That’s the hook behind a new book by Cambridge-educated journalist Hephzibah Anderson. The author of “Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year Without Sex” chatted about it recently with TIME magazine:

Looking back, what was the most surprising part of the year?

I was certainly surprised by how sensual the world seemed. We tend to stigmatize the dry spell. But it was so far from being arid. I learned so much. One of the things I learned was that we’ve become quite reductive in our idea of sexuality, and sensuality doesn’t really feature much. You don’t have to be having sex to still feel like you’re a sexual being and still feel like a woman. I felt much more confident in that respect by the end of the year. And much more happy. There was a lovely tranquillity in my life that let me put the quest for love into perspective. 

You mentioned toward the end of the book that taking this vow also felt isolating. How so?

It did cast me as an outsider, although there are far more people than we imagine who do lead their private lives along similar lines, and they don’t behave the way we are led to believe that everybody is behaving just by watching TV and movies. It made me realize we’re under such pressure to be sexual beings all the time and constantly up for it. It gets exhausting.

There’s more at the TIME link.