Category: spirituality

The Girl Who

TheGirlWhoLeave a comment

1 am Kerry.

The girl who was never really seen.

The girl who learned to read a room before she learned to read a book.

The girl who knew when to be quiet, when to disappear, when to hold her breath and wait for the storm to pass.

The girl who experienced things no child should ever have to live through.

The girl who learned that sometimes the people who should protect you are the people who hurt you.

The girl who grew up too quickly, The girl who learned to cope, to adapt, to make herself small, to survive.

The girl who carried pain that wasn’t hers to carry, and learned to keep going anyway.

The girl who, later in life, found herself in relationships that were unsafe, where love became control,

where kindness could turn to cruelty, and the people she trusted again chose their own needs over her safety.

The girl who learned that home isn’t always a safe place,

and that leaving can be the bravest thing you ever do.

The girl who picked herself up.

The girl who carried herself out.

The girl who learned not to ask for too much, not to need too much, not to expect too much.

The girl who could survive anything.

The girl who turned her pain into purpose.

The girl who fights for every woman to make a stand against those who hurt them.

The girl who believes every woman should be in charge of their own body, their own choices and hold their own agency.

The girl who speaks up when other women are silenced.

The girl who uses her story to support, empower and help other women.

And everyone called her strong.

But nobody knew that strong was simply

what happened when a little girl had no other choice.

Because underneath the woman is still the girl who sometimes wonders

what it might feel like to be someone’s first thought.

The girl who wanted someone to notice when she was tired.

The girl who wanted someone to say,

“You don’t have to be brave today.”

The girl who wanted somewhere safe to put down everything she’s been carrying.

The girl who wanted arms around her that didn’t eventually let go.

The girl who wanted to be loved

without having to be so strong all the time.

The girl who wanted to know what it felt like to be rescued, without having to fall apart first.

She didn’t want saving because she was weak.

She wanted to be held because she had been holding herself for far too long

And now, when I look back at her, I don’t see a girl who was broken.

I see the girl who survived

The girl who kept going even when nobody knew how hard going was.

But perhaps she deserves more than survival.

Perhaps she deserves to know what it feels like when somebody else stays.

When somebody else holds on.

When somebody else looks at her and decides,

“T’ve got you.”

Maybe every girl out there is a girl who doesn’t need rescuing, but needs somebody to notice.

A girl who needs to be loved.

A girl who needs to be held.

A girl who needs someone just to hold out their hand and say, “I’ve got you”

Because in each and every one of us, there is

‘A Girl Who.’

We’ve all overcome things in our lives that have brought us to where we are now.

And maybe, just maybe, we can stop trying to rescue ourselves and not be ashamed to ever ask for help.

Christianity and Sex: What does the Bible really say about Premarital Sex?

TheGirlWhoLeave a comment

The Christian Sex Debate Nobody Wants to Have

From premarital sex and sexual compatibility to fantasies, fidelity, and whether God really cares what happens in the bedroom.

Try Before You Buy? Does Christian sexual morality still make sense in 2026?

Let’s talk about sex.

More specifically, let’s talk about Christianity and sex.

Because there is something rather fascinating about the relationship between the two.

Christianity has a lot to say about love, marriage, fidelity, temptation, desire, self-control and sexual morality. And yet, for something that is such a fundamental part of being human, sex can still be one of those subjects that Christians find incredibly difficult to talk about openly.

And perhaps that is why I wanted to write this.

Not to attack Christianity, not to tell Christians what they should or shouldn’t believe and certainly not to suggest that there is only one way to be a Christian.

I am a Christian woman myself.

I have been married. I have been divorced. I have experienced love, heartbreak, intimacy and betrayal and as someone who has studied therapy and the psychosexual side of relationships, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what actually makes relationships work.

My own beliefs around sex are fairly simple.

I believe intimacy should mean something, I believe commitment matters, I believe trust matters, I believe kindness matters, I believe consent matters and I believe that when you become intimate with somebody, you are stepping into something that can be incredibly vulnerable for both people.

However, does that necessarily mean we have to wait until a wedding ceremony before we can discover whether we are sexually compatible?

Well, that’s where things get interesting.

Does the Bible actually say you can’t have sex before marriage?

The traditional Christian answer is essentially yes.

Catholic teaching is very clear that sexual intercourse belongs within marriage and that unmarried couples are called to live chastely rather than engaging in sexual relations. The Catechism describes marriage as a complete and lifelong mutual gift and says that sexual intimacy becomes part of that marital commitment. (Vatican⁠)

Many conservative Protestant and evangelical churches hold a similar position, interpreting biblical passages concerning sexual immorality, marriage and the “one flesh” relationship as teaching that sex belongs within marriage.

But there is an important distinction. The Bible doesn’t actually contain a simple sentence saying:

“Thou shalt not have sex before marriage.”

The traditional Christian position is an interpretation drawn from a collection of passages and theological principles. The traditional Christian teaching that sex belongs within marriage come from how a number of biblical passages about sexual immorality, marriage and sexual desire and the ‘One flesh’ relationship have been interpreted together, the traditional conclusion is simply very well established. If we look at examples to help us look deeper..

1. 1 Corinthians 6:18–20 – “Flee from sexual immorality”

This is probably one of the strongest passages for the traditional argument.

Paul says:

“Flee from sexual immorality… honour God with your bodies.”

He then connects sexual union with the “one flesh” language from Genesis 2:24. 

The traditional interpretation is essentially:

Sexual union is not morally neutral. Your body belongs to God, and sexual intimacy creates a profound bodily union, so Christians are called to avoid sexual relationships outside God’s intended framework.

The interesting bit is that Paul doesn’t spell out every prohibited scenario. He uses the broad category sexual immorality, which Christians have subsequently interpreted in different ways.

2. 1 Corinthians 7:2 – marriage as the answer to sexual desire

Paul writes:

“Since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.”

He then discusses mutual sexual responsibilities within marriage. 

The traditional interpretation is fairly obvious:

If sexual desire is difficult to control, marriage provides the appropriate context for sexual intimacy.

That’s one of the passages behind the historic Christian teaching that sex belongs within marriage.

But notice something important for your article: Paul is not writing a modern sex-Ed manual. He’s addressing a particular Christian community with particular questions about sexual behaviour, marriage and celibacy.

So we shouldn’t pretend the verse is more explicit than it actually is.

3. 1 Thessalonians 4:3–7 – “avoid sexual immorality”

This is another major passage.

Paul says:

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality…”

He goes on to talk about controlling one’s body “in a way that is holy and honorable” and not wronging or taking advantage of another person. 

Don’t exploit another person.

That fits beautifully with what you’ve been saying about kindness.

The traditional Christian sexual ethic isn’t only about “Don’t have sex.”

It is also about:

self-control + holiness + honour + not taking advantage of another person.

4. Hebrews 13:4 – “the marriage bed”

This is probably one of the most direct verses for the traditional position.

Hebrews says:

“Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure…”

and then contrasts the marriage bed with adultery and sexual immorality. 

Traditional Christians have understandably read this as supporting the idea that sexual intimacy has a particular place within marriage.

Again, though, it doesn’t literally say:

“Unmarried people must never have sex.”

It establishes a strong connection between marriage, sexual purity and the marriage bed.

5. Genesis 2:24 – “the two will become one flesh”

This one is incredibly important because it becomes a foundation for later Christian teaching.

Genesis describes marriage:

“A man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

Then Jesus repeats this teaching in Matthew 19:4–6, and Paul uses it again in 1 Corinthians 6:16 when discussing sexual union. 

This is where the traditional Christian concept becomes really interesting.

Sex isn’t regarded simply as:

two people doing a physical activity.

It is associated with becoming “one flesh.”

So the theological argument becomes:

If sexual union creates a “one flesh” relationship, shouldn’t that union belong within the covenant of marriage?

That’s a theological inference rather than a direct prohibition, but you can see exactly how Christians got there.

6. Matthew 19:4–6 – Jesus connects sex, marriage and “one flesh”

Jesus quotes Genesis when discussing marriage and divorce.

He says:

“The two will become one flesh.”

And then:

“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Again, Jesus isn’t specifically answering the question:

“Can an unmarried couple have sex?”

He’s talking about marriage and divorce.

But Christian theology has connected these passages together to develop the idea that sexual union belongs within the permanent marital relationship.

7. Ephesians 5:3 – “among you there must not be even a hint…”

Paul writes that there should not be:

“sexual immorality, or any kind of impurity…” among Christians.

This passage is particularly interesting because Paul places sexual behaviour alongside greed, obscenity, foolish talk and impurity.

So again, the emphasis isn’t simply biological.

It’s about character and how someone lives.

8. Colossians 3:5 – “put to death… sexual immorality”

Paul again tells Christians to put away:

“sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires…”

This becomes part of the traditional Christian argument that Christians are expected to exercise self-control over sexual desire, rather than allowing desire to dictate behaviour.

Christianity isn’t necessarily saying:

“Don’t have sexual desires.”

It’s saying:

“Your desires don’t have to control your actions.”

That’s a very different proposition.

9. Matthew 5:27–28 – Jesus and lust

This is the famous passage where Jesus says:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

This is important because Christianity’s sexual ethic isn’t confined to physical behaviour. Jesus moves the conversation towards intention, desire and the inner life and that is exactly why Christian debates about pornography, masturbation and sexual fantasies become so complicated.

The question becomes:

What happens inside our minds as well as what we physically do?

 “When people say the Bible teaches that sex belongs within marriage, they aren’t pulling that belief out of thin air. There is a substantial biblical foundation for the traditional Christian interpretation however, there is also a difference between saying the Bible contains a number of passages from which this teaching is derived and saying the Bible contains one simple sentence explicitly prohibiting all sex before marriage.”

That doesn’t make the traditional interpretation meaningless. It simply means that interpretation matters and Christians have been interpreting Scripture for centuries.

There isn’t one giant Christian committee sitting somewhere deciding what every Christian in the world must believe about sex.

There are Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, evangelicals, progressive Protestants and many other traditions.

And… they don’t all agree.

