the vice president will hold several this week, including with Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert and the hosts of 'The View.'"

A funny subheadline at the NYT — funny because if she's just going on Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert and "The View," Harris is still avoiding interviews. That those are the 3 interviews the NYT names makes it obvious.

The headline is "Harris Will Appear in a Whirlwind of Interviews, Most of Them Friendly."

Most of them? Who's the unfriendly interviewer she dares to face? I am really appalled by the timidity. She needs to prove she's strong and can stand up for us. 

I noticed that article because I went looking for Kamala Harris articles on the front page of the New York Times. You'd think she'd make more news!

There's also this Susan Faludi thing at the top of the right hand column, sitting atop a musing about celibacy:

So let's stare slack-jawed and cross-eyed at a rose. Mmmm. America's protector, eh?

Yeah, that kind of was my question about Kamala Harris when I saw that she dared to speak to Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert and the hosts of "The View."

So let's see if Susan Faludi makes the case for KH as a protector. Much of that column is generic: Women have not, traditionally, been regarded as the protector. Some of it is an attack on Trump. Let's skip to something specific about Harris:

"What's the money for if you're celibate?"

Stephen Colbert asks 50cent:

 

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"We made a mistake. Our ads referencing celibacy were an attempt to lean into a community frustrated by modern dating..."

"... and instead of bringing joy and humor, we unintentionally did the opposite. Some of the perspectives we heard were: from those who shared that celibacy is the only answer when reproductive rights are continuously restricted; from others for whom celibacy is a choice, one that we respect; and from the asexual community, for whom celibacy can have a particular meaning and importance, which should not be diminished. We are also aware that for many, celibacy may be brought on by harm or trauma."

Said the dating app company Bumble, apologizing for its ad campaign with the slogan "A vow of celibacy is not the answer/Introducing the new Bumble."

I'm reading about this in "Bumble to Users: You Need Sex. Users to Bumble: Get Lost. A new advertising campaign from the dating app set off a firestorm of criticism, prompting the company to apologize" (NYT).  From the article, which is by Gina Cherelus, who says, "Framing celibacy and abstinence from sex as a negative isn’t all that different from framing promiscuity and sexual freedom as shameful."

"Many younger women, for instance, shaped in part by the #MeToo movement, are engaging in intentional abstinence."

"There are trends on TikTok about going 'boysober'... 'Platonic life partners,' meanwhile — friends who commit to owning a home and even raising children together — insist that sex and romance are not necessary to lifelong unions. The sex educator and researcher Emily Nagoski is resistant to the idea that frequent sex should be a chief component of every committed relationship. Nagoski — who has been open about her own hiatus from marital sex — doesn’t endorse obligatory sex, nor does she encourage aiming for any sexual base line in terms of regularity or behavior. Drawing on the work of the Canadian sexologist Peggy Kleinplatz, Nagoski believes that low desire can sometimes be evidence of good judgment. 'It’s not dysfunctional not to want sex you don’t like,' Nagoski says.... For couples measuring themselves against what Nagoski calls the 'fictions' of sex, or for those worried that their relationship is on the line whenever they enter the bedroom or don’t meet some monthly number, there may be too much pressure for sex to be enjoyable. It’s more important that couples establish what kind of sex is worth having...."

Writes Amanda Montei, in "Can a Sexless Marriage Be a Happy One? Experts and couples are challenging the conventional wisdom that sex is essential to relationships" (NYT).

My excerpt deprives you of a lot of anecdotes, so I'll just give you one as an example... an absurd example:

"During the visit, she noticed that her grandmother kept sending texts to her ex — that is, Ms. Woodard’s grandfather — and grew angry..."

"... when he didn’t reply. The thing is, her grandfather is dead. 'I’m like, "Mimi, you are going to be left 'on read' till your grave!"' Ms. Woodard told the crowd, using a term for a text not responded to. And yet, she recognized herself in that moment. 'Do you ever see your mom or your grandma doing something and you’re like, "that’s messed up"'— Ms. Woodard used a stronger word — 'but then you’re like, "I know I’ve got that inside of me"?'"

From "She’s Not Celibate — She’s ‘Boysober’/The comedian Hope Woodard is spreading the word about her yearlong break from sex and dating. One fan calls it 'this year’s hottest mental health craze'" (NYT)(free access link).

"A big part of the yearlong break from sex and romance is unlearning the unhealthy relationship patterns that often get passed down from generation to generation. 'Maybe we are one of the first generations of women where we don’t actually have to plug into a man for, like, energy and power and whatever,' Ms. Woodard said."

1. What do you think of the efficacy of 1-year breaks? If generations and generations have programmed a tendency into you, what are the chances you could "unlearn" it in one year?

2. What "generations of women" do you think she is referring to?

"[Tim] Scott rarely mentioned a significant other during his decades in politics, and in the ’90s he declared himself a 'proud' adult virgin."

