Why I decided to stop having sex.

In a world that places such an emphasis on sex and finding a partner, what happens when you stop trying? Well, that's what I'm going to tell you. For a period of five years of my life, from the ages of 17 to 22, I completely stopped trying. No sex, no dating. I think the place to begin is the fact that it is well documented that young people are having less sex than before, which is a subject that I find fascinating. You know, it's a reflection of our changing world and our changing dynamics between the sexes. And yes, in this video, I'm mainly going to be talking about heterosexual dynamics between men and women. What I have noticed is that everyone seems to want to say what you should or shouldn't do when it comes to sex. Some people see it as impure. Other people see it as sacred. We use very strong, nasty words to shame each other for doing it too much, for not doing it enough. And so I'm doing this precisely because it is so difficult to talk about and because I don't think it should be. I think this should be a normal thing to explore. And this is one of the most important decisions of my life. I am not who I am today if not for this. This isn't because I don't like sex, because I see sex as sinful, or because I have a low sex drive. This is a very intentional decision and all the more intentional because of my upbringing. I grew up in a house where my parents were really open about this. You know, they didn't impose any restrictions other than to be... you know, responsible with safe sex. To do this, I'm gonna break this up into three parts. Why doing this kind of thing is so uncommon, why I chose to do this, and what it taught me. Over the last few years of my time on the internet, I've noticed a sort of morbid interest in a meme, a concept, incel, which stands for involuntary celibate. It's referencing a person, usually a man. that maybe wants to have sex but is unable to find another partner that is willing. I think this is a big fear for a lot of people. Perhaps there is such a morbid fascination around this because it is such a hot topic. This is a fear for a lot of people and sex can really mean validation, as in you are enough. The default assumption seems to be that if you are not having sex, it's because you can't get it or you're not trying hard enough. But what if not having sex was a conscious decision? Not a permanent one, you know, not a renunciation of sex for your entire life, but for a period of time. A period of time dedicated to other aspects of your life. One of the reasons why I think this is so uncommon is because there's something so blinding about the allure of sex or companionship, which is what makes it so tricky. And I think that this will always be the case with things that provide intense pleasure. and again validation and on top of it nowadays we inundate ourselves with imagery sexual imagery the things that you see on social media or on the internet are so often so suggestive that in some ways we're desensitized to it all you have to do is hop on instagram right and you can see essentially an unlimited amount of beautiful women there is no limit and of course i'm saying that as a guy but you can go on and see just about anything people with the perfect bodies and that's not even to speak about the impact of filters which makes everybody look more beautiful you can fill your mind with this distraction 24 hours a day i do have friends that have discovery pages or for you pages that are just wall-to-wall gorgeous women and there is something unnatural and unsettling about witnessing that all the time. If you're single and not religious, you're not technically doing anything wrong. But does that make it okay? Does that make it right? My theory around why we do this is because it's so incredibly easy to mix up a want with a need. This really began to occur to me when I first witnessed or experienced, I should say, for myself, how short-lived the pleasure of having sex really is. It's so easy to want it so badly that you think you need it, but you really don't. I have to mention the role of societal pressures on this topic as well as all of the media and stories that we consume about love and sex. It's easy to arrive at the conclusion that that is where happiness comes from. You find somebody that completes you and end of story. Well, guess what? I don't think it works that way. I do not. operate with the idea that if I just find the right person, I'll finally be happy. And this is probably more than a little corny for me to say, but when it comes to happiness, I am not going to wait around forever for the bus to arrive. I'm just going to start walking. Before I go any further, I just have to say that I don't think I'd be able to speak openly about any of this stuff if not for years of therapy. It's difficult saying, yeah, for a good chunk of my adulthood, I... purposely didn't do the thing that makes people feel desirable and also seem desirable. Therapy in many ways has been what has helped me have the confidence to make these decisions and be solid about these decisions and also to have the courage to question the assumptions that exist on how we should be living our lives, which is why I am thrilled that the sponsor of this video is BetterHelp. BetterHelp's mission is to make therapy both more affordable and more accessible, which I fully support. I recognize that traditionally therapy has not been very affordable and also difficult to figure out right like it's difficult to find somebody that you can click with better help gives you access to a huge network of certified therapists as well as the ability to freely change if you want to try someone new another significant piece of this is that it's fully remote which i think is huge i have been doing therapy remotely for four years and i there's no way i could have continued doing it consistently if it wasn't for that My lifestyle just doesn't permit it. And I feel comfortable doing it from home. It's really easy to sign up and get matched with a therapist right now. You just have to go to the link that's in my description. It's betterhelp.com slash Nathaniel Drew. And clicking that link both supports my channel, first of all, but also will give you 10% off your first month. So consider checking it out. and again therapy has completely changed my life and allowed me to open up and be vulnerable about things in a way that has made life more rich so i think it's a great investment thank you to better help for sponsoring this video let's keep going so why did i choose to do this honestly in early adulthood i had other priorities that more captured my attention do not know anything about using a camera and that's exactly why i'm trying to use one right now i would like to learn and i'm not entirely sure why this was so clear to me because i too care about finding a partner and having a family like a lot of people for some reason it was clear to me that pursuing women was a very high cost activity in terms of energy time and resources