Even the Church of England acknowledges that there are differences within Christianity over relationships, sexuality and family life, and its Living in Love and Faith work has deliberately brought together biblical, theological, historical, scientific and lived-experience perspectives. (Church of England⁠)

Perhaps that’s one of the beautiful things about faith.

We can believe deeply without necessarily believing identically.

So why does traditional Christianity put sex inside marriage?

I actually think Christians deserve a fair hearing here.

Because the traditional Christian argument isn’t simply:

“Sex is dirty.”

In fact, it is almost the opposite.

The traditional argument is that sex is so powerful that it deserves a meaningful framework around it.

Sex can create emotional attachment.

It can create children.

It can create vulnerability.

It can deepen a relationship.

It can expose parts of us that we don’t show everybody and it can hurt enormously when trust is broken.

Christian marriage is therefore supposed to be more than a legal document.It is intended to be a covenant: a promise of love, commitment, fidelity and mutual giving.

The Catholic Catechism describes marital sexuality as part of the total gift spouses make to one another, rather than something merely biological. (Vatican⁠)

And I actually understand that…I really do.

Because when you have experienced what happens when somebody breaks a commitment, you understand that fidelity isn’t just a word. It matters.

But what happens when the world changes?

This is where I think Christians need to have an honest conversation. We don’t live in the same society that existed hundreds or thousands of years ago.

People marry later.

People date differently.

People live together before marriage.

People meet through apps.

People form relationships across countries.

..and perhaps most importantly, sex is more accessible than it has ever been.

You can literally meet someone, message them, flirt with them, exchange photographs and potentially begin an affair without leaving your bedroom.

Technology has changed the landscape of relationships and yet our desire for love, intimacy and connection hasn’t changed very much at all.

British attitudes have also changed dramatically over recent decades.

Research from the National Centre for Social Research shows a significant religious divide in attitudes towards premarital sex, but also demonstrates how much more permissive British society has become. In British Social Attitudes data, 93% of people identifying as non-religious regarded premarital sex as rarely wrong or not wrong at all, compared with 82% of those identifying as Anglican or Roman Catholic and 66% of people identifying as other Christian. (National Centre for Social Research⁠)

So Christianity hasn’t disappeared from the conversation.

But it is now having that conversation in a very different culture.

Try before you buy?

That phrase sounds awful when we’re talking about human beings.

People aren’t cars, People aren’t houses, People aren’t handbags and relationships certainly shouldn’t be treated like Amazon purchases with a fourteen-day return policy, but underneath the rather cheeky phrase is a genuine question.

Should sexual compatibility be something we discover before making a lifelong commitment?

Because we encourage people to discover compatibility in so many other areas.

Do you want children? Do you want to live in the same place? Do you have compatible financial values? Do you communicate well? Do you want the same kind of lifestyle? Can you resolve conflict? Do you share similar values?

Why, then, is sexual compatibility sometimes treated as the one area where we shouldn’t find out anything until after we’ve made the commitment?

The traditional Christian answer is that sex isn’t simply another compatibility test. It’s part of the covenant.

I understand that.

But as somebody who has explored relationships and sexuality from a therapeutic perspective, I also think we have to acknowledge something uncomfortable:

Two people can love each other deeply and still be sexually incompatible.

…and sadly love doesn’t always magically fix that.

What if the sex doesn’t grow?

We’ve all heard the advice:

“Wait for the right person. If you love each other enough, the sex will develop.”

Sometimes it probably does. Sometimes couples learn each other’s bodies.

They communicate.

They become more confident.

They discover what works.

They become safer with one another and the sexual relationship grows alongside the emotional one.

BUT….. sometimes it doesn’t.

One person may have a much higher libido.

One may want more physical affection.

One may have fantasies the other doesn’t share.

One may be adventurous and the other more reserved.

One may see sex as essential to feeling connected while the other doesn’t.

None of that necessarily means either person is bad.

It means they are human beings with different needs and this is why I think sexual compatibility deserves to be discussed without automatically dismissing it as shallow.

Sex isn’t everything, but for many couples, it is something.

What I believe as a Christian woman

This is where I want to make my own position very clear.

I don’t personally believe that a Christian has to follow exactly the same sexual boundaries as every other Christian. We are all individuals with our own minds, and bodies and opinions, and wow isn’t that what makes the world so great!!

Some Christians believe sex should only happen after marriage.

Some Christians believe that sex can be morally acceptable within a deeply committed relationship even if that relationship isn’t formally married.

Some Christians take a much more conservative interpretation of sexual behaviour.

Others are considerably more liberal.

And I think we can have those disagreements without turning on one another.

Personally, I believe commitment matters enormously.

If I were becoming intimate with somebody now, I wouldn’t want it to be casual in the sense of emotionally meaningless.

I would want trust, I would want to know the person, I would want to feel safe, I would want honesty, I would want mutual attraction, I would want emotional connection and I would want to know that if we became intimate, neither of us was treating the other person as disposable.

That, for me, is where my Christianity and my personal values meet.

Not necessarily in a list of sexual positions.

Not in a rulebook.

But in how I treat another human being. So recently for me, I moved away from celibacy and did have intimacy with someone I genuinely looked at and thought.. there was a genuine chance of a future together. 

Because intimacy creates responsibility

I’ve thought about this particularly recently.

When you become intimate with somebody and then that person pulls away, it can leave you sitting with an enormous amount of confusion.

You can find yourself asking: Was it something I did? Did I misread the connection? Did intimacy mean something different to them? Did I become attached? Did they?

Why did it feel close one minute and distant the next?

And whether you’re Christian or not, there is something we need to remember.

There is another human being on the other side of our choices.

That matters….

If you know that intimacy creates vulnerability, then kindness matters. If you know somebody is becoming emotionally attached, honesty matters. If you know you’re not looking for a relationship, communication matters and if you’ve changed your mind, you are still entitled to change your mind.

But you should do so with kindness.

That’s important to me.

Because consent isn’t just about whether somebody agreed to have sex.

A healthy sexual relationship also involves honesty, respect and consideration for the emotional consequences.

Does God ask us to take responsibility for our choices?

I believe Christianity does.

The Bible repeatedly presents human beings as responsible moral agents.

Paul writes in Romans 14:12 that each person will give an account of themselves to God.

Galatians 6:5 speaks about each person carrying their own load.

Christianity’s concept of repentance only really makes sense if our choices matter.

But here’s the beautiful part.

Christianity doesn’t say:

“You must be perfect.”

It says:

“You are responsible for what you do, and when you get it wrong, there is a path back.”

That’s very different from shame and I think that’s something we sometimes lose.

Guilt doesn’t automatically make us better Christians

There is a difference between guilt and shame.

Guilt says:

“I did something I believe was wrong.”

Shame says:

“There is something fundamentally wrong with me.”

Those are not the same thing.

I don’t believe carrying enormous shame about sexuality automatically makes somebody a better Christian.

The Catholic Catechism itself recognises that when assessing personal responsibility, factors including psychological and social circumstances, anxiety, immaturity and habitual behaviour can affect culpability. (Vatican⁠)

Christianity has a concept called grace for a reason.

If the Christian life were simply about never making a mistake, none of us would stand much of a chance.

Are Christians supposed to have vanilla sex?

This might be my favourite question.

Because where exactly does the Bible say that good Christian sex has to be boring? It doesn’t. There isn’t a biblical list saying:

Missionary: yes.

Oral sex: maybe.

Anal sex: absolutely not.

Role play: consult your priest.

Lights on: questionable.

Lights off: definitely holier.

I’m being deliberately ridiculous here because sometimes we talk about Christian sexuality as though God handed humanity a bedroom instruction manual.

The reality is much more complicated.

The Song of Solomon is one of the Bible’s most sensual books, celebrating physical attraction, desire and erotic love.

Christianity isn’t inherently anti-sex.

Traditional Christianity is actually saying something much more interesting:

Sex is good, but it belongs within a particular moral framework.

The disagreement is about what that framework should be.

What about fantasies?

This is another area where Christians disagree.

Jesus’ teaching about lust in Matthew 5:28 has traditionally been interpreted as an important warning about the internal life of desire.

Catholic teaching, for example, places considerable emphasis on purity of heart, self-mastery and the intention behind sexual desire. (Vatican⁠)

But having a sexual thought isn’t necessarily the same thing as acting upon it.

Human beings have imaginations, we have fantasies, we have curiosity, we have desires that sometimes surprise us.

And perhaps the healthier question isn’t:

“Did I have a sexual thought?”

but:

“What do I choose to do with it?”

There is a world of difference between having a fantasy and exploiting another person. There is a difference between imagination and coercion. There is a difference between two consenting adults exploring their sexuality and somebody being pressured into something they don’t want and those distinctions matter.

What about being sexually adventurous within marriage?

Again, Christians disagree.

Some traditions impose considerably more restrictions on sexual behaviour than others.

Catholic teaching, for example, connects marital sexuality with both its unitive and procreative dimensions and places significant limits around what it considers morally permissible. (Vatican⁠)

Other Christians place greater emphasis on mutual consent, love, fidelity, conscience and the absence of harm.

So I don’t think it is fair to say:

“Christian sex must be vanilla.”

Nor is it fair to say:

“Anything goes because you’re married.”

There are Christians on both sides of that conversation.

..and that’s okay. People are allowed to interpret their faith differently. Everything is always down to those two consenting adults.

Catholicism, Protestantism and the importance of context

This is why I think we have to be careful whenever somebody says:

“Christians believe…”

Which Christians?

The Catholic Church has an authoritative Catechism and a very developed theology of sexuality, chastity and marriage.

Protestant Christianity is much more decentralised.

The Church of England is currently continuing its work on relationships, sexuality and gender following the Living in Love and Faith process.

The Methodist Church has also developed its understanding of marriage and relationships over recent years, explicitly acknowledging different understandings within the Church. Its guidance on relationships has described good relationships in terms including commitment, care and mutuality, while recognising that Christians can hold differing convictions. (The Methodist Church⁠)

That doesn’t mean every Protestant church agrees with every other Protestant church.

Quite the opposite and I think that’s worth celebrating rather than fearing.

What about other cultures and religions?

Christianity isn’t the only religion to have a strong sexual ethic.