"When Scott launched his presidential campaign last spring, the media noted that he would be the first bachelor president since the 19th century. He tried to shut this down by alluding to a girlfriend in May, then sharing some details about his Christian, pickleball-playing partner with the Washington Post’s Ben Terris in September. This only raised suspicions that Scott had invented a ladyfriend for political purposes...."

From "Tim Scott’s Mystery Girlfriend Is Now His Fiancée" (New York Magazine).

“As a guy who is mostly an introvert and on the quiet side, having to have a conversation about the engagement is a little, you know, uncomfortable in a way, but it’s the most exciting thing I’ll do with my life besides making Jesus my Lord,” Scott said in an interview Sunday....

Why is Scott “having to have a conversation about the engagement” if it makes him uncomfortable?...

Is Scott running for VP? Is he in the running? I don't think Trump will pick him. Isn't he needed in the Senate? 

Meanwhile, yesterday, Doug Burgum: 1. Announced he's not running for a third term as Governor of North Dakota, and 2. Spoke at a Trump rally. But it can't be Burgum, can it? It's got to be one of the women, don't you think? Elise Stefanik, Kristi Noem, Sarah Huckabee Sanders....

"Monks are famously celibate, but celibacy doesn’t just mean you’re not having sex. It means you’re not interacting with other people..."

"... in a way that could be considered romantic. The Sanskrit word for monk, brahmacharyi, means 'the right use of energy.' It’s not that romance and sexual energy are wrong. But my practice teaches that we all have a limited amount of energy, which can be directed in multiple directions or one. When energy is scattered, it’s difficult to create momentum or impact. As monks, we were trained to direct our energy toward understanding our psyches, how we see the world and interact with it.... During college in London, I had devoted so much time to a long-distance girlfriend that I missed most of my classes. Celibacy allowed me to use that time and space to understand myself and develop the ability to still my mind.... When I left the ashram for good, I hadn’t watched TV, seen a movie, or listened to music in three years.... Being a monk may have closed me off to certain things... but... I learned to see the essence of a monk in everyone I met.... I saw that essence in Radhi the moment we met...."

Writes Jay Shetty, in "Date Like a Monk/'We’re not here to impress each other. We’re here to connect'" (NYT).

"In conversation with fellow actress-director Maggie Gyllenhaal for Interview magazine, Olivia Wilde asked, 'You know the incels?'"

"She was explaining to Gyllenhaal how she based a character in her latest film, 'Don’t Worry Darling,' on Jordan Peterson, a professor-turned-proselytizer whom Wilde described as 'this pseudointellectual hero to the incel community.' Gyllenhaal responded with a concise, 'No.' She did not know the incels...."

Writes Sonia Rao in "Let’s talk about the big reveal in ‘Don’t Worry Darling’/The disastrous press tour with Olivia Wilde, Harry Styles and Florence Pugh got everyone talking. But what is the movie itself trying to say?" (WaPo).

"And here I am, six years later, a 37-year-old man not having sex. And you know what? I’m happy."

"I did what most people do after leaving a partner, and threw myself into my career, socialising and family. Anything but men – and certainly anything but sex. If I’m honest, though, it’s deeper than that. I’ve never been entirely comfortable with sex and intimacy for a variety of reasons, and I think my reasons for giving it up stem from well before that relationship, which was my first.... Being a gay man further complicated matters.... Many of my friends were in open relationships, more than happy to satisfy their physical needs with a handsome stranger before returning home to the one they say they love. Tinder, Grindr, Bumble and a vast array of other apps have transformed the dating world. Sex is more accessible than ever before – it’s become almost transactional, without emotion, and I find myself instinctively rebelling against it.... I am routinely and relentlessly mocked by friends for my views on sex – and I understand that completely. To be honest, I am surprised myself....  Sex may be one of life’s most pleasurable experiences, but it is also one of the most intimate. To waste that intimacy with a stranger seems futile."

From "I’m a 37-year-old man not having sex. That’s my choice, and I’m happy with it," an anonymous essay in The Guardian.

"If we can’t safely go out and have sex and know that we will have a choice after that, then why should we be expected to?"

Such a crazy question, asked by Caroline Healey, "a 22-year-old event coordinator," quoted in "Sex Strike! Abstinence trends on Twitter in wake of Roe v. Wade ruling" (NY Post).

It's not just on Twitter. The Post encountered Healy at a protest. She also said:

“I think it’s absolutely valid for us to be withholding the Holy Grail that men seem to think is important... Why shouldn’t we withhold it if we’re always worried that they’re not going put a condom on, that they’re going take one off after we ask them to...."

"Some women are opting out of sexual relationships altogether and adopting labels like asexual or 'femcel' (female celibate)."

