Back in about 2009, my girlfriend of the time recommended me a book that had the best or worst title I ever did see: ‘’I Kissed Dating Goodbye’ by Joshua Harris. It was a Christian work, and at the core of it was the idea that society expects us to couple up, to spend as little time single as possible, and that from fairly early teens, people get into a string of unsuccessful relationships until they find the right one to be in.

It’s a contentious book, and understandably attracts mockery. It’s not as anti-romantic as it sounds, but its diet of group dates - never dating without a group of friends present - and spending next-to-no time as just the two of you until marriage are sure out of step with modern dating practices. Anyway, the book harbingered doom for our relationship, and I haven’t been in one since.

I’d already considered resigning from dating a few times. I’ve never enjoyed being in a relationship, despite my relationships being with some wonderful people. I love the time before the relationship, the delicious tension of not knowing whether they return your affection. Confessing your love really feels like a confession. But any time I’ve made it through that and had a significant other I’ve found the situation alarming and not at all appealing. Overwhelmingly, relationships have been long distance, seeing the friend sporadically, or have been short. My longest in which I saw the person every day was 23 days.

So I counted myself celibate, for years. I found a wonderful book in an Oxfam, that could almost have been left there for me, as it precisely matched topics I liked: A New Song: Celibate Women in the First Three Christian Centuries, by Jo Ann McNamara. It got into the merits of monastic celibacy, and how in the very earliest days of the church, becoming a nun was (1) a holy devotion and (2) one of the best ways for a woman to gain independence and power. That may sound odd, as nuns are famously hierarchical and given plenty of obligations, but they were free of the demands for sex and child-rearing, could make some decisions for themselves and could own property. And becoming a nun was a choice, while marriage was, functionally, being sold as property from father to husband. Out of those options, choice seemed more liberating. Choosing to serve God was not such a small calling

Later, I learned about asexuality and it gave me a very different model for my own self and heart. Going by some studies, 1% of the population is asexual. That is, they have no appetite for sex. To them, the idea of having sex is not a turn-on. This was a revelation! It had never really struck me that sexuality was something I lacked, but my lack of sex-havery suddenly made sense to me, not as discipline, but as lack of desire. I have been offered sex on a plate - or at least in beds - by a range of people and genders, but I honestly never fancied it The idea I was asexual made sense to me of it all.

The third book that helped me understand was ‘’Come As You Are’ by Emily Nagoski, which discusses the sexuality of cis women in particular - my housemate Kirsten thought it might help me know more about what I did and didn’t have, it terms of desire. The book rules out the idea that humans have a ‘sex drive’ that operates on a similar level to hunger. Sexual desire, it suggests, is more like curiosity. It may burn hot with frustration, but no-one ever died of it. Sexual desire should be looked at as having two distinct parts: an accelerator and a brake. If you have some sexual dysfunction, it might mean you haven’t pressed the accelerator, meaning the things that get your juices flowing aren’t there yet, or it might mean your brake is on - i.e. some part of you is refusing to proceed. Something is stopping or blocking you, rather than you not starting.

I came through that book interested and better-informed, but sufficiently satisfied that I don’t have that desire for sex. It’s not that my desire is blocked and frustrated. It’s just absent, and I’m content with that. I also like that the title ‘Come As You Are’ is really Biblical-sounding, and I think it’s sound advice in Christ as well as the bedroom. Don’t wait until you’re different, don’t dress up in formality, don’t conceal with politeness or pretence before coming to God, or before coming full stop. Come as you are. For me that means as a slightly portly non-binary asexual with a questionable haircut. I’m civil, but I don’t conceal that behind cishet smartness. Be yourself before God, and be yourself in the sheets, unless you’d rather dress up.

All in all, I will leave the sex-having to you, dear listeners: the experts, the professionals and the enthusiastic amateurs.