Islam places significant emphasis on sex within marriage and discourages premarital sexual relationships.

Judaism has its own rich and varied traditions concerning marriage, intimacy and sexual ethics.

Hindu traditions are diverse, with different philosophical and cultural approaches to sexuality, marriage and desire.

Plus secular societies increasingly tend to frame sexual ethics around consent, autonomy, equality, safety and responsibility rather than religious prohibition.

There isn’t one global human consensus about sex.

There never has been.

Cultures develop different answers because sex sits at the intersection of biology, reproduction, family, religion, morality, identity and social organisation.

So perhaps the question isn’t:

“Which culture has the one perfect answer?”

Perhaps the question is:

“What values do we want our sexual relationships to embody?”

What does modern science tell us?

Science can’t tell us whether God considers premarital sex sinful.

That’s a theological question. However science can tell us about sexual health, relationships and the consequences of different forms of education.

The World Health Organization’s current guidance supports comprehensive sexuality education that includes relationships, consent, bodily autonomy, contraception, pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. It says high-quality comprehensive sexuality education can delay sexual initiation and reduce sexual risk-taking while increasing contraceptive use. It also states that abstinence-only programmes are ineffective at preventing early sexual activity and risk-taking. (World Health Organization⁠)

That doesn’t mean Christians shouldn’t teach abstinence.

If a Christian believes abstinence is part of their faith, they should be free to teach and practise it, but education and personal conviction are two different things.

We can teach young people:

“You don’t have to have sex.”

while also teaching:

“If you do become sexually active, you need to understand consent, contraception, sexual health, boundaries, emotional consequences and respect.”

That’s not undermining morality, That’s responsibility.

Does having sex before marriage make you less of a Christian?

This is perhaps the question underneath all of this.

And I would say:

It depends upon what you mean by “less of a Christian.”

If somebody belongs to a Christian tradition that teaches premarital sex is sinful, then having sex outside marriage would be considered contrary to that teaching.

We shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

But does one sexual decision erase somebody’s faith?

Does it mean they no longer love God?

Does it mean they are incapable of being kind?

Does it mean they cannot repent?

Does it mean they are morally inferior to somebody who has never had sex?

I don’t think we can reduce Christianity to a sexual purity scoreboard.

What actually makes somebody a good person?

This is where I keep coming back to character.

You can be sexually inexperienced and still be cruel.

You can be sexually experienced and incredibly compassionate.

You can be religious and unfaithful.

You can be non-religious and deeply committed.

You can be married and betray somebody.

You can be unmarried and treat someone with extraordinary care.

Sexual history tells us something about a person.

But it doesn’t tell us everything.

And certainly not their worth.

Maybe kindness is the missing piece

Perhaps this is the part I most want to emphasise.

Whether you’re Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, atheist, agnostic or anything else, kindness should matter in our sexual relationships.

If you know somebody is vulnerable, be careful with them.

If you know they are developing feelings, don’t deliberately exploit that.

If you know you’re not available for a relationship, be honest.

If you change your mind, communicate.

If you make a mistake, own it….

If you hurt somebody, don’t hide behind technicalities.

and if somebody hurts you, remember that their behaviour doesn’t determine your worth.

That, to me, feels deeply compatible with Christianity.

Because Christianity is not simply about rules.

It is about how we love one another.

Love, sex and the reality of compatibility

I don’t believe that sex should be treated as the most important part of a relationship, but I also don’t believe we should pretend it doesn’t matter.

For some people, physical intimacy is a central expression of love. For others, it is less important. Neither person is necessarily wrong.

The challenge comes when two people have fundamentally different needs and neither feels able to talk about them. That is where communication becomes so important.

Perhaps we need to teach people that sexual compatibility isn’t about finding somebody who performs perfectly. It is about finding somebody with whom you can communicate.

Somebody who listens, Somebody who respects boundaries, Somebody who can tell you what they like without humiliating you for what you like. Somebody who can hear “no” without taking it personally, Somebody who can say “I don’t know” without feeling ashamed.

And somebody who can say:

“Let’s work this out together.”

Would I abstain from sex until marriage?

Personally?

No.

Not at this stage of my life. I’m 43. I’m an adult woman. I understand my values. I understand consequences. I take responsibility for my choices and I don’t think being Christian means I have to hand over my entire decision-making process to somebody else’s interpretation of Scripture.

That doesn’t mean I have no boundaries.

Quite the opposite.

There are things I would only explore with somebody I deeply trusted. There are things I would only do within a secure, committed relationship. There are things I would say no to regardless of how much I loved somebody and there are things I might say yes to because they felt right for me and the person I was with.

Those decisions would be mine.

And I Kerry, would take responsibility for them.

Perhaps that is what being liberated actually means

Being sexually liberated doesn’t have to mean:

“I will sleep with anybody and do anything.”

It can mean:

“I know myself.”

“I know my boundaries.”

“I know my values.”

“I can make an informed decision.”

“I can say yes without shame.”

“I can say no without guilt.”

“I can change my mind.”

“I can take responsibility for the consequences of my choices.”

And perhaps most importantly:

“I can respect somebody else’s humanity while still honouring my own.”

That’s a very different definition of sexual liberation.

So, is the Bible a bedroom rule book?

Maybe that’s the question we should leave ourselves with, because I don’t think Christianity needs to be afraid of conversations about sex.

I don’t think Christians need to be embarrassed about having sexual desires. I don’t think having fantasies automatically makes somebody dirty. I don’t think a person’s sexual history determines their spiritual worth and I don’t think sexual liberation automatically means moral recklessness.

But equally, I don’t think we should dismiss the traditional Christian sexual ethic as old-fashioned nonsense.

There is something profoundly valuable in the Christian insistence on fidelity, commitment, self-control, responsibility and the dignity of another person.

Those are values I can get behind.

The question is whether those values necessarily require exactly the same sexual rules for every Christian and I don’t think we can answer that honestly without acknowledging that Christians themselves disagree.

Maybe there isn’t one answer

Some Christians will wait until marriage.

Some won’t.

Some will believe sex outside marriage is sinful.

Some will believe that committed, loving relationships can have a moral sexual foundation even without marriage.

Some Christians will have very traditional sexual boundaries.

Others will be much more adventurous.

Some will have no problem with fantasies.

Others will feel uncomfortable with them.

Some will believe that particular sexual practices are wrong.

Others will believe that between consenting adults in a committed relationship, those decisions belong to the couple.

And I think we can disagree.

Actually, I think we should be able to disagree.

Because faith is personal.

Morality is personal.

Values are personal.

And ultimately, each of us has to live with our own decisions.

The Christian sex debate nobody wants to have

Perhaps the question isn’t:

“Are Christians allowed to have sex?”

Perhaps it’s:

“What makes sex loving?”

Is it marriage?

Is it commitment?

Is it consent?

Is it fidelity?

Is it responsibility?

Is it emotional safety?

Is it all of those things?

And perhaps the answer isn’t exactly the same for everyone. I can respect the Christian who chooses abstinence. I can respect the Christian who believes deeply that sex belongs within marriage and I can also respect the Christian who has wrestled with Scripture, thought deeply about their faith and reached a different conclusion.

What I don’t think we need is shame.

What I don’t think we need is judgement.

And what I definitely don’t think we need is the idea that somebody’s sexual choices automatically tell us whether they are a “good” or “bad” Christian.

Because perhaps the more important question is not simply what happened in the bedroom.

Perhaps it’s what happened between two human beings.

Was there honesty?

Was there kindness?

Was there respect?

Was there consent?

Was there responsibility?

Was there care?

Was there love?

Those questions matter to me.

Perhaps they should matter to all of us, regardless of what we believe happens after we die because if Christianity teaches us anything, surely one of the most important lessons is this:

We are responsible for how we love one another.

Perhaps that’s where sex, faith and morality meet.

Not in a perfect bedroom.

Not in a list of rules.

Not in shame.

But in love, responsibility, kindness and the choices we make when another human being has trusted us with something vulnerable.

Is Marriage Dead in 2026? Or Have We Just Forgotten How to Love?

TheGirlWhoLeave a comment

As I drive past a wedding dress shop today driving to my studio, I look through the window and think, oh my God. I’m in love.

Not necessarily with a particular dress, not even necessarily with the idea of the wedding itself, but with what those dresses represent.

Love.

Commitment.

Romance.

Two people standing in front of the people they love and saying, I choose you.

Not just today, not just while it feels easy, not just while we agree.

But I choose you.

Perhaps that is why I find myself wondering something that feels increasingly uncomfortable to ask in 2026:

Is marriage dead?

I don’t want to believe it is, Actually, I really don’t.

As a Christian woman, I believe in marriage. I believe in the beauty of making a commitment to another person. I believe in getting married in a church, standing before God and making promises that mean something.

I know not everybody believes the same way and that’s absolutely okay, but what I do wonder about is when we collectively started treating commitment as though it were somehow embarrassing.

When did marriage become just a piece of paper?

When did two people declaring their love, respect, dedication and commitment to each other become something we could dismiss with one sentence?

“It’s only a piece of paper.”

Really?

Because that piece of paper represents a promise.

And perhaps the promise is the bit we’ve forgotten how to value.

We don’t want to settle anymore and that’s a good thing.

Let me be clear about something before anybody starts shouting at me. I am not suggesting that people should stay in unhappy, abusive, neglectful or destructive marriages.

Absolutely not.

For generations, people stayed in relationships they should never have been expected to stay in. Women, in particular, were often financially dependent on their husbands, socially pressured to remain married and told that leaving was shameful.

We have every reason to be grateful that things have changed.

You don’t have to stay somewhere that destroys you. You don’t have to tolerate abuse in the name of commitment. You don’t have to spend your life desperately trying to make something work when the other person is unwilling to meet you halfway.

But somewhere between “I don’t have to settle” and “I don’t have to tolerate anything I don’t like”, I wonder whether we’ve lost something.

The ability to try.

Because there is a difference between settling for someone who isn’t right for you and learning how to love someone who isn’t perfect.

And none of us are perfect.

Not you.

Not me.

Not the person sitting opposite you at dinner.

The statistics tell us something is changing

Marriage hasn’t disappeared.

