The Lust Lockdown

It seems as if more single black women are speaking out about sex outside marriage. Three sisters open up about the benefits and struggles of self-restraint.

- Lottie L. Joiner

After going through several unfulfilling relationships, Latrice Collins decided that she would stop having sex. The 38-year-old single mother of a 4-year-old has been celibate for a year and a half now. “I was tired of sex and worrying if I had some disease or would get a yeast infection from the condom, and of being scared if I was pregnant because I didn’t use protection,” says Collins, a Dallas accountant. It was also the emotional aspects of sex that had her saying no. “I’ve had the booty calls and then you wake up with an emptiness of Why did I do that? I don’t want to just have sex for the sake of having sex.” Collins joins thousands of women and men around the country who are waiting for a formal commitment before getting intimate. Celibacy is to refrain from having sex,while abstinence is to voluntarily restrain from sexual intercourse and usually all other sexual activity, including self-pleasure, according to celibrate.org.

The choice to wait until marriage to have sex has gotten mainstream attention in recent years with couples like Russell Wilson and Ciara and OWN stars Flex Alexander and Shanice sharing their decision to be celibate before exchanging vows. DeVon Franklin and Meagan Good even detailed their no-sex journey in their New York Times best-selling 2016 book, The Wait. About 3 percent of Americans are abstinent and 60 percent of those leading a chaste lifestyle are women, according to the Web site waitingtillmarriage.org.

Taking intercourse off the table while dating can be freeing. Collins says it helps her weed out men who may be only out for one thing. But there are times when she does get urges and when that happens she pulls out her vibrator.