Frustrated with hookup culture, Gen Z women are swearing off sex and entering their 'celibacy era'

• Fed up with "dehumanizing" relationships with men, some Gen Z women are taking sex off the table.
• The idea of a nonreligious "celibacy era" or "celibacy journey" is gaining steam on social media.

At the end of 2022, Skylar Lee Blackman quit sex.

The 23-year-old small-business owner in Los Angeles had found herself caught in a cycle of unfulfilling hookups and flings that she said left her feeling unhappy, emotional, and disrespected.

So she decided to take a break — not forever, but long enough to try to heal her past sexual traumas, reevaluate her relationship with men, and establish firmer boundaries for herself and her body. On the first day of 2023, she began her "celibacy journey," which she plans to continue for the rest of the year.

Blackman is one of a growing number of Gen Z women who've decided they're going to take a break from sex, an idea some are dubbing their "celibacy era" or "celibacy journey." For some, it's a statement against casual sex — a middle finger to men who they feel value them only for their bodies. To others, it's a means to recover from bad hookups or bad relationships, especially if they've been layered on top of previous sexual traumas.

For these women, "celibacy is kind of like a return to femininity and tenderness and care and softness that they did not feel safe enough or comfortable enough to feel in their past relationships," Sabrina Flores, a trauma-informed relationship coach, told Insider. "It's not only a total reclamation of bodily autonomy, but also sexual autonomy."

In interviews with four celibate Gen Z women, all told Insider that their choice didn't primarily stem from religious beliefs. Instead, they hoped to reevaluate their relationship with men: a sort of "Dry January" for sex. Some have given themselves a designated timeline for a break — say, six months or a year. Others are simply abstaining until they feel they're ready to experience intimacy again.

The movement has taken off on TikTok, where #celibacyjourney has nearly 40 million views, and videos of women discussing celibacy garner hundreds of thousands of views and hundreds of comments. While some men have posted about it, the majority of posts appear to be from young, heterosexual women — often seeking to address the role that patriarchy and misogyny has played in their sexuality, Flores said.

Some therapists and researchers told Insider that long-term celibacy may not be the healthiest way to cope with negative sexual experiences. But the four women interviewed by Insider said that the experience has shifted their perspective on sex.

"I finally got to a point where I was like, 'I'm done being a toy,'" Blackman told Insider. "I can choose not to give my body to someone, and I can choose to take back my power."

Interest in celibacy is rising as young people turn away from casual sex

There's no doubt about it: Young people are having less sex than they used to. As Insider previously reported, a 2021 study from researchers at Rutgers University and the University at Albany found that 18- to 23-year-olds were having significantly less casual sex than people of the same age were a decade ago. A recent survey of more than 10,000 users of the dating app Bumble found that 34% of respondents were not having sex.

Celebrities are taking part, too. The model Amber Rose said on a podcast that she doesn't "want to have sex," and the actress Julia Fox told Elle in February that she currently has no interest in dating or having sex. ("I feel like knowingly engaging in a heterosexual relationship, you are signing yourself up for an unhealthy dynamic," she said.)

Researchers have posited that the rise in sexlessness could be linked to decreasing alcohol consumption among young people and an increase in time spent on social media. But for the young celibate women interviewed by Insider, it's a direct reaction to feeling oversexualized and undervalued by their male counterparts.

"I can recall when I first began the journey, just feeling like, 'Oh my gosh, all they see is a coochie,'" said Cindy Noir, a 26-year-old entrepreneur and content creator in Dallas. "They don't see my brain, they don't see that I'm funny. They don't see that I'm a whole person outside of what they can get access to."

Noir, who is bisexual, started her celibacy journey at 22, a few years before the conversation kicked off online. She described herself as "in the throes of hooking up" when she became "scared of risking a pregnancy or an incurable STI for people who didn't even value me as a person, really."

So she decided to "shut down shop." While she swore off sex with anyone, regardless of gender, she said she was primarily looking to heal her relationships with men.

Four years on, she's open to having sex again — but she's abstaining until she meets someone who is emotionally available and matches what she's looking for.

She said her celibacy journey has given her a "third eye" when it comes to men, whose reactions often serve as a litmus test on their potential as partners. She's been ghosted, picked on, and — unsuccessfully — coaxed: "I've had men blatantly tell me, 'I can change that,'" Noir said. "That's not a good answer, buddy."

But there have been positives, too. Noir said that celibacy has helped her navigate the dating world "pretty much unscathed," aside from the occasional ghosting.

"That hurt will never amount to the hurt of thinking a guy is trying to be your man … and then you sleep with him, and the next day, he's gone," Noir said. "That pain was for the birds."