In England and Wales, there were 231,949 marriages and civil partnerships in 2023, with marriage still overwhelmingly the most common form of legal partnership formation. But the longer-term picture shows that marriage is changing. The number of marriages in England and Wales was 20.8% lower in 2022 than it had been in 1992.

And in 2025, married or civil-partnered people were still the largest legal partnership group among adults aged 18 and over in England and Wales, but their share had fallen from 52.3% in 2015 to 51.1%. At the same time, the proportion who had never married or civil partnered had risen from 32.6% to 34.9%. 

So no, marriage isn’t dead, however it isn’t what it once was, and perhaps that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

People are marrying later. In 2023, the median age at marriage for opposite-sex couples was 34.8 for men and 33.0 for women. More than nine in ten couples marrying in 2021 or 2022 were already living together before marriage. 

We’re taking longer, We’re thinking more carefully, We’re choosing differently, but are we also becoming less willing to work at love?

That’s the question I’m interested in.

When did we become a throwaway culture?

I sometimes wonder whether dating has become a little bit like online shopping.

Swipe.

Match.

Message.

Meet.

Evaluate.

Reject.

Next.

There are always more options.

And when there are always more options, why would I work on the one in front of me?

Maybe there’ll be somebody better.

Maybe somebody more attractive.

Maybe somebody more exciting.

Maybe somebody who doesn’t annoy me.

Maybe somebody who agrees with me more.

Maybe somebody who gives me more butterflies.

And so we keep searching.

But here’s the problem.

Eventually, you can become so obsessed with finding the perfect person that you never learn how to build something imperfect with a real one.

You have one disagreement.

“This isn’t going to work.”

They don’t text in exactly the way you want.

“They’re emotionally unavailable.”

You have a difficult conversation.

“We’re incompatible.”

You sleep together sooner than you intended and suddenly the excitement changes.

“I don’t think I’m feeling it anymore.”

And off we go.

Next…Next….Next.

At what point did people become replaceable?

Whatever happened to wooing somebody?

Maybe I’m a traditionalist, actually, I know I am, but I like romance.

I like getting dressed up for a date, I like putting effort into how I look. I like somebody making an effort with me and no, before anybody says it, I’m not talking about wanting somebody to pay for my dinner.

I’ll happily pay fifty-fifty.

It’s not about getting a free meal.

It’s about effort.

It’s about anticipation.

It’s getting ready and wondering what they’re going to wear.

It’s butterflies in your stomach.

It’s sitting across from someone and talking over each other because you’ve got so much to say.

It’s losing track of time.

It’s that moment when they reach across the table and touch your hand.

It’s smiling when their name appears on your phone.

It’s going home thinking, Oh my God, I really like them.

It’s being giddy.

Perhaps we’ve become so afraid of looking foolish that we’ve stopped allowing ourselves to be romantic.

We don’t want to seem too keen.

Don’t reply too quickly.

Don’t text first.

Don’t show too much interest.

Don’t get attached.

Don’t let them know you like them.

Don’t give them too much power.

Keep your options open.

And suddenly two people who genuinely like each other are both sitting there pretending they couldn’t care less.

What a strange way to fall in love.

The 20-minute coffee date

And this is where modern dating really makes me laugh.

“Let’s just grab a quick coffee.”

Twenty minutes.

Thirty minutes.

Something casual.

Something easy.

No pressure.

No effort.

No risk.

And I understand why people do it.

Dating can be exhausting.

Nobody wants to spend three hours with someone they discover they don’t like. I sometimes wonder whether we’ve become so frightened of wasting our time that we’re not giving people enough time to show us who they are. What can you really learn about somebody in twenty minutes?

You might learn whether they are attractive to you.

You might learn whether conversation flows.

You might get a feeling.

But you probably haven’t seen how they treat the waiter.

You haven’t heard them talk about their childhood.

You haven’t discovered what makes them laugh until they can’t breathe.

You haven’t seen how they respond when something doesn’t go their way.

You haven’t heard their hopes.

You haven’t seen their vulnerability.

You haven’t watched them become comfortable enough to stop performing.

And maybe that’s the problem.

We’re assessing people before we’ve actually met them.

And then there’s sex

This is another area where I think we’ve complicated dating enormously.

Two people meet.

There’s chemistry.

They sleep together.

And suddenly the rules change.

The dopamine rush settles.

The chase disappears.

And instead of asking:

“Who is this person?”

we sometimes start asking:

“Why did they sleep with me so quickly?”

Or:

“Why didn’t they make me wait?”

Or:

“Do they do this with everyone?”

And suddenly we’re judging the person based on the speed at which intimacy happened.

But what about everything else they’ve shown you?

Are they kind?

Are they funny?

Are they honest?

Are they emotionally generous?

Do they listen?

Do they make you feel safe?

Do they have integrity?

Do they show up?

Do they treat people well?

Are they interesting?

Do they make you laugh?

Do they make you feel like yourself?

Why can one decision about sex suddenly erase everything else?

I’m not saying people shouldn’t have boundaries.

Of course they should.

I’m saying that perhaps we’ve become very good at reducing complicated human beings to one decision, one mistake, one night or one moment.

And then we discard them.

The divorce paradox

Here’s the really interesting part.

In England and Wales, the divorce rate actually peaked decades ago.

ONS data shows that divorce numbers reached their highest point in 1993, while the longer-term divorce rate has since declined. In 2023, there were 102,678 divorces, with the divorce rate at 8.6 per 1,000 married men and 8.5 per 1,000 married women. 

So perhaps the story isn’t simply that everyone is getting divorced. It’s more complicated than that. Marriage itself is less common. 

People marry later. 

More people cohabit.

More people remain unmarried.

And when people do marry, they have more legal and social freedom to leave relationships that aren’t working.

That’s progress in many ways.

But perhaps we now have a different problem.

Not “Why can’t I leave?”

But:

“Do I leave too quickly?”

There’s a huge difference.

The other side of the world

I was curious about what this looks like elsewhere too, particularly because so many people who read my work are in America and China.

And what I found was fascinating.

China isn’t some romantic haven where everyone stays together forever.

Quite the opposite.

Marriage rates have been falling significantly there too. In the first half of 2024, 3.43 million couples registered marriages, the lowest first-half figure since 2013. Full-year 2024 registrations subsequently fell by around a fifth, according to reporting based on official Chinese data. Researchers and officials have pointed to factors including the cost of marriage and raising children, economic uncertainty, demographic change and shifting attitudes among younger people. 

Japan is experiencing its own dramatic changes.

Its government has become sufficiently concerned about declining marriage and birth rates that Tokyo has even developed initiatives designed to help people meet potential partners, including an AI-supported matchmaking service. Reuters reported that the initiative was launched against a backdrop of declining marriage rates and a significant number of unmarried middle-aged people and young adults who had never dated. 

And America?

Again, it isn’t a simple story.

The US marriage rate has remained relatively stable over the longer period examined by the Census Bureau, while its divorce rate has declined substantially from 2008 to 2022. 

So we can’t simply point at another country and say, “They value relationships more than we do.”

Human beings are complicated.

Culture matters.

Economics matter.

Religion matters.

Gender expectations matter.

Housing matters.

Childcare matters.

Dating apps matter.

And people’s individual experiences matter.

But there is one thing that seems to be happening across many developed societies:

Marriage and long-term relationships are changing.

Have we confused standards with perfection?

This is where I think we need to be really honest with ourselves. Having standards is healthy, having boundaries is healthy, knowing what you won’t tolerate is healthy, however there is a danger in turning a list of standards into a search for a flawless human being.

Because eventually, somebody will disappoint you.

They’ll say the wrong thing.

They’ll have a bad day.

They’ll misunderstand you.

They’ll irritate you.

You’ll irritate them.

You’ll disagree.

You’ll have different needs.

You’ll have an argument.

And that’s when the relationship actually begins.

Because the first few months of dating aren’t really a test of whether you can get along. You’re both on your best behaviour.

The real test is what happens when the fantasy meets reality.

Do we communicate?

Do we apologise?

Do we listen?

Do we compromise?

Do we seek counselling?

Do we learn about attachment?

Do we understand each other’s wounds?

Do we take responsibility for our own behaviour?

Do we try to become better partners?

Or do we simply decide that the person is defective and start looking for a replacement?

What if the person isn’t the problem?

This is something I think we desperately need to talk about.

Sometimes the person in front of you isn’t wrong for you.

Sometimes you aren’t ready for what a healthy relationship requires.

Maybe you’ve spent years protecting yourself.

Maybe intimacy scares you.

Maybe you’re avoidant.

Maybe you’re anxious.

Maybe you’ve never learned how to communicate.

Maybe conflict sends you running.

Maybe you expect rejection.

Maybe you’ve never seen a healthy relationship modelled.

Maybe you don’t know how to receive love.

Maybe you’ve never learned how to give it properly.

And none of those things make you broken.

But they might mean you have work to do.

And imagine if instead of saying:

“This relationship isn’t working.”

we sometimes said:

“What can I learn from this?”

What if we went to therapy?

What if we learned to communicate?

What if we confronted our own patterns?

What if we became a better version of ourselves, not because somebody demanded it, but because we genuinely wanted to love somebody well?

That isn’t settling.

That’s growth.

Perhaps we’ve become too good at protecting ourselves

We talk a lot about self-protection now.

Protect your peace.

Protect your energy.

Don’t let anybody disturb your peace.

Cut them off.

Block them.

Walk away.

And sometimes that advice is absolutely necessary.

But if we take it too literally, we can end up building such a fortress around ourselves that nobody can get in.

And then we wonder why we’re lonely.

You cannot have deep intimacy without vulnerability.

You cannot have commitment without risk.

You cannot build a lifelong relationship without occasionally being disappointed.

And you certainly cannot love somebody without sometimes being hurt.

The answer isn’t to avoid every possible source of pain.

The answer is learning how to recognise the difference between normal relationship difficulty and genuine harm.

One requires communication.

The other may require leaving.

We need to know the difference.

I still believe in the wedding dress

So when I drive past that wedding dress shop and look at those beautiful dresses, I don’t feel silly for getting a little bit emotional.

