People decide to become celibate for many reasons. Whether it's for spiritual reasons or waiting until marriage. Whatever your reason for practicing abstinence is your business, but know that you're not alone. There are several celebrities who have spoken about their celibacy journey. From Ciara and Russell Wilson to, most recently, Lenny Kravitz, each of them shared their journey with the world, proving that there isn't one way to look at celibacy.
Check out what these A-listers had to say about it below.
Lenny Kravitz
Lenny recently doubled down on his decision to be celibate while speaking to The Guardian. “Yes. It’s a spiritual thing,” he said. This follows his 2008 Maxium interview, where he first talked about practicing celibacy. "[It's] just a promise I made until I get married. Where I'm at in life, the women have got to come with something else, not just the body, but the mind and spirit,” he revealed at the time.
Ciara and Russell Wilson
Russell Wilson and Ciara
Photo by Stefanie Keenan/VF24/WireImage for Vanity Fair
The Wilsons revealed that they both were practicing celibacy before they got married. Russell opened up about their decision in a past interview at The Rock Church. “I asked her, ‘What would you do if we took all that other stuff off the table and did it Jesus’ way, no sex?’” he said. “I knew God had brought me into her life to bless her and for her to bless me and to bless so many people with the impact that she has and I have.”
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey shared that she was celibate prior to marrying Nick Cannon in 2008. In an interview with Mirror, she said, “It’s not that we had NO intimacy, we just didn’t have complete intimacy. It’s just me, and my feelings.” She continued, “I definitely don’t want to push it on anybody else, But we both have similar beliefs, and I just thought that it would be so much more special if we waited until after we were married. And it was, and it still is.”
Nick Cannon
Nick decided to abstain from sex again in 2022 after having his eighth child with model Brie Tiesi. “My therapist was one of the ones who said I should probably be celibate, and the reason why is because I had shared that news about Bre being pregnant,” he said on his now defunct daytime talk show. “And it was like, ‘Yo, I don’t know what to do.’ It felt like–I was trying to get a grasp, I got a new show coming out and that was the reason why I started my celibacy journey back then. So for anyone who’s thinking, ‘Oh, he wasn’t celibate,’ I was!”
He added, “I was like ‘Yo, I gotta get my life under control’ because I felt like I was out of control, and honestly that celibacy did help me through the journey of getting one with myself, being able to deal with this (the pregnancy) and so now everybody knows why I was being celibate.”
Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj
Photo by John Shearer/WireImage
When Nicki Minaj appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2017, she revealed that she took a break from dating. “I’m just chillin’ right now,” she said. “I’m celibate. I wanted to go a year without dating any man. I hate men.”
Jordin Sparks
While guest co-hosting The Real, Jordin Sparks opened up about the self-love journey she went on before marrying her husband, Dana Isaiah Thomas. “I married Dana because after I went through therapy and I really worked on myself—I cut myself off from dating, and I went celibate,” she explained. "And I just was like, ‘I have so much love in my life. The next person who comes into my life in that way needs to add so much more than I already have.’”
Evelyn Lozada
Back in 2019, Evelyn Lozada shared that she got baptized and was now waiting to have sex until marriage. "I'm done with premarital sex. I felt like… [in] those relationships I lost a piece of me, every time I had sex [out of wedlock]," she told Baller Alert.
Yvonne Orji
Yvonne Orji
Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images for BET+
Yvonne Orji has been open about her virginity. During her 2017 appearance on The Breakfast Club, the comedian opened up about how she found God in college and made a vow to remain a virgin until marriage. "Personally, I had plans to have sex when I turned 18. I was dating [a guy], and I had it figured out. But, I got to college at 17 in D.C., and then I got saved,” she explained.
Meagan Good
When Meagan Good and DeVon Franklin were married, they wrote the book The Wait, which talked about them waiting to have sex before marriage. When the former couple appeared on Oprah Winfrey's Super Soul Sunday, the actress shared how a man who is willing to wait is husband material.
"That was a big issue for me because if he does leave me because I am not worth him waiting in his eyes, then he's not my husband," she said. "If someone does not think I am worthy of wanting to be the best version of myself, and wanting to get healing, and wanting to set myself up for success, if they won't do that with me, then I don't want to spend the rest of my life with them,."
