{"id":590,"date":"2015-12-13T16:52:04","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T00:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/?p=590"},"modified":"2016-05-17T18:10:16","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T01:10:16","slug":"not-ashamed-celibate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/13\/not-ashamed-celibate\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Ashamed: Celibate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already, please read the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/na\/na-intro.php\">introduction post<\/a>. That will give you context for this page.<\/p>\n<hr width=\"50%\" \/>\n<p>As my awareness of issues around consent and rape culture grows, my thoughts about being shamed for celibacy have gotten less patient. A lot of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in here is also relevant to all the people who seem to feel, often just because they think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty, that I should hook up with them.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst most people have written off my celibacy (or rejection of their come-ons) as an artefact of my religion, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much more complicated than that. However, I no longer feel like explaining myself to anyone. For reasons related to my first paragraph.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, my response to people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unhappiness and shaming around my celibacy (or rejection of their advances) has been rooted in disappointment (at their actions and words towards me) and patience. Patiently keeping my mouth shut as they tried to make me feel bad. Patiently deflecting their advances, over and over and over, as they refused to accept my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Laughing along with threats, usually in jest, to just dose me and take advantage of me anyway. And so forth.<\/p>\n<p>But let me make this clear, now that I have become better educated about consent and rape culture:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>My celibacy (or rejection of your advances) might pique your curiosity, but it is almost certainly none of your business. Not the reasons or anything else about it.<\/li>\n<li>You might be very sad when denied access to my vagina or other things you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like, but your sadness doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give you the right to ignore my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/li>\n<li>When you push me, press me, beg, cajole, threaten&#8230;you are ignoring, trampling all over, my lack of consent.<\/li>\n<li>I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be called a tease for refusing to have sex with you. In fact, as early as possible in a potential relationship or makeout-buddy situation, I try to make sure you know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to happen. That you ignore that&#8230;that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on you.<\/li>\n<li>Actually, you do know that someone even has the right to realise they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve changed their mind about it in the middle of things without being a tease, right? A person is only a tease if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re promising you something they know they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t intend to give you. There has <em>never<\/em> been a time when I was a tease.<\/li>\n<li>If I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sexy, that does not obligate me to have sex with you or in general.<\/li>\n<li>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had people get angry that I enjoyed singing a song about someone who wished their partner would shag them but I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t shagging anyone at all (much less the angry people); they called me a hypocrite. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not how singing works&#8230;Imagine a world where you could only sing songs about things that are totally true to who you are. (I thought of a lot of song-related jokes to make, but then got paralysed by the fact that someone might read this years from now and the song might no longer be in the public consciousness and might make my joke less funny. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll stumble across one of your own&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>In a world full of all sorts of sexual appetites and interests and practises, I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel bad about what I do or don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do, because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not teasing or lying or hurting anyone or messing with kids\/animals\/taken people. No shame.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Also, since even I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know better in the past, let me make sure you understand that doing something like dosing a person to get sex is rape. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not something we should laugh about. I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t laugh or be patient with that sort of thing again. (When we laugh about that, there might be those in our social group who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a Bad Thing To Do and might feel more empowered to go do those Bad Things. Go read up on that, kids. Welcome to the reality of rape culture.)<\/p>\n<p>I also won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be pushed or cajoled or anything like that. That is <em>not<\/em> how someone will end up getting to have sex with me. That <em>is<\/em>, with little or no warning, how someone will end up getting a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153goodbye\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from me.<\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also pretty much done with people who push for any kind of intimacy after my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I like myself. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t neg me into giving you my number or a kiss or something more. And, whilst I like a confident person, I also like a respectful person. If I like you and want to know you or be involved with you, you won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to push or play games. Did you know that consent even covers the stuff that comes <em>before<\/em> you try to access my vagina?<\/p>\n<p>So, yeah, not having sex is a thing that happens. And being a jerk to me about it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any results you like. It definitely won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make you the person I <em>do<\/em> have sex with.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/na\/na-celibate.php\">Cross-posted<\/a> to the Not Ashamed section of my site (so that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all tidy).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already, please read the introduction post. That will give you context for this page. As my awareness of issues around consent and rape culture grows, my thoughts about being shamed for celibacy have gotten less patient. A lot of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in here is also relevant to all the people who seem to feel, often just because they think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty, that I should hook up with them. Whilst most people have written off my celibacy (or rejection of their come-ons) as an artefact of my religion, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much more complicated than that. However, I no longer feel like explaining myself to anyone. For reasons related to my first paragraph. Previously, my response to people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unhappiness and shaming around my celibacy (or rejection of their advances) has been rooted in disappointment (at their actions and words towards me) and patience. Patiently keeping my mouth shut as they tried to make me feel bad. Patiently deflecting their advances, over and over and over, as they refused to accept my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Laughing along with threats, usually in jest, to just dose me and take advantage of me anyway. And so forth. But let me make this clear, now that I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-not-ashamed","category-relationships"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Not Ashamed: Celibate - Amber Bird | Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amberbird.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/13\/not-ashamed-celibate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Not Ashamed: Celibate - Amber Bird | Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already, please read the introduction post. That will give you context for this page. As my awareness of issues around consent and rape culture grows, my thoughts about being shamed for celibacy have gotten less patient. A lot of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in here is also relevant to all the people who seem to feel, often just because they think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty, that I should hook up with them. Whilst most people have written off my celibacy (or rejection of their come-ons) as an artefact of my religion, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much more complicated than that. However, I no longer feel like explaining myself to anyone. For reasons related to my first paragraph. Previously, my response to people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unhappiness and shaming around my celibacy (or rejection of their advances) has been rooted in disappointment (at their actions and words towards me) and patience. Patiently keeping my mouth shut as they tried to make me feel bad. 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