i know it's kind of weird to talk about it in that way We have all these ideas around love being this just natural spontaneous thing, right? But sometimes finding love also takes a lot of effort, right? You have to put yourself out there. Resources spent on that are resources I'm not spending on figuring out who I am. And I hate to paint it in such a black and white way because you do learn a ton about yourself. I have learned a ton about myself through relationships that I've had with other people. But there was a period of time where I had a burning desire to figure out who I was, to get clarity on what I want to do in life. just didn't feel like the best way to spend my time to go to lots of social events or to spend hours a day swiping on apps to eventually hopefully find somebody that I can click with. And again, maybe there is a difference here between being a man and a woman in a heterosexual context in this particular regard, because I see a lot of guys investing so much time and energy and resources into this. And I just wasn't willing to do that for section of my life. For most of my life there has just been this looming urgency to figure out and find as much meaning as possible in my life. What am I doing here? What is the impact I want to have? What am I exploring? And this began so early in life. I mean at the age of four years old I was asking my grandparents what happens when you die. At 13 I was panicking about how quickly time was passing this has been a very very present theme in my life for as long as I can remember I've had this passion this curiosity about telling stories about making things and sharing them and connecting with people and as I entered early adulthood it was finally my chance to figure some of this out when I looked at things through that lens going and getting drinks with somebody I had very little in common with just felt so unimportant. Now, of course, I do not believe the idea that you should have yourself fully figured out before you find a partner. That'll never be the case. Your house will never be fully in order. I'm forever a work in progress. I'm still learning about myself and hopefully will be for the rest of my life. But what I'm trying to point to here is that certain kinds of self knowledge and self understanding can only be developed in solitude. when you have that time and space to explore these things. I just think it's really important to step away from distractions and look inwards. I have a view that our lives are actually composed of many little lifetimes, right? And one of my lifetimes was this period of several years dedicated to intense work and experimentation. And as I've grown into a place of having clarity about these things, about... who I am and what I want to do, it has felt as though that lifetime has naturally come to a close and a new one has begun. If you've been following my work for the last few years, this is actually something that you've seen happen in real time. As over the last few years, I've felt this genuine opening up and curiosity and bandwidth to create community, to develop deeper connections, to explore dating. So this period obviously gave me clarity on a few really big things. The first is that I am totally okay with being on my own. I don't need somebody. I not only don't need to be in a relationship to be happy, but I can live a really full, vibrant life doing my own thing. There are a lot of things in life that provide a deeper sense of joy and meaning than superficial dates or hookups. And on the point about being okay being on your own, I think we'd all like to believe that, but sometimes you just have to experience that for yourself. to really believe it to really know it just saying to yourself that you're okay on your own might not be enough another huge thing that came out of this time of my life is that i got major clarity on my voice as an artist as a creator i had so much time to experiment and try different things out and even now thinking back on it i smile because i'm like wow what a time during the entire time that i lived in mexico city i didn't go on a single date and that period was marked by just an explosion of experiments artistically and creatively i feel like i grew so much in that time period it was really so fun and so fulfilling to be constantly pushing my boundaries to be just fully absorbed in what I was doing. And it's not something that I feel I'll ever be able to do to that extent again, especially if I have a family one day. I have to be honest and say that I am proud that I have been able to be prolific and create a large body of work at an early age. And I think that's contributed a lot to my self-confidence and self-belief. I also got clarity on what I'm looking for. You know, it was a slow realization, but I am looking for something very specific and unlike a lot of men who seem to really enjoy the chase, a woman being really beautiful, that alone is just not enough for me. I don't enjoy just pursuing women. There are certain things I'm looking for, like a level of introspection, a willingness to do personal work, emotional work. And I think it was easier for me to get clarity on this by stepping entirely out of the whole dating world. and to observe it from the outside and reflect on what I really care about. In retrospect, I really feel like I wasn't missing out on that much. Yes, there are some couples in my life that feel like they have something really special, a really deep connection, but they are in the minority. When I did re-enter the world of dating and had experiences with some of the shallowness that can be a part of that, it confirmed to me my belief that that is really not what I'm looking for. Look, all of this comes back down to the simple idea that I just want to show up as intentionally as I can in my own life. Just because there's this general expectation, you know, that most people do things in this certain way doesn't mean you have to. Human beings do all kinds of stuff that doesn't make sense. I'm making this because I genuinely feel that this is an incredibly powerful way, an experiment if you will, to find some clarity in your own life if you feel like you're lacking that. I believe that when you have a solid relationship with yourself, it is so much easier to love others. And as a final point, a message I'd like to leave here. It's easy to do things for the wrong reasons. It's easy to do things that feel good, especially in the short term. But is that the right decision? Sometimes life asks us to take a different path, to be different, to not follow the crowd. And I'm learning that that's okay, that sometimes that's the best thing you can do. Life is, in many ways, a journey of learning to be okay not having everyone's approval. This was a step for me in that direction, and I'm glad I took it.

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Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:34 I. Why Doing This Thing Is So Uncommon
06:04 II. Why I Chose To Do This
09:28 III. What It Taught Me