Adrienne Bailon and Israel Houghton
Adrienne Bailon Houghton revealed that she and her husband, Israel Houghton, practiced abstinence before marriage. During an episode of The Real, the couple detailed their wedding night. “You don’t understand, we’ve waited for this moment. So I opened the door, and I had to kick Shane [The Real’s cameraman] out because he was following us around with the camera. Like, ‘You gotta go. Thank you for following us this far, but your time is up. Feel free to go to bed,'” Israel hilariously recalled.
Tamera Mowry-Housley
Tamera Mowry-Housley revealed that she was celibate before marrying her husband, Adam Housley. But before getting married, she learned how to please herself first. "So as you know, I've waited a really long time to have sex. But the thing is, is I knew what I liked and what I wanted because I can remember reading a magazine, actually it was ESSENCE, and it was about you know, sex education, pleasing yourself, and knowing what pleases you and what you like," she said on The Real.
So when she got married, she was knowledgeable about sex and what she wanted in the bedroom. "So even though I wasn't having sex I knew what I liked so I was in touch with myself. So, you know, once I got married with Adam and all of that, I knew what I wanted."
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While speaking to xoNecole, Eva shares that she’s a lot like the beloved 1994 character in many ways. “Lyric is so me. She's the odd flower. A flower nonetheless, but definitely not a peony,” she tells us.
“She's not the average flower you see presented, and so she reminds me of myself. I'm a sunflower, beautiful, but different. And what I loved about her character then, and even more so now, is that she was very sure of herself.
"Sure of what she wanted in life and okay to sacrifice her moments right now, to get what she knew she deserved later. And that is me. I'm not an instant gratification kind of a person. I am a long game. I'm not a sprinter, I'm a marathon.
America first fell in love with Eva when she graced our screens on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model in 2004, which she emerged as the winner. Since then, she's ventured into different avenues, from acting on various TV series like House of Payne to starring on Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Je-Caryous Johnson Entertainment
Eva praises her castmates and the play’s producer, Je’Caryous for her positive experience. “You know what? Je’Caryous fuels my audacity car daily, ‘cause I consider myself an extremely audacious woman, and I believe in what I know, even if no one else knows it, because God gave it to me. So I know what I know. That is who Je’Caryous is.”
But the mom of three isn’t the only one in the family who enjoys acting. Eva reveals her daughter Marley has also caught the acting bug.
“It is the most adorable thing you can ever see. She’s got a part in her school play. She's in her chorus, and she loves it,” she says. “I don't know if she loves it, because it's like, mommy does it, so maybe I should do it, but there is something about her.”
Overall, Eva hopes that her contribution to the role and the play as a whole serves as motivation for others to reach for the stars.
“I want them to walk out with hope. I want them to re-vision their dreams. Whatever they were. Whatever they are. To re-see them and then have that thing inside of them say, ‘You know what? I'm going to do that. Whatever dream you put on the back burner, go pick it up.
"Whatever dream you've accomplished, make a new dream, but continue to reach for the stars. Continue to reach for what is beyond what people say we can do, especially as [a] Black collective but especially as Black women. When it comes to us and who we are and what we accept and what we're worth, it's not about having seen it before. It's about knowing that I deserve it.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Thinking about them kinda-sorta inspired this piece because they caused me to reflect on the times when some of my clients have come to me, semi-freaking out, and it was because their thoughts about someone had gone beyond “Hey, she’s pretty” or “Hey, he looks good.” Instead, they were starting to fantasize about certain folks, and they weren’t sure what to do about it, especially when some of those fantasies were transpiring while they were engaging in sex with someone else.
You know, it’s been reported that somewhere around 50 percent of people do indeed have fantasies about other people while having sex with another person. And that is definitely a high enough number to tackle some things about the topic here.
If you’re someone who fantasizes about other individuals, especially sexually, here’s some intel into why that could be the case, along with when it gets to the point and place where you might want to consider actually doing something about it.
What’s a Fantasy and What Exactly Causes Them?
GiphyWhenever you think of the word “fantasy,” what immediately comes to your mind?
Personally, what I find to be interesting is the fact that the dictionary says that there are actually a lot of things that can be considered a fantasy: your imagination, hallucinations, visions, ingenious inventions, illusions — I mean, there is even a genre of fiction that falls into the fantasy category. However, when it comes to what we’re going to discuss today, a psychological term for fantasy is “an imagined or conjured up sequence fulfilling a psychological need; daydream.”