I still believe in it.

I believe in the romance.

I believe in getting dressed up.

I believe in flowers.

I believe in walking down the aisle.

I believe in holding someone’s hand and promising to stand beside them.

I believe in marriage.

And as a Christian, I believe there is something deeply meaningful about making that commitment before God.

But I also believe the wedding is the easy bit.

The photographs are easy.

The flowers are easy.

The dress is easy.

The champagne is easy.

The Instagram post is easy.

The marriage is the work.

It’s waking up beside someone when you’re annoyed with them and choosing kindness anyway.

It’s having the difficult conversation.

It’s saying sorry.

It’s forgiving.

It’s asking for help.

It’s learning.

It’s changing.

It’s laughing when things go wrong.

It’s holding each other when life becomes unbearable.

It’s choosing each other again and again.

Not because you have to.

Because you want to.

Maybe marriage isn’t dead. Maybe patience is.

Perhaps marriage isn’t dead in 2026.

Perhaps patience is.

Perhaps we’ve become so accustomed to instant gratification that we’ve forgotten that the most beautiful things in life often take time.

We want instant chemistry.

Instant certainty.

Instant compatibility.

Instant answers.

Instant happiness.

And the moment something becomes difficult, we’re told there is another option waiting around the corner.

But what if there isn’t?

What if the person you walked away from was actually wonderful?

What if the argument could have been repaired?

What if the relationship could have grown?

What if you hadn’t needed another person?

What if you needed to become a different version of yourself?

And I’m not saying this because I think everybody should stay in every relationship. I’m saying it because I think we should become more honest about our own behaviour. Before you decide they’re the problem, ask yourself what part you played. Before you decide they’re not right for you, ask yourself whether you’ve actually given the relationship a chance. Before you walk away, ask yourself whether you’re walking away because the relationship is genuinely wrong for you…

or because intimacy is frightening.

Because commitment is frightening.

Because vulnerability is frightening.

Because you’ve been hurt before.

Because another person cannot give you the perfect relationship you imagined and before you start looking for somebody better, ask yourself whether you’re actually capable of loving the person in front of you.

Because perhaps the greatest tragedy of modern dating isn’t that there are no good people left.

Perhaps it’s that good people are finding each other and then throwing each other away before they’ve had the chance to become something extraordinary.

And maybe, just maybe, we need to start trying again.

We need to court again.

We need to woo again.

We need to make an effort again.

We need to put our phones down and talk.

We need to dress up.

We need to flirt.

We need to hold hands.

We need to let ourselves get butterflies.

We need to stop pretending we don’t care.

We need to learn how to disagree without destroying everything.

We need to stop expecting perfect people.

And perhaps we need to remember that love isn’t just a feeling that happens to us.

Love is something we participate in.

Something we nurture.

Something we protect.

Something we build.

Something we choose.

And maybe that’s why I still look at wedding dresses and think:

Oh my God.

I’m in love.

Not because I believe marriage guarantees happiness.

But because I still believe there is something incredibly beautiful about two imperfect human beings looking at each other and saying:

“Out of everyone in this world, I choose you.”

And then waking up the next morning…

and choosing each other again.

And again.

And again.

Maybe marriage isn’t dead.

Maybe we just need to remember why we wanted it in the first place.

Late Autism diagnosis in Women; Why Autistic women are so often misdiagnosed

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I was speaking to a psychiatrist today, and it got me thinking about how many women reach their 30s and 40s before anyone realises they are autistic.

For decades, their difficulties may have been labelled as anxiety.

Depression, PTSD, being “too sensitive”, Being “overly emotional”, Being difficult, being unable to cope and sometimes, they are simply given antidepressants and sent on their way.

“Why is everything so overwhelming?”

Not just:

“Are you anxious?”

But:

“What has your relationship with the world, people and change always been like?”

Not just:

“Why can’t you move on from this relationship?”

But:

“What exactly is your brain trying to process about what happened?”

Because sometimes the woman who has spent her entire life wondering why she finds everything so much harder than everybody else isn’t broken.

She isn’t lazy, she isn’t dramatic, she isn’t anxious, she isn’t a recluse and She isn’t too sensitive.

She may simply have spent decades trying to navigate a world that wasn’t designed around the way her brain works and for some women, an autism diagnosis in their 30s or 40s isn’t discovering something new.

It’s finally being given an explanation for a lifetime of things that never quite made sense, and a final chance to understand their selves as a whole. 

For me personally, getting my own diagnosis was a long and difficult process. For a long time, I had essentially been written off as ADHD, but I always felt that there were parts of me that didn’t quite fit that explanation. I felt that so many of my traits were much more aligned with autism, but getting someone to actually look at the bigger picture wasn’t straightforward. 

There were several assessments, a lot of questioning and a lot of trying to make sense of things I’d experienced throughout my life. Then, finally, I got my autism diagnosis, and I cried, because these two Doctors understood everything and said what I was experiencing was just ‘My way’ and that I had been putting up a fight all my life, to conform to a Neurotypical world. 

What surprised me most wasn’t just receiving the diagnosis itself, but how much my understanding of autism changed afterwards. I had always associated the word “autism” with disability and, if I’m completely honest, I had my own stigma around it. It wasn’t until my son was diagnosed that I started looking at autism differently and becoming much more accepting of it. 

Then, when I began to understand my own autism, I started seeing the benefits too. I started understanding that my brain isn’t wrong , it simply works differently. It helped me look back at my life and understand why I’ve always been different, why I’ve always been quirky, why I’ve always had this intensity to me, why I experience emotions so deeply and why certain things that seem completely ordinary to other people can feel overwhelming to me. 

I realised why so many past lovers, had always said I become utterly fixated in the bedroom, ‘I apparently get a look in my eyes and I don’t focus on how I look, or bull shit, I’m just completely in the Sex Zone’, and this is actually down to Monotropism, where Autistic attention can become extremely  concentrated on one thing. In an intimate situation, that intense focus can mean you’re completely in the experience, rather than simultaneously thinking about how you’re appearing, what you should be doing next, or what your partner thing, and it’s one of the only times an autistic brain can be silenced, and become quiet because the intensity in sex in which you’re engaged in becomes the only thing your senses want. 

Now Monotropism doesn’t mean every Autistic woman is passionate or sexually responsive, but emotional responses, intense attraction, becoming absorbed, fixations and experiences sensory experiences different, is a high of intensity, and many of the Neurotypical people you’re Intimate with can be totally mind blown or on the other hand often intimidated.

So, whilst this doesn’t mean Autistic women can be better in bed, it just means, autistic women can experience intimacy, attraction and sensory experiences more intensely.

With my diagnosis, it even made me reconsider things people have said to me throughout my life. My child’s father, for example, would often tell me that I “lead with emotion and not logic.” Friends have said things to me that I don’t necessarily believe they intended to be hurtful, but I couldn’t understand why they were saying them because I genuinely assumed that people thought in the same way I did. I couldn’t comprehend why they couldn’t see things the way I could, just as they couldn’t comprehend why I saw things so differently. 

I think that’s one of the biggest misunderstandings between neurotypical and neurodivergent people: we can look at the same situation through completely different neurological lenses and assume the other person is simply being difficult, irrational, intense or weird. They’re not necessarily being any of those things. Their brain may simply be processing the world differently. My diagnosis has given me a completely different way of understanding myself. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” I’m learning to ask, “Why does my brain work this way?” And that shift has been enormous for me.

But what if we started looking at the whole picture?

What if we asked questions about how that woman has actually experienced life from childhood onwards?

Did she always prefer having one really close friend, rather than a big group?

Did having one person she trusted make friendships feel much easier?

Did she always prefer staying at home rather than going out?

Did social situations exhaust her, even when she seemed perfectly capable of handling them?

Did she become overwhelmed incredibly easily?

Did she struggle when plans changed?

Did she retreat from the world when everything became too much?

Did she spend enormous amounts of time thinking about decisions, analysing every possible outcome and then struggle to actually make the decision?

Did she have intense interests or become completely absorbed in particular subjects?

Did she repeatedly buy books, research things obsessively or become fixated on a new interest?

Did she experience a profound sense of injustice when something felt unfair?

And perhaps most interestingly…

Did she struggle to let go of people, situations or relationships that she felt had treated her unfairly? Because.. stop the press, this is something I think deserves far more understanding and discussing!!

There are women who become completely consumed by an ex-partner, a baby father, a friendship breakdown or a relationship that ended years ago, for what seems like most of their lives…

And their friends might say:

“Why are you still talking about him?”

“You need to let it go.”

“He’s moved on. Why haven’t you?”

But sometimes it isn’t simply that the woman is “hung up” on somebody.

There can also be a difference in how an autistic woman processes the ending of a relationship. If someone sits down with her, explains clearly that they don’t want to continue the relationship, gives her a reason and there is some sense of closure, she may actually be able to accept it, even if it hurts deeply. But when somebody suddenly disappears, ends things without explanation, changes their behaviour overnight, cheats or leaves her with unanswered questions, it can be much harder to process. The brain can get stuck on the why. What happened? What changed? What did I miss? Why wasn’t I told? Why wasn’t I given the opportunity to understand? And that unresolved sense of injustice or lack of closure can become something she keeps returning to. It isn’t necessarily that she wants the person back, it can be that she simply cannot make sense of what happened. 

For some autistic women, when something doesn’t have a logical ending, the mind can keep trying to solve it long after the relationship itself has ended. Sometimes there is a combination of fixation, emotional intensity, difficulty processing an unresolved situation and a powerful sense of injustice.

If something doesn’t make sense to her, if she believes she has been treated unfairly, or if there are unanswered questions, her brain may continue returning to it.

Not because she necessarily wants the person back. Not because she is deliberately dwelling on it, but because her brain hasn’t reached a sense of resolution and this is where autism can sometimes be misunderstood. 

That doesn’t mean every woman who struggles to move on from an ex is autistic. It doesn’t mean every woman with anxiety is autistic. It doesn’t mean every woman who stays at home, overthinks, feels overwhelmed or experiences relationship difficulties is autistic.

