The fifth chapter of Lex’s experience with his year-long self-imposed attempt at celibacy.
If you missed Chapter 4, read it here.

Portraits of Lex photographed for EVB by J. Yatrofsky

Observations and Realizations of a Truly Desperate Man

Everyday it gets colder. My friend, Jude, loves this weather, and he makes it his duty to remind me of this fact every time a gust of wind slices open my face.

Fair Jude says, “Look at me. I was meant for this weather. You’re dark, though. You were built for, like, Spain, or Mexico, or something.”

“Jude, I am Mexican.”

“See?”

“Sí.”

Unless I’m drunk, it’s not my habit to be forthcoming with my emotions. I’m a much better listener than I am a talker, and it’s very strange for me to want to tell people about what’s going on in my life. I think that that, more than celibacy, is why I have been writing this. Celibacy was the excuse, the pretext for a larger goal: letting people know how I feel. This might be my most radical experiment on myself. I have thrust myself to the fore. I project to thousands of strangers and a handful of friends about what is happening in a fairly private aspect of my life. Forcing myself to open was the best thing that I could have done at this point in my life.

I’m not used to challenging myself. I stick to what I’m good at, and I become comfortable in that setting. So deeply is that ingrained in me that new experiences can bring about emotional exhaustion as I contemplate the gamut of possible outcomes.

I have leapt, and in this case, I’ve landed on both feet.

I’ve already noticed the change. I interject into conversation, I allow myself to laugh if I’ve said something (intentionally) funny. I don’t feel the need to be talking to someone with the clearest exit route in my head if something goes wrong. I like this. I like the change, and I’m liking myself more.
Jude and I arrive at the restaurant, a tired, crouching “affair” that serves decent Mexican food. Jude and I are stared at in this restaurant that until five minutes ago catered mostly to Bronx locals, “cute place.”

Everything is on my mind, the snow, the cab, entire swaths of conversation, and the tiniest moments, our silent friend, guilt. I instinctively attempt at organizing the thoughts in my mind into an outline of what I want to say and when. I anticipate his response.

It occurs to me that Jude is looking at my daze, and can read everything already.

“So, what’s up?”

“Year of celibacy failed the other day.”

Final count: 5 months, 13 days

Chapter 4 of Lex’s experience with his year-long self-imposed attempt at celibacy.
If you missed Chapter 3, read it here.

Portraits of Lex photographed for EVB by J. Yatrofsky

In high school I knew a girl named Eileen from Corpus Christi, Texas. We hated each other. She was an instant sensation at my school where her accent was seen as “exotic” by the students. It was there that she met and dated a local boy, a halfback on our football team and Vice President of our school’s Christian club. It was like fucked-up Danny and Sandy.

The first week of school, after invitations for the homecoming dance were sent (the theme was “A Tale as Old as Time”) there was the normal discussion of who’s going with whom, and eventually Eileen was asked.

“Oh, I don’t go to school dances.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like them, they’re just excuses to promote vanity and sexuality in youth. I’m not okay with that. I really only go to church socials.”

“What does your church say about self-righteousness?”

I was very abrasive in high school. We hated each other right then.

After high school, Eileen moved back to Texas, her boyfriend in tow. Various facebook updates showed them volunteering for pro-life causes and preaching at their school’s various Christian clubs.

This year I found out that Eileen and John got married. Correction, this year I found out that Eileen and John had to get married. Yes, apparently John couldn’t “Come On Eileen,” and knocked her up despite her high school lectures to me and others about how the Lord wants me to remain pure until marriage. I called bullshit back then. It’s nice to be right.

This presents a problem for me, though. If two Jesus freaks can’t even keep themselves off each other, how much more hope can I hold out for myself? I’m already beginning to feel the cracks forming. My standards have drastically dropped and now there’s a bet running amongst my friends as to how long I’ll last. It’s getting harder to remind myself why I’m doing this to myself. It almost seems petty and juvenile. It’s extreme, no?

I’m at an unexpected crossroads.

Chapter 3 of Lex’s experience with his year-long self-imposed attempt at celibacy.
If you missed Chapter 2, read it here.

Portraits of Lex photographed for EVB by J. Yatrofsky

(718): Wassup?
(212): Hi, sorry, I got a new phone a while ago. Who is this?
(718): I’ll let you guess. The first letters of my name are A and P, and we’ve been in and around each other.
(212): Oh, haha, hey. What’s up?
(718): Nothing much. Wanna hook up?
(212): Still not down with subtlety, I see.
(718): Subtlety doesn’t get me laid ;-)

Subtlety is a good thing, in my opinion. It ups the excitement of flirting, and gives us a chance to work our other brain. The right glance can be enough to win someone over if only for a couple of hours. Flirting is how I keep my hand in the game. It keeps me sane. It’s a confidence booster. “I could get laid if I wanted to, but I choose not to.” The thing about flirting with a guy, though, is that he usually flirts back, and every so often he’s good enough to make me forget for a few moments that I will be going home alone tonight.

How do I explain to someone that I’ve been talking to for the last hour that I’m actually just being a cock tease for my own inane or selfish reasons? “Sorry, we can’t bone tonight because I was a slut-bag this summer, and right now I’m just entertaining myself at your expense.” I feel like that might be awkward.

What do I do when “why don’t we get out of here,” has been uttered and is floating by my ears waiting to be processed into a response? So many things are going through my mind: “He just made a joke using Unbearable Lightness of Being as context,” “I’m days away from four months of celibacy! one-third of a year,” “He’s so hot,” “Do I want to be the East Village bicycle,” “Uh, he’s so hot!”

