Celibacy

I've been celibate for medical reasons for roughly two decades. 

My single biggest takeaway is that celibacy is a means to extract yourself from the endless cobweb of screwed up, tangled up social relationships and societal baggage concerning relationships and how they define a woman as the chattel property of a man.

I like myself better this way.

I like who I am as defined by me instead of as defined by men who see me as a sex object and potential little wifey (AKA personal servant whose highest goal is his happiness).

I like myself as defined by me and not by the mountains of baggage concerning what it means to be a woman that most people seem to be drowning in.

I like making decisions based on parameters other than societal approval or hoping to not offend some man who happens to be paying my bills.

And it's taken me this long to figure out that's what the issue really is and why no man ever shows up and why I continue to expect to remain alone.

I don't wish to put those chains back on and I cannot seem to find a man who can see a woman as distinct from those chains even though I'm clear men find me attractive for having gotten free of it and then immediately want to put them back on me in the process of declaring me "his."

I've described that previously in terms of me having agency or turf of my own and men wanting to immediately divest me of that and promptly turn me into the kind of woman they've always resented.

I know no solution to that issue. I would like to have my identity as me AND sex but if I must choose one or the other, I choose being me.