Living the Abstinent Lifestyle in New York

Trinity Laurel migrated to Manhattan at 21 to pursue a yearning career. Raised in a Christian home, Laurel was a freshman when she arrived at the city, and says she has “remained pure” while living here since.

Welcome to New York, Tim Tebow . Now that the Jets have broken the training camp and Tebow, a famous chaste Christian,  now he becomes a full-time New Yorker, it has become a common, and kindly amusing, pastime to worry about the temptations he might face or the potential loneliness he might suffer. But Laurel’s story, and the stories of other abstinent singles in New York, suggest that he will have plenty of company, and prospective dates. Indeed, Tebow may be better positioned for a chaste life than other New Yorkers, simply because he did not waste  his early 20s in the city. “ but If you make it to New York and you’re a virgin, you’ve still got a high percentage chance of maintaining the V-card,” said Conor Dwyer, 29 years old, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who married in June after meeting his future wife in Manhattan. “But if you’re on the fence, it’d be really difficult.” “When my friends found out that I was planning on waiting until I was married, I got laughed at quite a bit,” said Miki Reaume, a Christian and former Rockette at Radio City Music Hall, who lived in New York for nine years before marrying in 2010.

    The spread of the college-based abstinence groups like the Anscombe Society can help newcomers feel more comfortable about their chastity, said Donna Freitas, a Brooklyn resident and author of “Sex and the Soul,” a survey of sexual behavior among college students. “There’s more conversation going on about what’s happening in the hookup culture, and how much unease there is about it,” she said.