Woodard, twenty-seven, has rechristened — or rather rebranded — celibacy as “boysober.” The rules of boysobriety, she tells nearly 400,000 followers, include: no dating apps, no dates, no exes, no situationships and no “xoxoxo” (“hugs and kisses, extended, et cetera”). 

The New York Times recently profiled Woodard’s first boysober event, which was a sort of tenderhearted storytelling session where comediennes talk about the men who have hurt them and the women who have healed them. One of the attendees, Catie, praised the celibacy rebrand as this year’s hottest “mental health craze,” which sounds like something you might be sectioned for. The word “boysober” sounds like every other infantilizing trend of the last year or two — “girl dinner,” “girls that get it,” “girl math,” “clean girl,” etc. One may wonder where the “girlsober” movement has got to given these kinds of trends are geared towards New York women in their twenties who identify as bisexual or queer (although, in all likelihood, they’ll only be dating boys).

Catie said she and her friends go celibate “every so often,” as if celibacy is a thing you dip in and out of. This is a generation with a tendency to keep branding and rebranding routine behavior and cycles through new trends by the week, like painting your nails blue (“blueberry milk nails”) or going outside (“hot girl walks”). A few months or years without sex doesn’t need a special public-facing label, whether “celibacy” or something else. It’s normal. ...

There’s a good reason why fasting is a part of all major religious practices.