"There has even been a rise in millennial nuns. These women are fighting back against an ideology that has always best served the likes of Hugh Hefner. In doing so, they are trying to rediscover their sense of self-worth. In 2021, a TikTok video by a young American woman called Abby went viral. In the video, Abby tells the camera: 'I, like many other college students, am someone who is entangled in hook-up culture, and often hook-up culture makes it difficult for me to determine whether or not what I’m doing is good for me and kind to myself. Very often as women we are led astray from what we actually deserve. So here’s what I’ve been doing lately . . .' She pulls up onscreen a series of childhood photos of herself, and explains that the men she’s hooked up with have often made her feel undeserving, not only of love but also basic respect. So she’s trying to remind herself of her worth as a person by playing the role of mother to her inner child. 'Am I OK with that for her?' she asks tearfully, gesturing at her younger self in the photo. 'Would I let her be a late-night, drunk second option? Would I let this happen to her?' She shakes her head, weeping: 'From a third person, caretaker point of view, I would never let any of this stuff happen to her.' Abby is trying to mother herself, though she isn’t quite sure how to do it."

From "Women have been betrayed by a culture of porn gone wild/The sexual revolution was supposed to liberate women. Yet the tragic life of Marilyn Monroe and the nightmarish world of violent pornography which today’s young women must navigate suggest otherwise" by Louise Perry (London Times). 

Here's the author's forthcoming book: "The Case Against the Sexual Revolution."

"[W]e continue to underestimate the problem of loneliness... because we define loneliness too narrowly. Properly understood..."

"... loneliness is a 'personal, societal, economic, and politica' condition—not just 'feeling bereft of love, company, or intimacy' but also “feeling unsupported and uncared for by our fellow citizens, our employers, our community, our government.'... Sociologists who are skeptical about whether loneliness is a growing problem argue that much modern aloneness is a happy, chosen condition.... Ironically... celebrating single women as avatars of modern female empowerment has made things harder, not easier, for lonely women, by encouraging the view that their unhappiness is of their own making.... [T]he plight of lonely, sexless men tends to inspire more public concern and compassion than that of women. The term 'incel' was invented by a woman hoping to commiserate with other unhappily celibate women, but it didn’t get much traction until it was appropriated by men and became a byword for sexual rage."

From "How Everyone Got So Lonely/The recent decline in rates of sexual activity has been attributed variously to sexism, neoliberalism, and women’s increased economic independence. How fair are those claims—and will we be saved by the advent of the sex robot?" by Zoë Heller (NY Magazine).

If there's  more concern about "lonely, sexless men," it's not because there's more empathy for them. It's because we're afraid that — unpaired with women and thus untamed — they'll do destructive things.

"I had never heard of a Josephite marriage, a union inspired by the relationship between Joseph and the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus."

"And to this day, I am astonished that my parents undertook a similar path with the blessing of the Roman Catholic Church.... My father was a worldly 32 and my mother a winsome 19 when they met.... He was agnostic, though his parents were Presbyterian. She was Catholic.... [A] brush with death prompted him to convert to Catholicism.... Not long thereafter, my three siblings and I noticed that our parents’ double bed was replaced by twin beds.... What we didn’t know was that my father had been married before meeting my mother. His first marriage lasted about two years, and because the church refused to recognize the divorce and end of that union, my parents could not receive the sacrament of matrimony. During my father’s immersion into Catholicism, it was pointed out that without the sacrament of matrimony performed by a priest, my parents were technically living in sin. Mortal sin.... Mom and Dad, with the bishop’s permission, and after taking a solemn vow, could leave the marital bed and replace it with chaste cohabitation.... 'No one is to know of the brother-sister relationship except the Advocate Father O’Brien, the Pastor, the Tribunal, and the confessors of the parties,' the tribunal’s letter said....  [N]ine years after my father’s heart attack and their decision to have a celibate marriage, his first wife died. On an ordinary Tuesday evening in 1970, Mom and Dad were married in secrecy at our parish church...."

From "One Chaste Marriage, Four Kids, and the Catholic Church/A son reflects on his parents’ commitment, endorsed by the Catholic church, to cohabit chastely like 'brother and sister' to avoid mortal sin" by By Geoffrey Leavenworth (NYT).

"Now, because identity looms so large in the culture, and because the internet makes it so easy for likeminded lunatics to find each other, we find [the Plymouth killer] conveniently categorised as an incel."

"These are involuntary celibates, a category he toyed with online. Once, if you couldn't get a girlfriend or get married – and several blameless men I know were at one time or another in that not uncommon position – you were just a normal bloke with a girl problem; now there's a debate about whether to categorise incels as terrorists, up there with the Real IRA and IS. There are and always will be, men with a sense of grievance who take out their rage and frustration on others. The BBC seems oddly willing to entertain the idea that incels should be designated as terrorists, possibly because it gives a boost to the notion that misogyny should be categorised as a hate crime – an already dodgy category.... [I]t is guaranteed to waste police time and resources by obliging them to investigate incel outpourings online (and the whole stupid lexicon of red and black pills).... [And] it would be unfair to men who happen to be involuntarily celibate but who wouldn't dream of running amok with firearms...."

From "Why incels aren’t terrorists" by Melanie McDonagh (Spectator).