The Influencers Normalizing Not Having Sex | WIRED

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Incels—men who identify as involuntarily celibate—have long dominated conversations about loneliness and sex, both within the manosphere and on the broader internet.

But the data shows that young women, too, are having less sex. According to the National Survey of Family Growth, sexlessness among young adult women between the ages of 22 and 34 rose by roughly 50 percent from 2013 to 2023. The share of young women who hadn’t had sex in the past year climbed from 8 percent to 13 percent during that decade.

Their reasons for abstaining range from anxiety about the state of the world—the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the current political and economic climate—to a desire for total autonomy. While both genders experience similar rates of loneliness, studies have shown that single women tend to be happier than single men, possibly due to not having to deal with a disproportionate amount of household labor or deprioritize their sexual pleasure.

Online, the vocabulary is coalescing: femcel, boysober, opting out.

WIRED spoke to a trio of people who are very online about their celibacy—a career porn star taking a break from men, an asexual ex-Mormon YouTuber, and an entrepreneur who is saving herself for marriage—and are helping normalize it for the masses.

The Porn Star

Silver, formerly known as Natassia Dreams, in her city apartment. Her Pomeranian is unimpressed.

Photograph: Skye Battles

Dominique Silver isn’t someone you’d normally think of as being celibate.

Silver, a trans woman and supermodel, has been a porn star for around two decades and is a Pornhub brand ambassador, performing under the name Natassia Dreams. But over the past year, Silver hasn’t been intimate with anyone, personally or professionally. Silver also models, and many of her friends, including cisgender supermodels, are in a similar situation. “A lot of my girlfriends are not entertaining men right now,” she says from her sage green New York City apartment, featuring a closet with rows of Louboutins with Labubus tucked into them.

Silver genuinely loved sex for a long time. “I was having the time of my life,” she says. “A lot of my scenes, people say ‘I can tell you are not acting.’ And I wasn’t.” However, two decades in the industry showed her sides of men she can’t unsee. She watched men spin elaborate lies to their partners, and she watched friends’ relationships unravel due to infidelity.

Silver in her living room with her Pomeranian.

Photograph: Skye Battles

Leading up to Silver’s decision to be celibate, she flew to Brazil to meet a woman she’d been chatting with and a man she was hoping to build a long-distance relationship with. When she got there, both flaked out on meeting up. “It just made me reevaluate everything,” she says. After that, she started closing in on herself, turning into a “hermit.” She got a job as a hostess to force herself back out of the house and to meet people in person instead of through apps. On dating apps, about four in 10 people who match with her recognize her from her work in porn. “They make me uncomfortable,” she says, “because I’m not meeting them as that person.”

Silver says she grew up with trauma that created an anxious attachment style, a pattern where fear of abandonment drives people to seek constant reassurance in relationships. Now she’s in a cleansing stage. “Every person you sleep with, you take a little piece of them,” she says. “I feel like you need clear space, and you need to be comfortable alone before you start dealing with other people.”

She has a theory about why so many women around her are arriving at the same place. Women don’t need men the way they once did, she says. Not for jobs, housing, credit, or stability.

Silver at home. The portrait on the wall behind her is of herself, painted by the artist Alejandro Poveda.

Photograph: Skye Battles

She can describe exactly what she wants: someone who doesn’t flinch at her shine, who is honest, genuine, and not intimidated by what she’s built. She thinks she’ll know when she meets them, but doesn’t expect it to happen soon.

As for having sex again, she’s not in a rush. “I don’t think it’s going to happen tomorrow,” she says. “I don’t think it will happen this year. Will it happen? Maybe, maybe not, and that’s OK.”

The Asexual YouTuber

Saga in their bedroom, where they also create their YouTube content.

Photograph: Skye Battles

Growing up in the LDS church, Lynn Saga’s very first youth group lesson, at age 12, was on the law of chastity. They sat there totally unbothered.

“I thought I was the best Mormon in the world,” says the 29-year-old non-binary YouTuber. They describe their family as “pioneer stock” Mormons, with ancestors who made the pioneer trek to Salt Lake. “I was like, I’m already closer to God than all of these people.”

It took a couple more years to figure out why.

Saga was 13 when they heard the word “asexual” through