The women who have decided to live without sex... and the hilariously revealing reactions of their male suitors when they break the bad news

Pascal, 40, says being celibate has changed her life

Divorcee Judy, 55, would rather 'keep my body to myself than get hurt'

Delyth, 41, doesn't believe in sex outside marriage



Men have seen their abstinence as an a joke, insult or a challenge

Sitting in a restaurant, the stunning brunette in the figure-hugging red dress commanded the unwavering attention of her date.



His eyes feasted on her lips as his hand crept seductively over the tablecloth to gently touch her fingertips. There was only one place this date was heading. He just hoped the taxi could transport them there fast enough.



But just as he summoned the waiter, his date, 40-year-old Pascal D'Sanchez, leaned forward and whispered words that took the wind out his sails. Although she'd had a wonderful evening, she said, she was not going to have sex with him. Ever.

No sex please: Judy Hanson, left, and Pascal D'Sanchez feel more in control now they are celibate

Pascal, from Chesterfield, Derbyshire, is one of a new breed of women for whom celibacy is a lifestyle choice. It is not that they have sworn off men - they are rarely short of male attention. But rather than viewing sex as an intrinsic part of a successful relationship, they see it as an unnecessary hindrance.



Recent research revealed that a quarter of middle-aged British women have sex less than once a month - making us the most abstemious in Europe. It seems women are increasingly uninterested in sex, with more of us than ever taking this stance to the extreme.



The poster girl for this surprising trend is author Sophie Fontanel. Her memoir, The Art Of Sleeping Alone, describes her decision to refrain from physical relationships for 12 years after becoming disillusioned with sex.



Already a bestseller in her native France, it was released in Britain this week. Fontanel, 50, claimed her self-imposed celibacy led to a journey of self discovery. 'The fact women can make love when and how they want is sexual liberation. But sexual liberation is also to not do it, if you don't want to,' she says.





'Some men have mocked or thought I was joking. Others eyes have glazed over. One date actually complained, "I need to test out my women before I can marry them"'

It is a sentiment Pascal can well understand. 'I feel happier, more focused and in control,' she says. 'Being celibate has changed my life. I have my self-esteem back. I don't need sex to validate me.'



So why are women turning their backs on sex? Research is patchy, but several years ago an American study into sexual attitudes suggested the number of women opting for celibacy has quadrupled in the past ten years, up from 2-3 per cent to about 10 per cent. Other research suggests one in 20 couples has relationships that are sex-free.



'The pressures of modern life, past emotional trauma and intimidating media images can lower libido,' says sex and relationship psychologist Diana Parkinson. 'There are women who don't have a sex drive and are happier without the pressure of a sexual relationship.



'But most human beings benefit from a healthy sex life in a loving relationship. Trying to suppress a desire for sex can be detrimental to physical and mental health.'



Pascal, a training course manager, hasn't had sex since April, 2012, when a nine-year relationship with a painter, now 45, ended. The hurt she endured certainly contributed towards her vow of chastity.



'I felt taken for granted,' she says. 'My confidence was shattered and being on my own was daunting. Being single a year short of my 40th birthday was frightening. I knew I had to do something to regain control of my emotions.



Confident: Pascal said her self-esteem has grown since she gave up sex

'Cliche that it is, I wanted to find myself. I knew sex would create issues I could live without.'



So she decided to give it up altogether. She would tell any man she dated that she would go no further than kissing or hand-holding.



Drastic? Perhaps. At first, she found abstaining tough. 'Of course, I got urges,' she admits. 'It wasn't so much the sex as the intimacy of lying in bed cuddling.'



Although the men she has dated while celibate have been of a similar ilk - successful, middle-aged professionals - their reaction has varied widely.



'Some have mocked or thought I was joking,' she says. 'Others' eyes have glazed over. One date actually complained, 'I need to test out my women before I can marry them.' Offended, I pretended I needed the lavatory and snuck out of the restaurant.



'Another man, a salesman, said he couldn't believe he had wasted his money buying me dinner.'



But the majority have, she claims, simply seen her celibacy as a challenge. 'It brings out the predator in them,' she says. 'I'm an enigma. They find dating me an unpredictable adventure.'



