Waiting for sex: A 12-month experiment in abstinence

    Listen
    (Illustration by Tony Auth)

    (Illustration by Tony Auth)

    Would you voluntarily give up sex for a full year? One woman did and decided to share her story with The Pulse. 

    Waiting can make us very impatient. But even more so when anticipating something that is key to our human nature.

    Some years ago, Lin Myers Jovanovic, a professor of psychology, sex researcher and therapist, decided to forgo sex for 12 months as a personal experiment. Now married and living in the Sierra Nevada in California, Lin reflected on her year of abstinence.

    She had just come out of a bad breakup and decided to put her mind and body to the test.

    “Sex being so powerful to me and such a driving force felt like something I needed to examine away from the way my physical body wanted me to do it and that needed me to stop,” she said.

    The first couple of months weren’t much of a struggle but as the year went on, her abstinence experiment became a challenge.

    “I remember that I was starting to wait and anticipate about what it would be like, who it would be with. Trying to keep my body from pushing me into ending my year prematurely.”

    When the year was up, Myers Jovanovic said nothing had changed in the overall pleasure of sex, but rather in the way she looked at sex.

    “It was beautiful and wonderful and powerful and exciting,” she said. “It just changed my perception of where it fit into my life.”

    Click on the yellow audio icon above to hear the full story.

    WHYY is your source for fact-based, in-depth journalism and information. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on financial support from readers like you. Please give today.

    Want a digest of WHYY’s programs, events & stories? Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

    Together we can reach 100% of WHYY’s fiscal year goal