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Thank you for the i.
Celibacy, by definition, means no sex. So the OP question os: Do people who don’t have sex have more sex than anyone else?
Now, I knew celibacy has an older definition, so I went to dictionary.com to cite it here. It says this:
Usage Note: Historically, celibate means only “unmarried” its use to mean “abstaining from sexual intercourse” is a 20th-century development. But the new sense of the word seems to have displaced the old, and the use of celibate to mean “unmarried” is now almost sure to invite misinterpretation in other than narrowly ecclesiastical contexts. Sixty-eight percent of the Usage Panel rejected the older use in the sentence He remained celibate [unmarried], although he engaged in sexual intercourse.
G. Nome, if this is what you meant, why did you use the term celebate in the OP title?
So…What’s the correct word for unmarried people who have sex? Is single OK? If so, does it mean that “single” implies that the person so called engages in sex? Or is it more generic?
If “celibate” means “not having sex”, does it mean someone who is firmly decided not to have sex (like a monk) or could it be used for someone who would like to have some but is temporarily out of luck?
Also, does celibate as meaning only unmarried has fallen out of use only in the US, or also in the UK?
Until know, I always understood celibate as meaning “unmarried”, sex or not, and my dictionnary translates it that way, that’s why I’m asking…
“What’s the correct word for unmarried people who have sex?”
Hmmmm.
Fornicators?
Is there a distinction to be drawn between virginity and celibacy? Are they the same thing or not? The idea of celibacy to me implies choice. Someone who has had sex once or many times chooses to abstain. (For the purposes of this question I’d define sex as necessarily involving a connection with another human being.) Virgins don’t make this specific choice.
My subject line was designed to attract attention, I must admit, although at the same time I had the intention to define sex solely as pleasure and not as something requiring intimacy with other people.
Since you agree that “celibate” designates those who choose not to have sex, then the original question becomes “Do people who choose not to have sex have more sex (than anyone else)?”
The answer should be obvious to the meanest intelligence.
The solution to the puzzle “is virginity the same as celibacy” is also painfully obvious for anyone who has the wit and skill necessary to open a dictionary. Check Merriam-Webster.
Virginity: the state of a person who has not engaged in sexual intercourse.
Celibacy: abstention from sexual intercourse
One can be celibate but not a virgin.
[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 11-29-2001 at 04:25 PM]
I don’t know. Maybe this is something only women can understand. And then only some women.
You have very nice shirts Arnold.
I think I may have figured out the answer to the question I asked a few posts back:
“I’ve also never really understood the feelings heterosexual guys have for male rocks stars as opposed to the ones the female fans have. Take Curt Cobain for instance. How would a male Nirvana fan’s enthusiasm for Cobain be different from his girlfriend’s? How could it be fanatical and yet exclude any reference to Cobain’s sex appeal and style?”
Just formulating the question seems to have provided me with a possible answer and it relates to the reason women’s magazines generally have pictures of women on the cover. Most women don’t look at these models through lesbian eyes. They look at them because they want to be like them. They want to know what it takes to be a desirable woman. They learn and ideally, if they could, they would be exactly like them. When men go to an Eagles concert, say, most of them aren’t lusting after Glen Frey or Don Henley. They’re learning why women like Glenn Frey and Don Henley. Am I right or not?