There were a few - admittedly a very tiny majority - who saw her reluctance to jump into bed with them as a good thing. 'So many fortysomething women want to have sex in a last-ditch attempt to get pregnant,' she claims.



'Men I date can be sure that's not on my agenda. I don't want their children.'



Pascal's longest relationship has been with a 56-year-old surveyor, whom she dated for four months last year and who she claims respected her decision. But, perhaps tellingly, she ended the affair because she suspected he was cheating. Although she wouldn't have sex with him, she wouldn't tolerate him doing it with someone else.



Meanwhile, she has no qualms about dating more than one man at a time. At one stage earlier this year, she was going out with a 46-year-old property developer, a salesman aged 42 and a car dealer, 50, simultaneously.



'I didn't tell them about each other, but I wasn't doing anything wrong,' she insists. 'It's only if I had been sleeping with them that it would have been cheap.'





'Taking sex out of the equation removes the pressure and awkwardness'

As time passed, her confidence soared. 'The longer I went without sex, the easier it was,' she says.



'Dating wasn't anywhere near as emotionally draining as sex. Instead of focusing so much energy on someone else, I would pay more attention to myself. I started eating healthily and going to the gym. I lost 7lb.'



While Pascal’s celibacy was by choice, other women say it is forced on them, due to the economic crisis, work pressure and pace of modern life leaving little time for physical intimacy.



Diana Parkinson explains: 'Years ago women were having better and more regular sex. Now, there's no time for a loving, satisfying relationship. Sex becomes a stressful ordeal when it’s supposed to be a cathartic release.'



But Pascal insists the relationships she has formed are often more meaningful than the ones she had before.



'Taking sex out of the equation removes the pressure and awkwardness,' she explains. 'If you rush into sex with the wrong man, a part of you has been taken away that you can never reclaim.'



Although her early sex life was unremarkable - Pascal lost her virginity at 18 and had a handful of sexual partners in her 20s - she says, like many young women, she sometimes felt taken for granted.



'I didn't have one-night stands, but I was naive and didn't treasure myself as much as I should have,' she says. 'I felt wretched if a man rejected me after sex.'



Fears rejection: Divorcee Judy would rather 'keep my body to myself than risk being hurt'

Now, she says: 'Learning to say "no" is liberating. I'm in control of my life. I'd have to be ridiculously in love to have sex with anyone again.'



Judy Hanson, 55, a divorcee who has been celibate for 17 months, certainly feels more secure now she no longer has sex.



'I think it's undignified to be having casual sex at my age,' she says. 'I have had plenty of opportunities to do it, but I don't want to be just another notch on a man's bedpost. I respect myself too much.'



Judy, a twice-married mother of four adult children, first married in 1983 when she was 24, but was widowed aged 28 when her husband, Tim, died after a car crash in 1987.





'If you're not naked by the third date, men sulk. But, interestingly, they rarely disappear. It makes them more determined to get what they want'

She married her second husband, a managing director called Dave, now 50, later that year. After 18 years together, they divorced in 2005. 'We grew apart,' she says. 'I lost all interest in sex. I had no desire to go to bed with anyone.'



She says she became devoid of libido. She didn't have sex for three years before she accepted a friend's offer to set her up, and met a businessman called Alan, a year her junior. The relationship lasted three years before she ended it last April.



'Although I enjoyed the sex, Alan wanted commitment and I didn't love him. I didn't want to sleep with a man for the sake of it. I decided at that moment to become celibate.'



These days Judy, a book editor from Bridlington, Yorkshire, is certainly not short of offers - mostly from successful fiftysomething men she is introduced to by friends. She usually waits until at least their second date before she announces she's celibate - and says her revelation is initially always met with disapproval.



It invariably happens as the man is making his move, an arm placed nonchalantly around her shoulder, one hand wandering south of her waist and lips poised for a kiss.



'It's their body language that tells me they are after sex more than anything they say,' she says.



'That’s when I know I can't put them off any longer and tell them I won't sleep with them - normally with a light-hearted rebuff to the effect of, "If you want a quickie, you’ve come to the wrong person".



