OK. You write about your fear of being left and your interest in marrying practically every guy you've ever met. Have you ever slept with a guy you didn't fantasize about marrying?
Certainly I have slept with guys who I knew wouldn't marry me. And I have slept with guys I really didn't like very much but they were there and they found me attractive.
But even the guys you didn't like very much -- did you want them to keep liking you?
Yes, I did. I wanted them to keep wanting to have something to do with me, because it would make me feel like I was a better person.
Is it your belief that every woman goes into romantic, sexual or flirtatious encounters with that same level of anxiety about her own self worth?
No. I don't believe every woman goes into it the same way. But I believe the act of sex and the act of separation after sex causes a woman to feel attached, and she can respond to that in different ways. She can try to do like Carrie Bradshaw and have sex like a man, without attachment, or she can try to hold on to the man. I tried it both ways and found that for me, trying to have sex like a man didn't work; I still felt attached. And even in those times, like with Tom, where the man was willing to stay with me and wanted to marry me -- I had a sense that our relationship was based on the wrong foundation: that I had slept with him too soon and that we wouldn't be able to have the kind of real love that I wanted. But I didn't know how to change things once we had started having sex. [Someone once said to me], "Well you can't just deny a man sex!" The message to me as a single woman having had sex too early in relationship was that if I stepped back, it meant I was somehow denying the man.
It seems that a lot of your ideas -- about denying a man -- put a lot of focus on pleasing a guy, getting him to stay with you. How much are you focused on pleasing the man and how much are you focused on pleasing yourself?
I would say that chastity is really about pleasing the other person and yourself at the same time. I was, as you say, focused on pleasing men, but I was also very narcissistic -- I had simply tied sex up with my self-image and thought, "If a man is not going to necessarily stay with me, then at least he can show me I am valuable in some sense by having sex with me." I was confused and sought the advice of people and magazines and television shows and movies that said, when in doubt, just put yourself out there, make yourself sexually available, and if someone you find attractive thinks you're attractive, then go for it and hope that love comes.
You write about lots of plans to get yourself married, including taking the advice of television shows and movies. Since you see chastity as a way to meet your soul mate, isn't it possible that this just another in your long line of schemes to get hitched?
That's a great question. The real elephant in the middle of room with regard to my book is the fact that I never discuss what is going to become of me if I don't get married. The reason why is because as I was writing, I didn't want to think of what would become of me if I didn't get married. It was too frightening to imagine.
Yes, I've read on your blog that you used to think you'd kill yourself if you didn't get married.
It's terrible to think that I used to feel that way. But whereas before I was trying to control my relationships with other people, now I'm just trying to control my life: who I am, how I express myself to others. And I have a greater sense of purpose in life, so that whatever I do with my time is the best thing to do in terms of leaving the world a better place than when I found it.
So I do have a hard time imagining myself at age 40, 50, 60 not being married -- and when I think forward that way, that is scary. But if I look backward where I was three years ago, 10 years ago, I see that my life has really been getting better in so many ways. I want a man's heart. But I feel like I'm doing everything I can to make my own heart bigger, so that I'm not gonna be some bitter old spinster, jaded and hating the world.
And if you never get married you're committed to not having sex for the rest of your life?
I am committed because I believe that, as Christopher West said, when you have sex outside of marriage, you're telling lies with your body. And I can tell the truth with my body to people all day just by giving them love. I can spend time with my friends, I can volunteer, I can actually try to be nice to people at my work. And all these things are very truthful, and I'm getting a lot more pleasure and happiness and joy than I would if I were just jumping into bed with some guy who didn't value me enough to say vows.
Do you want children?
I've never really wanted children. With my parents having divorced when I was a kid, I never had a fervent desire to have children. I was afraid of not being a good mother. I have to say now because of my faith -- and you can hear me swallowing here -- I don't believe in using contraception. What I would hope is if I do marry someone I love, that in being loved by him I will feel more confident in my abilities to be a good mom. I'm certainly better mother material now than I was five or 10 years ago. God willing, my heart will change more, and I'll want kids more, when opportunity comes.
As someone who says she doesn't want to have children, I find it odd that you have felt comfortable tossing the word "childless" around as an epithet at some of your on-line feminist blogging adversaries.
Can I apologize for that? It's Christmastime and it's a good time to apologize. I really am sorry because it's not right to toss that as an epithet. If I wanted to make a comment, I could say that it's easy for someone who doesn't have kids to make generalizations about people who have kids. But to just toss around "childless" like it's some kind of pejorative is wrong.
Can I make a comment that it's easy for someone who doesn't have sex to make generalizations about people who do have sex?
Yes! You can make that comment and I will accept that comment.
About the writer
Rebecca Traister is a staff writer for Salon Life.
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