And yes, before we get to the end of all of this, that definition is going to answer quite a few questions as it pertains to the topic of this particular piece. But first, more about the origin story of fantasies.
Apparently famed neurologist, Sigmund Freud spent some time analyzing fantasies and came to the conclusion that, more than anything else, a fantasy represents something that is either a suppressed urge or desire and when you stop to think about what you imagine, what your visions are, what you may long to invent — that certainly tracks. However, something that you should also keep in mind about fantasies is that, oftentimes, they are rooted in few boundaries and can even go well beyond what is considered to be reality (which is something that is based on facts and truth).
Oh, something else that needs to be kept in mind about fantasies is that they are typically relied on as a mental form of escape from something or someone (bookmark that).
And now that fantasies are more clearly defined, if your immediate question is, “Is it wrong to fantasize?” — no, I certainly don’t think that. What I do believe, based on what a fantasy is, though, is if you are fantasizing a lot about a particular person, place, thing or idea, it would be a good idea to ponder why that is the case — why is that a suppressed desire for you, why are you using that as a mental escape and perhaps, the most important question of all, does your fantasy come with any limits?
Now let’s build on top of this…
Now What Causes Folks to Fantasize About Other People?
GiphyAs I was doing more research on the topic of fantasies, I came across an article entitled, “What Happens In Our Brains When We Fantasize About Someone.” The author of it started the piece out by talking about a cool connection that she made with someone on a plane, only for her to find herself fantasizing about him once they parted ways. As she went deeper into her story, she mentioned a word that definitely needs to be shared here: heuristics.
If you’re not familiar with it, heuristics is simply a mental shortcut. For instance, if you find yourself needing to make a quick decision (check out “Before You Make A Life-Altering Decision, Read This.”), you may rely on heuristics to do it (even if it’s subconsciously). The challenge with that is oftentimes heuristics will only provide you with a limited amount of data and information, and relying only on that could cause you to not make the best choice, if you’re not careful. And boy, when heuristics jump into your fantasy space — well, something that immediately comes to my mind is celebrity culture.
Ain’t it wild how people will be on social media, speaking so confidently, about someone—or someone’s relationship—as if they personally know them (when they absolutely don’t)? I mean, just because someone is attractive or you’ve seen them carry themselves well in an interview or two, that doesn’t automatically mean that they are the ideal person or that they are someone to set your own dating standards by. If you’re not careful, though, heuristics and fantasies may encourage you to think otherwise.
That’s because the combo will try and get your brain to jump to all sorts of conclusions and, if you don’t keep that in check, it could result in you making premature, counterproductive, or even straight-up reckless decisions — because remember, a fantasy tends to be about suppressing an urge or desire.
Honestly, whether you are in a relationship or not, if you are fantasizing about a particular individual, understanding why you are doing that should definitely be explored.
However, if you are with someone and you’re fantasizing about someone else, you really shouldn’t ignore what is transpiring because, although by definition, there’s a good chance that whatever and whomever you are fantasizing about will never come to pass, the fact that it’s taking up some of your mental and emotional space, that needs to be acknowledged. Because if there is something that you want or need, and you seem to believe that your fantasies are better at supplying that for you than the reality of your relationship, why is that?
Let’s keep going…
What Does (or Could) It Mean If You Fantasize About Someone Else During Sex?
GiphyIt’s pretty common that a random song will come to mind whenever I’m writing an article. Today? It was Guy’s “My Fantasy.” Then a sitcom did — King of Queens, and the episode when Doug and Carrie were talking about his sexual fantasies. The song is about images that the fellas randomly have about beautiful women. The episode was about Carrie wanting to dictate to Doug what and whom he could fantasize about because some of his sexual fantasies made her feel uncomfortable or intimidated.
And both of these are a pretty solid intro into whether there is something wrong with sexually fantasizing about someone, especially while having sex with someone else. Well, before getting into all of that, I think another article that I read on the topic brings up a pretty good point — that it’s important to think about where your fantasies are coming from: your imagination, things you see on social media, porn that you may have watched, people who you actually know…and if it’s the latter, is it someone from your past or someone from your present?
Yeah, knowing the source of your fantasies can definitely help you to understand how “deep” into your fantasies you might be.