But there is a growing recognition that autistic women can present very differently from the stereotypical picture of autism , particularly women who have spent their lives masking, adapting and trying desperately to appear as though everything is fine.

They can become incredibly good at functioning.

Until they aren’t.

They can hold everything together until the demands of life become too much.

Then they may experience burnout, shutdown, anxiety, depression or what looks like an inability to cope.

And because the autism underneath it hasn’t been recognised, the treatment focuses on the symptoms rather than understanding the underlying reason for them. So, they get fed anti-depressants, higher dose, after higher dose, this tablet, that tablet, and still they feel the same… 

So perhaps we need to start asking different questions.

Not just:

“Are you depressed?”

But:

“Why is everything so overwhelming?”

Not just:

“Are you anxious?”

But:

“What has your relationship with the world, people and change always been like?”

Not just:

“Why can’t you move on from this relationship?”

But:

“What exactly is your brain trying to process about what happened?”

Because sometimes the woman who has spent her entire life wondering why she finds everything so much harder than everybody else isn’t broken.

She isn’t lazy.

She isn’t dramatic.

She isn’t too sensitive.

She may simply have spent decades trying to navigate a world that wasn’t designed around the way her brain works.

For some autistic women, social situations can involve a constant awareness of social conformity and how they are being perceived. A woman might be walking into the playground to pick up her child while her mind is already running through a hundred questions: 

Do I fit in here?

Does that mum like me?

Have I said something wrong?

Why aren’t they talking to me?

Do they think I’m strange? 

She might walk into a Pilates class and instinctively choose a place at the back, not because she doesn’t want to participate, but because she isn’t sure how she will be received or whether she might embarrass herself. This constant monitoring can make ordinary social situations exhausting. 

There can also be a tendency to analyse relationships and social dynamics very deeply, noticing changes in people’s tone, behaviour or body language and trying to work out what they mean. Forming friendships can also be different. Rather than wanting a large social circle, some autistic women may feel much more comfortable with one or two deep, trusted friendships where there is less need to constantly work out the rules of the group. Learning to step back from social conformity can sometimes help: instead of asking “Do these people like me?”, it can be more useful to ask “What do these people actually bring to my life, and how relevant are their opinions to me?” That shift doesn’t necessarily remove social awareness , autistic women can be extremely perceptive about other people, however it can help separate noticing someone’s reaction from feeling responsible for it. Someone else’s opinion doesn’t have to determine how a woman feels about herself, and she doesn’t have to change who she is simply to fit into a social environment. I learned long ago to look at people and think ‘What fucking joy do you bring to my lovely life’ – and most of the time it was Fuck all!! So what relevance do these people have, does it even matter if they like you or not, their judgement is on them, and not you. You be you, and realise you don’t need everyone to like you in this life, you are beautiful and just wired differently.

And for some women, an autism diagnosis in their 30s or 40s isn’t discovering something new.

It’s finally being given an explanation for a lifetime of things that never quite made sense.

Trust Me, I Want To… So Why Can’t I?

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Surviving the past is one thing. Learning to believe you’re safe enough to love again is something else entirely.

There is a question I hear more than almost any other.

“I want a relationship. I really do. So why, every time someone gets close, do I panic?”

It’s one of the cruellest contradictions trauma leaves behind. Your heart wants connection, Your nervous system wants escape.

One is dreaming about Sunday mornings, shared coffees and someone who feels like home. The other is quietly checking where the exits are.

If you’ve ever found yourself pulling away from someone you genuinely liked, overthinking a text message until it became a twelve episode psychological thriller, or feeling strangely calmer with someone emotionally unavailable than with someone consistently kind, you’re not losing your mind.

You’re experiencing what happens when survival becomes stronger than intention. Trauma doesn’t just change what happened to us, it changes what we expect to happen next.

And that’s a very different thing.

For many people, trust isn’t simply about believing another person won’t cheat or lie. Trust is something much deeper. It is the feeling that if you allow someone close enough to matter, your world won’t collapse if they leave.

That changes everything.

Because suddenly relationships stop being about romance and become about survival.Trauma has a habit of turning up on first dates uninvited. It sits quietly between the bread basket and the drinks menu, whispering things like,“Don’t get too comfortable.” Or, “They’re going to leave eventually.” 

Or my personal favourite, “This is going suspiciously well…”

Dating apps certainly don’t help, I think we all know my view on those… 

Sometimes they feel less like places to find love and more like interviewing strangers for a job nobody seems qualified for.

“Tell me about yourself.”

“I enjoy travelling.”

“So does literally everyone.”

“I love dogs.”

“Congratulations. You’re human.”

We laugh because it’s true, we like the same song, and suddenly, we start fucking thinking we’ve met our soul mate. 

But underneath the humour sits something much heavier.

Many people aren’t simply trying to find a partner.They’re trying to answer a question their nervous system has been asking for years.

Am I finally safe?

The Invisible Suitcase

Imagine every relationship you’ve ever experienced has packed something into an invisible suitcase.

Parents.

Teachers.

Partners.

Friends.

Bullies.

The person who promised forever before disappearing without explanation.

The person who made you feel invisible.

The person who loved you beautifully.

The person who taught you that love came with conditions.

By the time we meet someone new, we rarely arrive carrying just ourselves.

We arrive carrying memories, expectations, beliefs and survival strategies.

Some of those are wonderful, Others are incredibly heavy.

If you’ve experienced childhood abuse, neglect, domestic abuse, coercive control, betrayal or significant emotional trauma, your suitcase may contain something else entirely.

Hypervigilance, Self doubt, People pleasing.

The belief that love has to be earned, The expectation that happiness never lasts, not because they’re true.

Because once upon a time, they kept you safe.

One of the biggest misunderstandings about trauma is that people think it’s purely about memory.

It isn’t.

As trauma psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk explains, trauma is carried not only in our thoughts, but in our bodies. Even long after danger has passed, our nervous system may continue responding as though the threat is still present.

That’s why someone can logically know they’re safe while simultaneously feeling terrified, and consequently avoidance can happen.

Their body hasn’t received the memo.

When Your Smoke Alarm Becomes Overprotective

Imagine installing the world’s most sensitive smoke alarm.  It doesn’t just go off when there’s a fire. It screams because someone made toast or lit a candle or looked vaguely enthusiastic near the kitchen.

Ridiculous?

Perhaps.

Unless you’re a nervous system.

Trauma often creates an alarm system that becomes brilliantly efficient at spotting possible danger. The difficulty is that it becomes equally brilliant at spotting danger where there isn’t any.

A delayed text message, A slightly different tone of voice, Someone asking for space, A cancelled plan.

To another person, these are everyday experiences.

To a traumatised nervous system, they can feel like the opening scenes of abandonment. Your brain isn’t trying to ruin your relationships. It’s trying to prevent history repeating itself. That’s a very important distinction.

Trauma doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means your brain adapted to survive. Once that clicks, something extraordinary begins to happen.

Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?”

You begin asking,

“What happened that taught my brain this was necessary?”

That single question replaces shame with curiosity.

And curiosity is where healing begins.

Why Safety Matters More Than Trust

People often say trauma survivors have trust issues. I’d gently challenge that, because many survivors don’t actually struggle to trust. Quite often, they trust words, Potential, Hope, Promises, Future plans.

The version of someone they believe could exist if everything worked out.

Sometimes they trust far too easily.

The real difficulty isn’t trusting other people. It’s trusting themselves to leave when someone’s behaviour consistently tells them they should.

That feels very different.

Because if childhood taught you that love required endurance…

If previous relationships taught you that chaos was normal…

If your self-worth became tangled up in proving your value…

Walking away doesn’t necessarily feel empowering.. It feels terrifying.

Sometimes staying feels safer simply because it’s familiar, Not because it’s healthy. One of the saddest realities of trauma is that our definition of “normal” can become completely distorted. Healthy can feel unfamiliar.

And unfamiliar often feels unsafe.

Which brings us to one of the greatest ironies in relationships.

Healthy relationships can initially feel boring when your nervous system has been trained to expect chaos. Not because they’re lacking passion but because they’re lacking panic.

Those are two very different experiences.

Attachment: Our First Blueprint For Love

Long before we downloaded dating apps or debated whether replying after seventeen minutes looked too keen, our brains had already started forming expectations about relationships.

Psychologist John Bowlby proposed that our earliest relationships with caregivers become internal blueprints for how we understand connection.

Later, Mary Ainsworth’s research showed that children develop different attachment styles depending on how consistently safe, responsive and emotionally available their caregivers are.

This isn’t about blaming parents.

Life is rarely that simple.

Parents have histories, Stress, Mental health struggles and trauma of their own.

Most were doing the best they could with what they had. However our nervous systems don’t record intentions.

They record experiences.

If your emotional needs were generally met, your brain learned that relationships are safe places to return to.

If care was inconsistent, unpredictable or frightening, your brain learned something very different.

Love became uncertain.

Conditional.

Something that might disappear without warning.

Those lessons don’t stay in childhood. They quietly climb into adult relationships too.

When Love Feels Like An Exam You Keep Failing

People with anxious attachment are often described as “needy.”

I dislike that word.

Most aren’t asking for too much. They’re asking for reassurance because somewhere along the line reassurance became unpredictable.

If love was inconsistent growing up, uncertainty can feel unbearable.

Texts become evidence.

Silence becomes danger.

Distance becomes rejection.

Their nervous system isn’t saying,

“I need constant attention.”

It’s saying,

“Please don’t disappear.”

That’s a very human response when you’ve experienced emotional inconsistency. In todays society, people are so distracted, that sometimes they forget to deliver the basics of consistency, and this delivers as ‘Low Level’ – Deep down we’re all searching for that “Good Morning” or “Good night” message, but people become to preoccupied, and when the basics are asked of them, become overwhelmed, and presume their other half as we said ‘needy’, when deep down, equal effort, can keep both partners settled and content.

Then we have avoidant attachment.

This is perhaps one of the most misunderstood attachment styles of all. Avoidant people are often portrayed as cold or commitment phobic villains who simply don’t care.

Reality is usually much more compassionate. Many learned very early that depending on other people wasn’t safe. Maybe emotions were dismissed. Maybe vulnerability wasn’t welcomed. Maybe independence became survival.

