Sex-positive feminism had its moment – and now it has been replaced by voluntary celibacy | Arwa Mahdawi

From the boysober' trend in the US to the 4B movement in South Korea, more and more heterosexual women are giving up sex

Get thee to a nunnery! Apparently it's the hottest place to be. While we still very much live in a sex-saturated world, voluntary celibacy is having something of a moment. Evidence of this is everywhere. TikTok, for example, is full of videos of young people extolling the virtues of abstaining from sex. Meanwhile, a new Lithuanian romcom called Slow has brought asexuality to the big screen. In South Korea there is a viral 4B" movement, which gets its name from the four types of bi or no": bihon, no heterosexual marriage; bichulsan, no childbirth; biyeonae, no dating; and bisekseu, no heterosexual sexual relationships. In the US, generation Z comedian Hope Woodward has started a boysober" trend, which involves straight young women eschewing dating. Multiple studies show that, around the world, more and more young people seem to be - quite happily - opting out of sex.

Thousands of words have been written about the great sex recession. It's hardly some sort of underground trend. Nevertheless, Bumble, the dating app which once styled itself as a beacon of women's empowerment because heterosexual women had to make the first move, appears to have missed the memo. A few weeks ago the company launched a global advertising campaign the point of which seemed to be to make casual sex great again. A vow of celibacy is not the answer," one billboard read. Thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun," proclaimed another.

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