What I mean by that is, seeing a beautiful man one time and randomly thinking about what it would be like to have sex with him on some beach vacation is quite different than constantly thinking about your ex, the sex you used to have with him and then fantasizing about it For one thing, the beautiful guy, you will probably never have access to. That ex, though? Well, at the very least, that is a bit more realistic, right?
Then there’s the fact that, again, a fantasy is a suppressed urge or desire. When it comes to the beautiful man, is it his looks that you long for, or is it something deeper? And that ex of yours? Lawd, now why, when you have your own man in your own bed, is your ex “scratching some sort of itch”? Because we all know what they say — “he’s your ex for a reason,” so why is he creeping up into your intimacy space now that the relationship is over? Is something unresolved?
Are there sexual needs that he met that your current partner isn’t (check out “You Love Him. You Prefer Sex With Your Ex. What Should You Do?”)? Is something currently transpiring in your current relationship that you are using fantasies about your ex to escape from?
You see, although when it comes to the topic of fantasizing about others when you’re having sex with someone else might seem like the a cut-and-dried, “Don’t do it, end of discussion” — as someone who works with couples for a living, I think the bigger concern isn’t if another guy comes into your mind during sex with your partner…it’s more about WHY is that happening to begin with. Because if you need to escape from where you are, if you can’t be present with your partner, something is definitely up.
When Should You Be Concerned About the Fantasies You Are Having?
GiphyDuring the last several months of breaking up (because we all know that sometimes breaking up is a process) with the last boyfriend whom I will have in this lifetime, I recall fantasizing about other people while having sex with him. It’s because I really wasn’t attracted to or interested in him, sexually, anymore — but I was a bit fearful of what it would mean to let the entire relationship go.
And boy, is that a huge red flag because I wasn’t fantasizing about some random famous person one time during sex — I was relying on images, my imagination, and previous experiences with other people to literally get me through the act. NOT. GOOD.
Y’all, one of the greatest and most profound forms of communication and connection between two people is sexual intimacy, and so, when it transpires, it really should only be about the two of them. That said, should you freak out over a thought about someone who creeps up into your mind every once in a while? Chile, more people have that happen than they will ever admit out loud.
On the other hand, should you worry if you’re like I was? I’ll put it this way — you should definitely be concerned because the last thing that you should be feeling during sex with someone is like you are suppressing what you need and/or that you want to escape from the moments that you are experiencing with them.
And yet, if that is indeed the case, though, what should you do?
Start with doing some sex journaling. Write down your fantasies, the sources of them, and why you are leaning on them in this season (check out “The Art Of Sex Journaling (And Why You Should Do It)”). If they are tied to unrealistic situations, be real with yourself about that. If they are rooted in potential possibilities, do some journaling about how much you are “feeding into” that reality and what you think would be the wisest way to move forward, both for your sake as well as your relationship.
Talk to your partner. Each relationship is different, and so, while I’m not going to recommend that everyone just blurt out that they’ve been thinking about having sex with their co-worker or college sweetheart while having sex with their partner, I do think that the suppressed urges and desires (in general) should be mentioned. Sometimes, fantasies are birthed out of boredom (check out “If You're Not Having Great Sex, This Is (Probably) Why” and “Common Sex Problems Couples Have (& How To Fix 'Em)”) and doing something like creating a sex bucket list (check out “This Is How To Create The Best Kind Of ‘Sex Bucket List’”) can breathe new life into your bedroom.
Plus, sharing some of your deepest thoughts, feelings, and needs (in a kind, thoughtful, and mature way) can cultivate more emotional intimacy with your partner, and that can definitely be a good thing.
Consider seeing a sex therapist. If, after doing both of these things, the fantasies seem to be getting stronger and louder, you might need to make an appointment with a reputable sex therapist (check out “Have You Ever Wondered If You Should See A Sex Therapist?”). They may be able to help you to “connect some dots” about what’s going on that you wouldn’t have considered without their help, because sex therapists are trained in helping individuals sort out the mental and emotional sides of intimacy, not just the physical ones.
____
Are fantasies bad? They aren’t. However, when it comes to sexual ones, a quote by Benjamin Franklin absolutely comes to mind: “If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.”
And that, right there, should be a guiding message for how you should process the fantasies that you do have.
Amen? Sho’ you right.
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