The trend has created a market for celibacy coaching

When Jordan Jeppe began her celibacy journey in 2018, there were no videos or hashtags, no online community. It was just her, in the wake of the devastating end of a three-month situationship, looking for a way to heal.

Jeppe, who's 28 and based in Mexico City, largely forwent sex throughout 2018 and 2019. Five months in, she broke her vow with a one-night stand, which she called one of her "greatest lessons." She went on to practice celibacy for eight more months.

It was a time, she told Insider, to focus on figuring out who she was and to reconsider her perception of love. She began having sex again upon meeting her partner of two years, a relationship for which she said she has celibacy to thank.

"I came out of celibacy knowing myself well enough — more than I had ever known myself — to know that I was ready to be in partnership," Jeppe said. "What that looked like was no longer being bitter towards my ex-partners, no longer being jealous, and really having my own hobbies and my own passions in my life."

Now she's become a celibacy coach, offering courses and guidance to women who've begun their own celibacy journeys. For $1,000, clients can register for eight weeks of private, one-on-one sessions. Interest has been so high that Jeppe's been able to make coaching her full-time job, alongside content creation.

"Celibacy can be very empowering. When you pair it with intentionality, you get your power back," said Jeppe, who's currently coaching six women one-on-one and working with a wider community of about 30 through courses and biweekly women's circles. She now has a waitlist for her private sessions.

"It has a way of rippling in every aspect of your life," she said. "It's not just relationships, it's your career, friendships, boundaries — everything in your life begins to shift. You discover that you really are the most powerful being, that your self-worth comes from you and not other people."

Some experts say there are 'more downsides than there are benefits'

Emily Jamea, a Houston-based therapist with a doctorate in sexology, said she hasn't yet seen much interest from clients looking to go celibate. But she's been educating herself on the "celibacy era" trend, to which she sees more downsides than benefits.

She's not opposed to someone taking sex and relationships off the table for a little while to help heal, she said. But she feels that trying to build a more meaningful life with a vow of long-term celibacy is "very misguided."

"This may be sort of an unpopular opinion, but this whole thing makes me profoundly sad," Jamea said. "That's not really something I would advise the average person to do."

In some cases, Jamea said, people can turn to celibacy because the sex they're having or have had is so bad or unhealthy that they see quitting cold turkey as their only option. In others, they're trying to avoid the heartache that can come from losing a meaningful relationship — but they're also missing out on the joys of having one.

"Those feelings are part of the human condition," Jamea said. "There's such an emphasis on feeling good that we want to ignore the painful aspects of the human condition and the spectrum of human emotion. I don't think that's healthy."

"When women say, 'I don't want anything to do with men,' they're giving up an opportunity," agreed the biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, who's studied sex and dating for decades and is the chief science advisor for Match.com. "They've got very little to lose, and if they handle it properly, a great deal to win. I mean, they could win life's greatest prize, which is an amazing partner."

Celibacy advocates argue that they're not trying to avoid relationships altogether, but are instead resetting from interactions that have left them feeling emotionally drained, as a way to build better boundaries in looking for a new partner down the road.

Jeppe said that many women come to her for that reason.

"Whether it's a breakup, a fling that has ended, or a heartbreak," Jeppe said, "they're often seeking answers to heal themselves — so they not only don't have to experience that pain again, but they don't have to put themselves in situations that maybe weren't set up to be successful in the beginning."

That was the experience of Cailin Easely, a 23-year-old content creator and small-business owner from Texas.

Easely — who isn't a client of Jeppe's — began her celibacy journey in January. Prior to her decision, she said, she was almost constantly in relationships; if she wasn't, she was likely hooking up or having "sexual conversations or exchanging pictures."

It was an attempt to feel fulfilled, she told Insider, but it never really worked. She felt more lusted after than loved, she said, and it was time to try something new.

"I got to a point where I was constantly being disappointed and let down and feeling all those negative feelings that came from having these interactions," Easely said. "Knowing I'm still not being fulfilled, and I'm still not being valued, I was like, 'I have to do something differently, because I'm not happy.'"

Easely hasn't set a deadline for her celibacy journey to end. She's considering later this year or early next year, "but it would take a whole lot. Because this has to be a person that really does add to me."

Like Easely, the other celibate women interviewed by Insider said that they remain interested in someday finding a partner and establishing a relationship. Celibacy, they said, gives them the chance to find a person who respects their boundaries and accepts that sex is off the table — at least for now.

"That is a superpower that I think more and more women are beginning to realize," Noir said. "I didn't have to give up my body to somebody to find out how they really feel about me."