So rather than clinging when relationships become emotionally intense, they unconsciously create distance.

Not because connection doesn’t matter, Because it matters so much that losing it feels unbearable.

Different survival strategy, Same frightened nervous system underneath.

Neither style is “better.”

Neither makes someone bad.

Both are adaptations.

Both deserve compassion.

And both can heal… but taking the time to recognise and truly see the patterns in their behaviours 

The Body Keeps The Score… Even On Date Night

One of the biggest breakthroughs in trauma research has been recognising that healing isn’t simply about changing our thoughts.

It’s also about calming our bodies.

Psychiatrist Judith Herman described recovery as moving through stages of safety, remembrance and reconnection.

Notice the order.

Safety comes first.

Not forgiveness.

Not dating.

Not positive thinking.

Safety.

Because without safety, the nervous system cannot fully relax.

This is why two people can hear exactly the same sentence.

One hears,

“Can we talk later?”

The other hears,

“They’re about to leave me.”

Same words.

Entirely different nervous system.

Our brains constantly predict what comes next based on previous experience. If previous experience included fear, criticism or abandonment, today’s relationships often become filtered through yesterday’s pain.

That doesn’t mean those fears are silly, it means they once served a purpose.

Healing isn’t about pretending those alarm bells don’t exist.

It’s about teaching the nervous system that they don’t need to ring every single time someone gets close and that takes patience.

Not perfection.

It also takes self-compassion, something many trauma survivors generously give everyone else while quietly forgetting themselves.

Perhaps that’s the first place healing really begins, Not with finding the perfect relationship but with becoming the safest relationship you’ve ever had with yourself.

One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is learning to pause before reacting. Not because our feelings are wrong.

But because our feelings aren’t always describing the present. Sometimes they’re describing the past.

That distinction can transform relationships.

When Every “Maybe” Feels Like “No”

If you’ve ever spent an entire evening analysing a full stop at the end of a text message, welcome to the wonderfully exhausting world of rejection sensitivity.

Someone replies a little later than usual, Your brain writes a novel. They seem quieter after work.

Your mind has already planned the break up, divided the furniture and chosen your post heartbreak playlist.

Sound familiar?

For many trauma survivors, rejection isn’t simply disappointing.

It feels dangerous.

Psychologist Gabor Maté has written extensively about how our need for attachment is one of our deepest human drives. As children, maintaining connection with our caregivers is essential for survival. If those relationships are inconsistent, frightening or emotionally unavailable, our brains learn to monitor them constantly.

That hyperawareness doesn’t magically disappear when we become adults.

It simply changes clothes.

Instead of scanning our parents’ moods, we scan our partner’s texts. Instead of wondering whether we’ll be comforted, we wonder whether they’ll reply.

The behaviour changes.

The survival strategy doesn’t.

Understanding this isn’t about excusing unhealthy behaviour.

It’s about recognising that behind many reactions is a frightened nervous system trying desperately to prevent old wounds from opening again.

Chemistry Isn’t Always Compatibility

Here’s something that often surprises people.

The strongest spark isn’t necessarily the healthiest relationship.

We’ve all heard someone say,

“I’ve never felt chemistry like this before.”

Sometimes that’s wonderful. Sometimes it’s your nervous system recognising something familiar and familiar doesn’t always mean safe.

If chaos was normal growing up, calm can initially feel unsettling.

Predictability can feel flat.

Kindness can feel suspicious.

Consistency can almost seem… boring.

Not because healthy love lacks depth.

Because your nervous system has been trained to associate emotional intensity with connection.

The butterflies might not always be butterflies.

Sometimes they’re simply adrenaline. Sometimes they’re uncertainty. Sometimes they’re your smoke alarm shouting,

“This feels familiar!”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always specify whether familiar is healthy or harmful.

One coaching question I often encourage people to sit with is this:

Do I actually like this person, or do I simply like being chosen?

It’s an uncomfortable question.

But an important one.

Because validation can sometimes disguise itself as love.

Another worth reflecting on is:

Am I chasing love, or am I chasing rescue?

If we’re honest, many of us have spent years hoping another person would finally heal wounds that were never theirs to carry.

Love can support healing.

It cannot replace it and perhaps the hardest question of all:

Would I still choose this relationship if I wasn’t afraid of being alone?

Sit with that one.

Don’t rush it.

The answer often tells you everything you need to know.

When Anxiety Borrows Intuition’s Clothes

People often tell me,

“I knew something was wrong. I just ignored my intuition.”

Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it isn’t.

One of the most important parts of healing is learning the difference between intuition and anxiety, because they feel remarkably similar until you know what you’re looking for.

Intuition tends to arrive quietly.

It doesn’t usually shout.

It doesn’t catastrophise.

It doesn’t demand an immediate decision.

It simply knows.

Anxiety is much louder.

It searches for evidence.

It creates endless what ifs.

It desperately wants certainty in situations where certainty simply doesn’t exist.

As I often say,

Sometimes it’s anxiety carrying a fake Louis Vuitton pretending to be intuition.

It makes me smile every time because it’s surprisingly accurate.

Anxiety can become an exceptional actor.

The challenge is learning not to hand it the lead role in every relationship.

Instead of asking, “How do I stop feeling anxious?” Try asking, “What evidence do I actually have today?”

Bring yourself back to facts, not fears, because trauma predicts.

Healing observes.

Learning To Feel Safe With Intimacy

People often assume survivors struggle because they can’t love. In reality, many struggle because their nervous system has never truly believed love is safe.

There’s a huge difference. Love requires vulnerability. Vulnerability requires safety and safety isn’t created by words.

It’s created through repeated experience.

Someone saying, “You can trust me,” means very little.

Someone consistently showing up, respecting your boundaries, repairing conflict, apologising when they’re wrong and remaining emotionally available…

That’s what teaches the nervous system something new. This is especially true when it comes to sex and intimacy. For some people, physical closeness feels natural. For others, it can activate memories they didn’t even realise their body was holding.

For some survivors of sexual abuse, the greatest challenge isn’t having sex. It’s staying emotionally present during it.

Many describe learning, often from a very young age, to mentally disconnect from what was happening as a way of surviving. Dissociation isn’t a choice. It’s an extraordinary protective response that allows the mind to distance itself from overwhelming experiences when there is no other escape.

The difficulty is that our nervous system doesn’t always recognise when the danger has passed. Years later, during consensual, loving intimacy, that same survival strategy can quietly reappear. Someone may find themselves physically present but emotionally absent, almost as though they’re watching the moment rather than truly living it. It can feel as if they slip into another version of themselves, one created to survive rather than to connect.

Ironically, the safest relationships can sometimes feel the most emotionally exposing. Not because the survivor doesn’t want intimacy, but because they do. Being fully seen by someone you genuinely care about requires a level of vulnerability that a traumatised nervous system may never have learned was safe. Remaining present, allowing yourself to be emotionally and physically connected, can take enormous courage.

This is one reason why some survivors find casual sex or sex work unexpectedly easier than deeply intimate sex. It isn’t necessarily about desire or commitment. Emotional investment changes the experience entirely. When there is little emotional attachment, the nervous system may feel less at risk. But when love enters the equation, so too can the fear of being truly vulnerable.

Many survivors also describe experiencing intimacy in two very different ways. There can be sex that feels emotionally disconnected, where the body is present but the heart and mind remains protected. Then there is deeply connected intimacy, where emotional closeness and physical closeness exist together. The contrast between those experiences can feel profound, and confusing, until we understand that both are shaped by the nervous system’s attempt to keep us safe.

There is nothing shameful about these responses. They are not signs that someone is incapable of love or healthy intimacy. They are evidence of a brain and body that adapted in remarkable ways to survive circumstances no one should ever have had to endure and, like so many survival strategies, with safety, patience and the right support, they can begin to soften.

Trauma isn’t only remembered consciously.

Sometimes the body remembers long before the mind catches up.

That can leave survivors feeling confused.

“Why did I suddenly panic?”

“Why do I freeze?”

“Why do I shut down when nothing bad is happening?”

Again, there is a reason.

Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn.

These aren’t personality flaws. They’re survival responses.

Fight protects through confrontation. Flight protects through escape. Freeze protects by becoming still. Fawn protects through pleasing others, often by ignoring our own needs.

Every one of these responses once served a purpose. Healing isn’t about judging them. Healing isn’t about becoming someone different.

It’s about recognising the survival strategies that no longer serve you. When we understand that, shame begins to loosen its grip.

Grieving The Future That Never Happened

One of the most painful parts of heartbreak isn’t always losing the person.

It’s losing the future you imagined with them. The Sunday mornings. The holidays. The family Christmases. The conversations that never happened. The version of life you had quietly built in your mind. Sometimes we aren’t grieving reality. We’re grieving possibility.

That’s why endings can feel so confusing.

We tell ourselves,

“I miss them.”

Sometimes what we actually miss is who we hoped they would become.

There’s a profound difference. That doesn’t make your grief any less real. If anything, it explains why it hurts so much. You’re mourning dreams as well as memories. Allow yourself to grieve both.

Just don’t confuse potential with evidence.

Hope is beautiful, but healthy relationships are built on patterns, not promises.

What Healing Actually Looks Like

Healing is often portrayed as a dramatic breakthrough.

One life changing moment, One perfect therapy session, One inspirational quote.

The truth is usually much quieter.

Healing is replying honestly instead of pretending you’re fine.

It’s recognising a red flag before explaining it away.

It’s choosing peace over unpredictability.

It’s noticing your body becoming anxious and offering yourself compassion instead of criticism.

It’s learning to apologise without believing you’re fundamentally unlovable.

It’s discovering that boundaries aren’t walls.

They’re doors with locks.

The right people knock…They don’t force their way in.

Healing is slowly teaching your nervous system that not everyone who gets close is going to hurt you. That lesson isn’t learned through thinking.

It’s learned through experience.

One safe conversation.

One respectful disagreement.

One healthy relationship.

One repaired rupture.

Over and over again.

Until your body finally believes what your mind has been trying to tell it.

Forgiveness Isn’t A Deadline

Let’s talk about forgiveness, because I think we’ve complicated it far more than necessary.

