'Boysober' is Gen Z's version of celibacy — but is it here to stay?

Heading into her freshman year of university last year, Phatima Kabia was feeling done with men.

As a way to heal, she set herself boundaries around relationships: There would be no flings, no hookups, no awkward talking stages, no friendships with attractive men and no texting boys back after 9 p.m. — knowing "nothing good happens past 9 p.m." 

"I went through a really messy breakup in high school that honestly left me so tattered. And I just knew from that point … I wanted to take time off for myself," said Kabia, 18, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"I feel like a lot of the times, as women, your value is really related to your relationship to a man … so I wanted to build my status up and get to know myself well enough, to the point where I'd be like, 'OK, this is what I can't accept and this is what I do not accept at all."

Fed up with exhausting dating apps and messy hookup culture, some Gen Z women say they're choosing not to have sex or date for a set period of time. Instead, they're living "boysober" — a trending TikTok term which generally refers to a young woman who wants to focus her energy on self-care, healing or reflection around what she wants from dating and relationships.

The #celibacy hashtag has more than 20,000 posts on TikTok, with young women sharing their stories on the platform. 

Last fall, Hope Woodard was in the thick of a few unhealthy relationships. She was still tangled up with an on-again, off-again ex and also interested in a man from London who wasn't responding to her texts.

She was still thinking about the man who ghosted her while she was on a trip to Tennessee to care for her grandmother, who has dementia. As the women sat together, Woodard realized her grandmother kept sending texts to her late husband, who had died a decade earlier.

"It was like I was looking into a crystal ball at my future. I was like, 'If I don't sort of figure out how to be alone, then I will literally be an 82-year-old still getting left on read,'" said Woodard, 28, using a term that refers to when a person reads your text but never replies.

Widely seen as the mother of the term "boysober," Woodard has since clarified the commitment can be for anyone abstaining from romantic relationships with people of any gender — not just heterosexual women taking a break from heterosexual men. 

People can tweak the rules to find what works for them. Some abstain from both dating and sex; others continue to have sex so long as they don't feel a romantic connection. It's different than faith-based celibacy, which has been around for centuries in alignment with an external community — it's an inward "rebalance" in service of oneself.

For Rachel Dawn, 24, the rules are no dating and no sex. Her boysober experience began three months ago as a way to take back power in her life after growing tired of the way men showed up for her, but she found it also strengthened bonds with friends and family.

"Ironically, it's like those relationships have become healthier because it's been like, 'OK, let's work through all the [childhood] trauma. Let's work through all the things that are causing you to go on dates for validation or because you're bored or because you feel wounded,'" said Dawn, an entrepreneur in Seattle.

"I think Gen Z really has the courage to break generational trauma, honestly, and look into the patterns.... But then also still wanting to connect with people in a way that feels good."