The Abstinent Sex Columnist

 By the time you read this column, I will have gone 31 days without having sex. To be more specific, that’s 744 hours, 44,630 minutes or 2,678,400 seconds—and counting. Although the average celibate individual is considered unlucky, an abstinent sex columnist is wholeheartedly pathetic. This indignant irony cannot be absolved by memories of a bygone era of sexual gluttony. I once prided myself on maintaining a solid sexual average of 1.6 orgasms per day, a statistic I wish I had never taken for granted.

That said, my predicament is not unique. Rather, it’s a fate shared by anyone who has ever been cockblocked by the Atlantic Ocean.

Since basic parameters of human nature dictate that going four months without a blow job is too much to bear, most study abroad participants opt to institute the perilous policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Put simply, these individuals choose to navigate the dangerous terrain of the “open relationship.”

Trying to understand the motivations behind these decisions and assured that one month’s worth of study abroad experience qualified my friends as experts in the field of  “non-exclusive love,” I surveyed tonight’s collection of beer-saturated companions. When asked about the meaning of an open relationship, one friend inquired, “If you like the person with whom you’re in a relationship, why is it open in the first place? Why not just hook up and not have the pretenses of a relationship? Seriously, what does ‘open relationship’ even mean?” I wish I had an intelligent answer.

As my friend, a card-carrying member of Open Relationships Anonymous, explains, “There are two credible reasons for being in an open relationship. You were having trouble before you went abroad, or you’re unsure if there’s enough of a foundation to sustain the relationship for a period of separation that is longer than you were going out in the first place.”

My cynical side convinces me that the majority of romantic affiliations do not meet these specifications. What about the pair that wants to ensure they’re right before they invest in a life-long commitment? Or the couple that has never been naked with anyone else? What if horniness afflicts you like the plague? Are any of these thoughts unsanctioned by the universal laws of “openness?”

For all the analytical energy most couples invest in the face of flexible sexual boundaries, most rarely understand the factors that led them to such conclusions in the first place. Why do you want to have sex with someone else? In the “closed relationship,” such a question behaves like flesh-eating bacteria on one’s romantic infrastructure. Redefine a personal connection as an “open relationship,” however, and the question itself is irrelevant.

Skype your significant other. Profess your love. Sign off and sleep in a bed that’s not your own. This is the accepted cycle when you decide to play the “study abroad game.” The rules ensure that no one gets hurt. Still, in the face of all this ambiguity, I’ll accept my sexual frustration and count the days since I last got laid. Arithmetic is easy. Solving for the unexplained variable is not.