Forgiveness is deeply personal, It isn’t a competition, It isn’t proof of healing and it certainly isn’t something anybody else gets to demand from you.

Some people find freedom through forgiveness, Others find freedom through acceptance. Some never forgive at all, yet still build beautiful, peaceful lives.

All are valid.

Healing doesn’t require pretending something didn’t hurt. Nor does it require reconciling with people who continue to harm you.

Sometimes forgiveness is simply releasing the hope that the past could have been different.

Sometimes it’s choosing not to carry someone else’s behaviour into every future relationship.

And sometimes it’s quietly saying,

“What happened mattered. It changed me. But it doesn’t get to define the rest of my life.”

That, to me, is extraordinary courage.

From Surviving To Living

If you’ve recognised yourself anywhere in these words, I hope you take one thing away.

There is nothing wrong with you.

Your nervous system has spent years doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Protect you.

The difficulty is that protection and connection don’t always speak the same language.

One says,“Stay back.” The other whispers,“Come closer.”

Healing is learning to let those two parts of yourself have a conversation instead of a battle.It’s understanding that your smoke alarm doesn’t need to sound every time someone walks into the room.

It’s unpacking that invisible suitcase, one belief at a time, and asking,

“Do I still need to carry this?”

Sometimes the answer will be yes, Sometimes it will be no.

Both are okay, because healing isn’t linear.

You’ll have days where you feel calm, secure and hopeful.

You’ll have other days where an unanswered message convinces you the world is ending.

Progress isn’t never becoming triggered again.

Progress is recognising the trigger sooner, responding with greater kindness and returning to yourself more quickly.

That’s growth…Real growth.

You are not too much….You are not difficult to love.

You are not destined to repeat every painful chapter you’ve lived through.

The fact you’re reading this tells me something important…A part of you already believes life can be different.

Hold on to that part.

Feed it.

Protect it.

Because the opposite of trauma isn’t perfection.

It’s safety.

It’s connection.

It’s waking up one day and realising that love no longer feels like something you have to earn. It simply feels like somewhere you belong. Perhaps that’s what healing really is.

Not forgetting the past.

Not pretending it never happened.

But gently teaching your mind, your body and your heart that the danger has passed.

That the alarm can finally grow quieter.

That the person you’ve spent your whole life trying to become…

Was never broken in the first place.

Just brilliantly adapted.

And now, finally, free to do something far more beautiful than survive.

To Live and Love

Celibacy and Masturbation: Can Self-Pleasure Be Part of a Celibate Journey?

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In a world that constantly talks about sex, relationships, and connection with others, we rarely talk about something quieter but just as meaningful: our relationship with our own body.

For some people, celibacy is a religious choice, For others, it’s a period of healing, reflection, or simply a break from the emotional complexity of relationships.

But one question often sits quietly underneath the surface:

If you’re practicing celibacy, is masturbation still okay?

It’s a question that doesn’t always have a clear answer. Some people believe celibacy should include abstaining from all sexual activity, including self-pleasure. Others believe masturbation can actually be a healthy part of understanding and respecting our bodies.

For me, the conversation around this topic feels very personal.

There have been long stretches of time in my life where I’ve chosen celibacy. Sometimes it came from heartbreak, sometimes from exhaustion with dating, and sometimes simply from the desire to focus on myself, and my own healing journey.

During those times, I noticed something interesting.

Even while stepping away from intimacy with others, my body didn’t stop being alive and sometimes, masturbation became a surprisingly grounding experience.

Rediscovering the Body When You’re Alone

One thing that celibacy can do is shift your attention inward. When you’re not thinking about someone else’s touch, expectations, or desires, you begin to notice your own body differently. For me, masturbation during celibacy has sometimes felt less like sexual indulgence and more like a form of self-connection.

There’s a strange kind of peace in knowing that your body belongs entirely to you.

No pressure.

No performance.

No wondering what someone else wants or expects.

Just you.

And sometimes, that simple experience can bring unexpected comfort.

There have been mornings where the day felt heavy, where getting out of bed felt like a challenge. In those moments, something as simple as self-pleasure gave me a little spark of energy, a reminder that my body is still capable of joy, that life isn’t always so depressing!! Let’s call it the ultimate self validation hey!

It’s not always about sexuality, Sometimes it’s about feeling alive again, sometimes its just about the Ooooooh and Aaaaah!

The Biology of Masturbation and the Brain

From a biological perspective, masturbation isn’t just psychological, it’s neurological. When the body experiences sexual arousal or orgasm, the brain releases several important chemicals:

Dopamine – associated with pleasure and reward

Oxytocin – often called the bonding hormone

Endorphins – natural pain and stress relievers

Prolactin – linked with relaxation after orgasm

These chemicals affect our mood, stress levels, and overall well-being.

This is one reason why masturbation can sometimes feel like a natural mood booster. The body responds with a chemical cascade that can reduce tension and create a sense of calm.

Some studies even suggest that sexual release may help with:

  • Stress reduction
  • Better sleep
  • Improved mood
  • Relief from physical tension

In this sense, masturbation isn’t necessarily separate from overall health. It’s part of the body’s natural reward system. However like many things tied to dopamine and pleasure, balance matters.

When Masturbation Becomes Habit Rather Than Choice

While masturbation can be healthy, it’s also possible for it to become automatic rather than intentional. Modern technology has changed the way we experience sexual stimulation. Endless access to digital content can overstimulate the brain’s reward system, leading to patterns where pleasure becomes more about dopamine hits than genuine connection with the body.

This is one of the reasons some people choose complete abstinence during celibacy.

Taking a break from sexual stimulation can allow the brain’s reward pathways to reset. People sometimes report feeling clearer, more focused, or more emotionally grounded during periods of abstinence.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean masturbation itself is unhealthy. The key difference often lies in how we approach it.

Is it a conscious experience of self-connection?

Or a quick escape from boredom, loneliness, or stress?

Those motivations can lead to very different outcomes.

The Spiritual Perspective on Sexual Energy

Beyond biology and psychology, many spiritual traditions have explored sexuality and self-pleasure for thousands of years. In some traditions, sexual energy is viewed as one of the most powerful forces within the human body. Certain schools of Taoism and yoga teach that sexual energy can be transformed into creative or spiritual energy. Practices related to celibacy sometimes encourage people to conserve this energy rather than release it.

From this perspective, abstaining from masturbation is believed to strengthen discipline, mental clarity, and vitality.

However, other spiritual traditions take a very different view.

Some tantric teachings emphasise conscious awareness of the body, suggesting that sexuality, including self-pleasure, can be part of spiritual exploration if approached with mindfulness and respect. Rather than something to suppress, sexual energy becomes something to observe, understand, and honor. In that sense, masturbation could be seen not as indulgence, but as a way of cultivating presence within the body. The truth is that spirituality rarely offers a single answer. Instead, it invites us to explore our relationship with our own energy and intention.

Celibacy as a Relationship With Yourself

One of the most surprising things about celibacy is that it can teach you a lot about yourself. Without the distraction of romantic or sexual relationships,

You start to notice patterns.

You notice how you seek comfort.

You notice how you cope with loneliness.

You notice how you treat your own body.

For many people, celibacy becomes less about denying desire and more about building a healthier relationship with themselves. That relationship might include masturbation, or it might not. What matters is the intention behind the choice. If self-pleasure comes from curiosity, appreciation, and self-love, it can feel empowering. However, if it becomes a way of avoiding emotions or constantly chasing stimulation, it may be worth stepping back and reflecting.

The Power of Self-Ownership

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate most during celibate periods is the simple idea that my body belongs to me.

In relationships, we sometimes forget that. We become aware of another person’s desires, expectations, and needs. Even healthy relationships involve a kind of shared physical space.

Celibacy creates a different dynamic.

It reminds you that your body isn’t something that exists for someone else’s pleasure.

It exists for you.

That awareness can make masturbation feel less like a taboo subject and more like a quiet act of self-ownership. It’s a reminder that you don’t need someone else to validate your physical existence.

Sometimes your own touch is enough.

Finding a Personal Balance

So should someone masturbate during celibacy?

The honest answer is that there isn’t a universal rule. For some people, abstaining completely from sexual stimulation helps them feel focused and emotionally grounded. For others, occasional self-pleasure feels natural and healthy.

The important thing is to remain aware of your motivations and how your choices affect your well-being.

You might ask yourself questions like:

  • Does this make me feel connected to my body or disconnected from it?
  • Am I doing this consciously or out of habit?
  • Does this support my emotional healing or distract from it?
  • Does this align with why I chose celibacy in the first place?

These questions can help guide a relationship with sexuality that feels authentic rather than imposed.

Celibacy Isn’t About Denying Pleasure

One of the biggest misconceptions about celibacy is that it’s about repression, But for many people, it’s actually about clarity.

Stepping away from sexual relationships can create space to understand our desires more deeply. It allows us to notice where pleasure comes from, what intimacy means to us, and how we relate to our own bodies. In that sense, celibacy isn’t the absence of sexuality. It’s a chance to experience sexuality in a more conscious way.

Sometimes that includes self-pleasure.

Sometimes it means abstaining completely.

Both paths can lead to growth if they’re chosen intentionally.

Final Thoughts: Listening to Your Body

If there’s one thing celibacy has taught me, it’s that our bodies have their own quiet wisdom.

We often try to fit our lives into rules about what we should or shouldn’t do, yet sexuality rarely works that way.

Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is simply listen.

Listen to our emotions.

Listen to our energy levels.

Listen to how our body responds.

For me, there have been moments during celibacy when masturbation brought a small spark of joy on an otherwise depressing day A reminder that my body still holds warmth, curiosity, and life and there have been other moments where abstaining felt more aligned with the kind of clarity I was seeking. For instance now, abstaining since my last serious relationship has been soul saving, just knowing, I will enjoy intimacy when I meet my person and both experiences taught me something valuable.

Celibacy isn’t about shutting down desire, It’s about becoming aware of it.

And sometimes that awareness begins with the simplest realisation of all:

Your body is yours.

How you choose to care for it, explore it, or honor it is a deeply personal journey.