drawbacks to celibacy

In keeping with the sex and babies theme from a couple weeks ago, I present to you my thoughts on the drawbacks to celibacy:

- Insecurity when you are dating someone. Some questions that plagued me include: Is he here just out of obligation? Is he thinking about (or going to) someone else? When will he get tired of waiting? Does he take me, and our relationship, seriously, or am I just a stop-gap?

- Not knowing where to draw the line. Sex is out of the question, but there's a whole lot that happens before sex. What else is out of the question? Problem is, there is no real answer to this, because every person you ask will give you a different answer. A lot of folks tend to try to figure it out as they go along, and inevitably when you aren't sure of something, you end up 'doing' more than you would if you had guidelines that you could stick to. This leads to guilt, all kinds of guilt, because you assume you crossed the line, wherever it was...

- Feeling self-consciousness around peers. The older you get, the harder it is to find fellow virgins. Not fitting in, not being understood (this gets worse as you get older, esp. in college) and also not being able to relate to an important aspect of your peers can get really challenging, especially when you reach the point where most folks feel comfortable making assumptions.

- Feeling tremendously self-consciousness the first time you're with someone. Lots of folks do end up having sex at some point. Sometimes abstaining is a clever way of hiding your insecurity and/0r low self esteem. So when it's time to do the deed, especially if you're with someone more experienced than you, there can be a lot of questions that get in the way at first. Am I doing this right? Am I letting him/her down? Is he/she being reminded of a past lover?

Now, with all that said, I'd sure take some insecurities and self-doubt over tremendous heartache, self-loathing and 'complications' ANY day of the week. Abstinence was definitely the right choice for me.