Being coy and flirting gets me into trouble, then. Would it be prudent of me to cut myself off completely from any sort of romantic interaction with men, even chaste interaction? It’s looking more and more like that might be the case.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“I’m sorry, I’m here with my friends, and I really shouldn’t leave them.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun. I think we could have fun.”

“Sorry.”

“Suit yourself. Have a good night.”

Maybe it’s easier than I thought to get rid of people. Or maybe I’m just not as good as I think I am. Damn. “No Fuck” is crowding my style.

Chapter 2 of Lex’s experience with his year-long self-imposed attempt at celibacy.
If you missed Chapter 1, read it here.

Portraits of Lex photographed for EVB by J. Yatrofsky

Being celibate is lonely.

I can imagine a morning ten years from now: I will be 29 years old, about to turn 30, and my hair will (hopefully) be starting to show the beginnings of my grampa’s hard-earned silver. I imagine the sky through my window: orange edged with pale gold blending to transparent turquoise, framed by the potted ferns and blooming red bougainvillea around the window. I see myself getting out of bed to make my breakfast. The kitchen will connect to the living room, where there will be scads of books and loads of movies on different shelves around the space.

I don’t have relationships too often. Actually, I’ve only had one boyfriend, and that was more of a social experiment for me than anything else: what’s it like to be in a relationship?

My results were inconclusive. I loved having someone to go to bed with and I loved waking up next to someone. The sex was okay. I hated the weight of being attached to someone, not being able to see my friends because he wanted to spend days with me, getting calls at 4 a.m. during finals week to see how my day had been. Cling wrap is super convenient until you try to get it off of your bowl, then it’s just annoying. He broke up with me because I didn’t text him enough.

Celibacy is a lonely path, though.

I’ve taken to snuggling up against my body pillow at night in an extreme case of anthropomorphization. I stay awake nursing my crushes on my various straight friends (who don’t make it any easier by not having qualms about spooning with me when we hang out). I see my friend, Elsa, in a relationship which takes her to Jersey every weekend, and it makes me miss the aspect of a relationship where there was someone waiting for me at the other end of a bus ride. I see my good friend Jude’s new habit of sleeping his way through the girls at my school, and it makes me miss the excitement of a one night stand.

I miss touching someone and being held in return; I miss the awkward fumbling of belts, and underwear, and of course I wore boots tonight; I miss the Bx17 bus waking me up in the morning next to someone I may or may not know; I miss going to dinner at a wine bar and holding hands through the West Village, even though I hate PDA; I miss cupcakes and witty repartee.

I’d like to think that I’m a lot more unconventional than I actually am. At the end of the day, though, I still say “please” and “thank you,” and I want to find someone that I can make a life with. I felt corny just writing that.

I think that it sounds nice - that day ten years from now. I can see it so clearly. I can see the bay and the city below me, and I know how the light will come through the window. I see the feral cat outside the window expecting the normal shallow bowl of milk. Finally, I can see somebody in my bed in a fetal position, his face obscured by a navy duvet, and it doesn’t feel like a one nighter.

A few weeks ago, we proudly welcomed Lex Perez to EVB as our new Editorial Assistant. We were originally going to simply introduce him to you all, and put him straight to work, but in our first meeting (what we remember of it), it came to light that he had taken a self-imposed vow of celibacy for a year. THAT decision, we thought, would be the best way to introduce him to you. Not only that, but over the next few months, Lex will be publishing his journal entries documenting his adventures (or his misadventures when… I mean IF he falls off that wagon.)

So without further ado, the first No Fuck journal entry from the latest member of the EVB family, Mr. Lex Perez.

Portraits of Lex photographed for EVB by J. Yatrofsky

When I was still a virgin my best friend, Madeleine, and I made and defended the argument that in today’s post-sexual revolution, post-feminist revolution, post-gay rights movement, post-Samantha Jones world there could be no such thing as a “slut.” We believed that after all of the social upheavals that the U.S. had experienced that had pushed us into the modern day, people could no longer judge each other based on someone’s supposed promiscuity. The argument holds water until the time comes to judge yourself.

I went wild this summer. In a span of four months I slept with twenty-one different men. According to various sources that’s not a lot. When I judge myself, though, all I can think is “slut-bag.” Thirty-six total people is enough for my paranoia to turn the occasional itchiness of my naturally dry skin into the first stage of some disease. I’ve decided to take the year off. No more sex. Fuck.

Not too far from where Madeleine and I grew up, there is a local chain of frozen yogurt shops called 21 Choices. One hot day, the summer before I moved to New York, Madeleine and I went in. On the counter was a jar of red, plastic bracelets emblazoned in white with a motto, “Make Good Choices.”

School ended at the beginning of May. Madeleine arrived in New York in mid-June. She got along easily with my school friends who happened to be staying in the area for the summer. We lived a work all day, party all night existence. A constant state of decadence.

Year of celibacy was formulated in my mind when Madeleine walked into my room one morning to find the redheaded guy from the night before in my bed.

“Lex, who’s that?”

“…I met him at John’s party last night. He goes to school with me apparently… I need to stop.”

A couple of hours later, after Redhead Guy left and I had told Madeleine my plans for celibacy, she gave me one of the red bracelets from 21 Choices.

“Remember, make good choices.”

I have a year of good choices left to make. No fuck.