'I don't want to make a big issue of it by going into my reasons. If you're not naked by the third date, men sulk. But, interestingly, they rarely disappear. It makes them more determined to get what they want.'

Setting an example: Delyth doesn't believe in sex outside marriage and has taught her children this belief

She says her past three suitors have all reacted the same way. The first, a wealthy businessman who picked her up in his Mercedes for dinner, attempted to entice her into bed on their second date.



'He was expecting me to be grateful for the attention,' she says. 'When he moved in on me I made my excuses and left. He apologised for coming on too strong, but made exactly the same moves on our third date, so I broke it off.'



The second - another business executive - exerted the same kind of pressure before Judy turned him down. 'Relationships should be more about good conversation at my age,' she says. 'I also have a reputation to uphold. I don't want to let my children down or start the neighbours gossiping about strangers' cars on the driveway overnight.'



The third man was a property developer who invited her to his impressive, renovated cottage.



'He put his arm round me, showed me his bedroom and tried to seduce me,' she says. 'I refused and we went out for a drink instead. But then he tried to get me to go home with him again. He even said I could leave my pyjamas on. I was astounded by his arrogance. He gave up and I never heard from him again.'





'I wouldn't want to have sex with a stranger on a one-night stand and won't have sex again until if and when I marry'

Judy's bravado belies a vulnerability that has crept in with middle age, however.



' When I was in my 20s I was more relaxed about sex,' she admits. 'Although I only slept with a couple of men before I married my first husband, I didn't take rejection personally. But for a woman of my age to be rejected would be horrible. I'd hate for a man to leave after we'd had sex. I'm more self-conscious about my body.



'I miss sex, but I'd rather keep my body to myself than risk getting hurt.'



Diana Parkinson says insecurity is another reason older women are becoming celibate. 'Media images suggest sex is just for the young. It's intimidating and celibacy is convenient for women who have fears about their ability to perform sexually.'



Mother-of-two Delyth Gammon, 41, a family support worker from Oxford, has been celibate for three years after discovering in 2010 her husband of 14 years had been having an affair.



'I knew straight away my sex life was over,' says Delyth. 'I wouldn't want to have sex with a stranger on a one-night stand and won't have sex again until if and when I marry.'



Delyth's mother was a vicar and her father a policeman, and as a Christian family they believed sex should be saved for marriage.



'There was an expectation among my peers I would be doing it, but I didn't feel under pressure because I believed equally as strongly I didn't want to,' she says.



She met her husband, ten years her senior, at work when she was 21. They married three years later, in 1996. She doesn’t want to go into details of his affair, but admits it left her heartbroken.



Many women might - faced with such a betrayal - have wondered why they'd bothered saving themselves for their husband in the first place and endeavour to make up for lost time.



Journey: Sophie Fontanel has written a book about her self-imposed celibacy called The Art Of Sleeping Alone

For Delyth - who divorced her husband last year on the grounds of his adultery - it only reinforced her determination to abstain.



'When your marriage breaks up through no choice of your own, you immediately feel out of control,' she says. 'Celibacy helped me feel stronger, as if I'd made a choice.'



She admits, however, that abstaining has been harder than it was in her 20s. 'Sex was an important part of my marriage and, just as you wouldn't know how lovely chocolate was if you hadn't tasted it, I now know what I am missing,' she says.



'I'm human, so the desire is there. And I'm not a prude. I'm open to talking about sex. But that doesn't mean I have to follow through on it. I've been on a few dates, but haven't had boyfriends, and the men I've dated have been entirely respectful of my decision.'



Her decision is fuelled in part by a desire to set a good example to her children, a son and a daughter in their early teens.



'I'm teaching them sex is just for marriage, and you have to practise what you preach,' she says.



But she believes, too, that in today's society far too much emphasis is placed on physical desire.



'The world has become sex obsessed,' she says. 'It's all about instant gratification. I believe sex should be between two people who love each other.'



It is, of course, ironic that for all the sexual imagery we are bombarded with in today's society, more women are opting for celibacy.

