How I Do It: ‘I swore off sex and masturbation for five weeks – now I want to keep the abstinence going’

(Picture: Myles Goode/Hope Flynn)

Welcome to How I Do It, the series in which we give you a seven-day sneak peek into the sex life of a stranger.

This week, we catch up with Hope Flynn, a heterosexual 31-year-old who told us how she was doing it earlier this year.

Hope, who’s head of content for iPlaySafe and the founder of online community Feed Me Female, told us all about how she was swearing off masturbation and porn for five weeks back in February.

She’d been seeing a new man who she was ‘totally into’ at the time, and had been about to jet off to Australia for a long trip when she and this guy, who she affectionately referred to as ‘a short king’, agreed it would be fun to go without orgasms until they saw each other again – ‘in a sexy dom master kind of way’.

‘For anyone wondering if I managed to go the full five weeks with no sex or masturbation,’ she tells Metro.co.uk, ‘I did.

‘I’m genuinely very proud of myself as I didn’t think I would achieve it.’

Hope says abstaining from sex was the easy part – it was the lack of masturbation that she really struggled with.

‘On some days my urges were uncontrollable,’ she says. ‘I had what I can only describe as a constant pulsation inside my vulva.

‘I really remember at times thinking I don’t know why I’ve put myself through this.’

When she got back home to London, Short King ‘was immediately replaced’ with her vibrator, as their dalliances ‘fizzled out’ during her tip away.

But even though Short King isn’t around anymore, her vow to go orgasm-free has had a lasting impact. Here’s how Hope got on this week…

Monday

The whole experience with the Short King has made me want to continue abstaining from sex for a while longer. 

He’s a nice really nice guy, but in the end I don’t think either of us felt much excitement towards each other. We’re friendly still but let’s just say I won’t be going for anymore dinners with him.

My main takeaways from the whole thing with him are:

It isn’t wise to start getting to know someone and sleeping with them when they are doing Dry January. Just wait until February as your perception of what they get up in their spare time could really change.

I rushed into sex with someone new when I myself had not emotionally healed from my previous dating experience.

I need to calm down when I’m trying to express myself when someone has annoyed me.

I need to trust more in my gut reaction to things, it’s usually right the first time it lets me know.

‘All of this made me want to break my period of celibacy’ (Picture: Hope Flynn)

Tuesday

I’ve been getting quite a few messages the last couple of days from a guy that I hook up with. He has a tattoo around, let’s just say, a very dark place, so my friends and I refer to him as ‘Tatty Batty’.

One day we might actually start calling guys by their real names but for now, the nicknames are easier. 

I’ve always really liked mine and his relationship as we’ve both been honest about our expectations of each other – which aren’t very much. He travels a lot for work and I have commitment/trust issues, so our situation has always felt perfect to me.  

We just hang out, share jokes, have great sex, and then don’t bother each other until the next time. That’s what I like about our situation and that’s what has made this influx of messages lately seem a little out of the ordinary. 

He texted me in the evening to say he wanted to talk to me about sex. For some reason this automatically made me panic – my brain started thinking all sorts.

When he messaged again, it read: ‘I don’t want to just keep f*****g – it’s fine when you first meet someone – but if f*****g is what this is, let’s make it EXCEPTIONAL’

I had no idea what to make of this. Was he trying to say our incredibly good sex isn’t good enough? Does he want more from me than just sex? Does he not want to sleep with me again? It even made me think he has a girlfriend – crazy logic, I know, but my mind just went there because I don’t trust anybody. The whole thing confused me. 

I’ve simply never looked at him and considered anything more. We continued the conversation about how we can make our sex exceptional as ‘f*****g is what this is…’

A while later, we started to exchange some naughty photos. He kept talking about all the things he wants to do to me and how he can’t wait to just stare at me naked and take me all in.

All of this made me want to break my period of celibacy and just have a long sex session with him. We arranged to meet on Thursday. 

Wednesday

I woke up, and I felt like I needed to do some preparation for Thursday night. I haven’t felt as sexy or as confident as I usually do, so I wanted to preen myself, for me.

In the afternoon, I thought I best message Tatty Batty to confirm what time we’re meeting tomorrow. But when I messaged him, I noticed his WhatsApp picture had gone, and my message only had one tick.

For a second I thought he had blocked me, but I stopped myself from overthinking about it because there was surely no reason why he would do that. It was only yesterday he spoke about the importance of communication – no way would he block me with no explanation. He doesn’t seem like that. 

