Hephzibah Anderson cuts to the chaste: A year of no sex

Why is it that the moment you swear off cake, the off-limits confection suddenly seems to be everywhere? Likewise, the year that Hephzibah Anderson gave up sex was perhaps her most torrid. In "Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year Without Sex" (Viking, $25.95), the 34-year-old British journalist, who has written for Vogue and The New York Observer, (whose reviews for Bloomberg.com have sometimes appeared in Newsday), mixes memoir with history, sociology and biology for a heady cocktail that feels anything but virginal. Through a series of affairs that are quite sexy - albeit sexless - Anderson attempts to untangle the relationship between the emotional and the physical with some surprising results. She spoke with us recently by phone about her discoveries.

Typically, going without sex is not something people want to broadcast. Why confess?

There is a huge stigma attached to going without sex. In our culture, ebbing libido and the lack of sex drive in middle-aged women are huge fears, and so we strive to always be ready for sex. Meanwhile, any idea of chosen abstinence has been hijacked by the abstinence movement and is seen as extreme and right-wing. I'd like to bring this option of choosing to abstain back into the mainstream and focus on the sophistication of sex - not quantity, but quality.

For a book with no sex in it, this was a pretty racy read.

You don't have to be having sex for the world to be a sensual place. I had endlessly more opportunities that year than any before or since. I was holding myself aloof and this was intriguing [to men]. But I did think to myself, how ironic - I've hit the secret for breaking out of a dry spell!

The book chronicles your dating experiences in both London and New York. How were they different?

Brits are still not so good with talking about emotions, but New York men are more open. In New York, if you are a guy, you have infinite possibilities. Most have way too much sex and then wake up in their late 30s without a deep relationship, and they haven't acquired the tools to build one because they are so spoiled. It's easy to get a date, but hard to build a relationship.

And in this day and age, getting dates is as easy as clicking your mouse.

Technology encourages speed, and this is not how love works. We want shortcuts to intimacy - sex has certainly become one such shortcut. We are connecting all the time, but not taking the time to truly connect.

Historically, chastity has been a tool for transcendence, but for you it reaffirmed your faith in romance. Will there be any more intentionally chaste years in your future?

At the rate I'm going now, I will have plenty of unintentional years! The pickier you get, the less sex you have, but now my life has a lot more contentment and romance.