Recently, pondering my life’s mistakes as any good man does, I uncovered the source of all my problems: sex. Two additional conclusions. First, I am a loser. Second, men are evil.

But they have taught me an important lesson: We don’t like to talk about sex. The male homosexual is a fascinating creature—simultaneously sexually liberated and eternally caged within deviances that others can never understand. I am lonely and ever feel more naked than on Grindr. Such impossible feelings—what am I to do with all this clotted rage and failed romance? Keeping them bottled up would entertain only our most perverted philosophy students.

So, in the boldest move I’ve ever made, I present all the reasons I am never having sex again.

1. I AM A FUCKING IDIOT AND SO IS EVERYONE ELSE

He was a well-endowed senior, I a lonely and sexually frustrated freshman. Yes, I did walk 20 minutes to his dorm at 2:00 in the morning. And yes, I did wave hello to everyone I knew on the way. And yes, I did tell them that I was just getting a midnight snack at the U-Store. And yes, I did knock on the wrong door when I got there.

Apparently large age gaps are sexually exploitative, but power dynamics aside, the whole thing was pretty hot. He was twenty-two, tall, and I didn’t really know what he looked like—all good signs. The only picture he’d sent me was a dirty mirror selfie with flash on, and God were his barely visible chin and eyebrows a turn on. Most importantly, I didn’t know his name and he didn’t know mine. A perfect match.

2. I HATE EVERYONE AND I HATE SEX

One time an older man asked me if I learned to suck dick from YouTube videos. What the fuck? A guy pulled my pants down and said, “Damn, you got that thang on you.” Mid-sexting, a man told me the new cold weather was making his testicles shrink. I’ve never been more horrified.

I didn’t realize just how literal the phrase “dirty talk” is. What foul, disturbed language. What about sex reduces the male brain to a pile of mush? Are these the leaders of the next generation? The very best of our future investment bankers and Raytheon interns? We’re doomed.

3. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY

In case you didn’t know, boys can do it, too. I sucked his dick, maybe poorly, but well enough that he finished. In my mouth. I did not – the only part of me he touched was my hair, which he grasped in a way that told me he’d watched a lot of porn. There is nothing more humiliating than having to do it yourself, and still, I tried. Then, he looked up at me, and asked me a very fair question: “So, what’s your favorite dining hall?” I gasped. “What res college do you live in? Where are you from? What’s your major? Which gays on campus do you not like?”

Suddenly I realized exactly what I’d been putting myself through. I was having sexual encounters so detached, so unintimate that we had literally nothing to talk about after. So, to save us both from the barrage of icebreakers, shushed him. I fucking shushed him. And there we were, laying in silence, awkwardly begging for it to be over soon.

When I got home, he messaged me and told me I was bad at kissing.

4. I AM ASHAMED AND DROWNED IN SELF-LOATHING

There are probably more precise ways to talk about sex, but I tell my therapist that I wake up and then everything starts feeling weird. I move on with my day, tumble through a cycle of unforgiving and unsatisfying sex that I splice from the rest of my normal, untainted life. I look in the mirror and wonder if any of it happened. I freeze up when I see them, wretched beasts, walking around campus. I consider making eye contact. He does not, but sends me a message that night confirming he saw me.

What the fuck is happening? I remember, as a failed pervert and momentary sex toy for any nameless man who will ask, I am just like the rest of them. I will never find an answer. So, to keep myself protected from further crimes against my own psyche, from now on I am taking up a vow of iron-clad celibacy. You will see me in an asylum before another man’s bedroom.

I am a spritely, supple young man in the time of my life, and to ruin it with impure urges would be a terrible shame. So I am signing off from this filth, and until someone expresses vague interest in me again, it will stay that way.