A few hours later, I checked to see if the message had gone through but it was still on one tick. I was on the phone to my friend at the time, and she suggested that I send her his number, so she could see if his display picture came up. I sent it along with a message saying: ‘He’s a nice guy, I doubt he would do something like that.’

Well, more fool me because my mate could see his display picture.

I couldn’t believe my f**k buddy had blocked me. I wasn’t angry or upset about it, but I was genuinely really shocked. I never expected him to just ghost. I am now left with a tonne of unknowns.

Considering we had plans to meet up, I found it even more disrespectful of him to just block me. He could have easily cancelled and just explained that our situation isn’t what he wants moving forward. Now I’m left wondering whether he actually wanted more, and he’s upset that I didn’t. Did he not want to waste his time having sex with me again? Or maybe he really does have a girlfriend?

Whatever it is, I know it’s not personal and I can’t start mentally torturing myself with questions over it. This is a guy I never had any expectations from so I can’t start pretending to care just because he decided to block me.

I’m positive he’ll contact me again (they often do) but in the meantime, I have to let it go. 

Thursday

After yesterday, I woke up thinking that my current stint of abstinence is not yet meant to be broken.

I believe everything happens for a reason, and it probably wasn’t wise of me to be willing to break my celibacy for a guy I didn’t care too much about. 

I’m not saying all sex has to lead somewhere but the idea of my continued abstinence was to ensure I’m making more meaningful connections prior to having sex and to heal more from past situationships before moving forward with anyone else. So him blocking me put me back on my track, as sex is no longer on the menu tonight.

But later in the afternoon, he unblocked me and I got a message from him. I replied by pulling him up the blocking, which he denied by saying: ‘I’m really sorry, I don’t know how I have done that. It wasn’t my intention. Why would I block you? I’ve never blocked anyone in my life. It’s not me, it was 100% an accident. Not my style’

He must have thought I was born yesterday. I continued asking for the truth several more times. Eventually, he admitted that he did block me and that it was because he ‘doesn’t want to do the shagging thing anymore’ because his head is not in a good place.

Ordinarily, I would accept this as an extremely valid reason to not want to have sex with someone, however, I still don’t believe that that is the genuine truth as to why I was blocked and then unblocked.

For some reason I’m still edging towards ‘girlfriend’ – I just don’t believe a word he says after he just literally lied to me several times.

(Picture: Hope Flynn)

Friday

I went on Instagram and I have around 20 DMs from guys.

I do get asked out on dates pretty frequently, but I literally never go. I don’t know why that is.

I don’t want to close myself off from men completely, but I just really don’t feel up to dating lately – I really don’t trust anyone. 

Tonight I’ve decided I need a little drink and catch up with one of my best mates so I went to hers for dinner and updated her on ‘Tatty Batty’. This friend also thinks he has a girlfriend.

A few glasses of wine later we agree that we’re happy we have each other, and we don’t need men anyway (who are we kidding?).

Saturday

Today I’m excited because I’m going to a rave with my mate. I honestly haven’t been to a decent rave in London for a while, and I cannot wait to just let loose and dance to some good music. 

Strangely enough, I had a feeling that I might bump into a mate of mine that I have slept with before. He and I had the best sex ever a few years ago, and I’ve never wanted to sleep with him since because I don’t think we’re both capable of topping the greatness of that night.

It was hands down the best sex I’ve ever had, but I don’t think either of us has ever wanted a relationship the other, or even considered it. 

I wasn’t too surprised when I actually did bump into him at the rave. We ended up spending the majority of the evening together dancing and having a great time.

When we were chatting, we both agreed that we’re just friends and our one-time sex can never be topped – it’s the type of encounter that stays in your memory forever. If we were to have sex again, it would probably be an anticlimax.

We can both save that time in our wank banks and remain friends that don’t f**k. 

Sunday

Today, I went to one of my best friend’s baby showers. It’s always nice to catch up with a bunch of pals and see where they’re at with their lives.

I’m at quite a different stage of my life from the majority of them – I’ve been single for seven years while they are all in long-term relationships and/or have had babies. 

When I got home in the evening, I decided to scroll through some dating apps in bed. I haven’t done this much for a little while, but tonight I’m feeling a little interested to see who’s out there.

I feel like you’d need a full-time job to get through all the matches on some of these apps.

I matched with a few guys, and arranged a rather exciting date with someone. He’s quite a bit older than me and I find him really attractive, which is super rare for me on a dating app.

I can’t let my failed experience stop me from having a go with someone completely!

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