02 Jul Taking the ‘year off’ cure

After one too many disappointments, Biblically named British writer Hephzibah Anderson swore off boinking for a year, then wrote an intriguing article about the experience. Moneyquote:
“Beware of any enterprise that requires new clothes,” Thoreau cautioned, but today I am shopping for a chaste wardrobe. The clothes I pick out are generous and tough, nothing flimsy or flyaway. In my newly chaste state, my instinct is to wrap up and hide away.
It may seem strange that, having made such a personal, private decision, I’m seeking to solidify it by altering my outward appearance, but for now it seems an apt uniform, unlikely to give anyone the wrong idea, myself included.
It’s only when you’ve sworn off sex you begin to notice that it is everywhere. It’s in the swing of a waiter’s hips, the tilt of a head, the gaze you know you shouldn’t hold. I make a date, feeling as if I need to test my vow in order to prove its existence. But the man sitting across from me isn’t Jake and, because of that, I’m not interested. At the end of the night I call a taxi, dropping my date at the nearest tube station with a peck on the cheek. Chastity will be easy, I think, and my heart sinks a little.
Ms. Anderson writes wittily and unprudishly; Her visage suggests abstinence was voluntary. There’s a book too.