“The thought of sleeping with the people that hate me and oppress women as a whole is repulsive,” says 18-year-old college student Aaliyah. “That’s why I won’t be having sex with men anymore.”
In the wake of Donald Trump winning the Presidential election, many women across the nation and beyond began to worry about their futures. What would a second round of Trump's leadership mean for women?
These fears are far from unfounded. In 2016, a video emerged wherein he allegedly bragged, “They let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy” when speaking of women and what he could do with his fame. There’s the civil lawsuit that found he sexually abused E Jean Carroll in a department store changing room 28 years ago. Then, of course, there’s what a Trump win means for abortion access in the states. Trump notoriously overturned Roe Vs Wade during his last presidency, a supreme-court-level law that protected the right to have an abortion across the country. He even bragged about it too, saying ‘I was able to kill Roe Vs Wade’.
So, as last week’s winning result came through, TikTok and X were awash with women denouncing themselves from men, vowing not to engage with men, heterosexual sex, or pregnancy if they will not be respected as equals or have full legal access to birth control and abortion. “Here’s the deal: Women stop having sex with men until Congress protects Roe v. Wade.” said one X user in a viral post.
If we lived in a society that genuinely cared about women, Trump's presidential bid would have ended the moment he first uttered his plan out loud.
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Aaliyah, who is using a pseudonym to protect their identity, is one of the many women participating in this sex ban. It’s also been referred to as a ‘celibacy protest’ or the ‘West 4B movement’, inspired by the Korean 4B movement, which saw Korean women not dating, getting married, having sex or having children with men. The name refers to its defining four tenets which all start with the Korean prefix ‘bi; no sex with men (‘bisekseu’), no giving birth (‘bichulsan’), no dating men (‘biyeonae’), and no marriage with men (‘bihon’)
“If men don’t respect our bodies, they shouldn't have access to our bodies,” Aaliyah tells GLAMOUR. "If collective action is taken, then this movement has the power to make governments rethink abortion restrictions.”
30-year-old restaurant manager Cait is also participating in the West 4B movement and agrees that Trump has inspired this protest, but it’s not just about him – at least not for her. Rather, much like the Korean 4B movement, it’s about the state of heterosexual relationships and women’s dissatisfaction with their options and anger over their mistreatment.
“Single women had already taken themselves off the dating market, they've been getting married less, they're less likely to want children,” Cait explains to GLAMOUR. “Electing a man who brags about groping women and overturning Roe, whose VP has a history of disparaging unmarried, childless women and is an even more extreme anti-abortion politician, was the final nail in the coffin.”
Movements such as 4B, boy sober and elected celibacy are gaining traction amongst women whose dating lives have turned toxic.
For some women, the West 4B movement is less about protesting and more of a safety measure. That’s the case for 22-year-old freelance writer Natalia is participating because she simply doesn’t find it appealing, nor safe, to have sex with men anymore.
Natalia, who is just using her first name to protect her identity, tells GLAMOUR her commitment to celibacy is deeply personal and political, shaped by a longstanding fear of “unwanted pregnancies, sexual diseases, and of being used or hurt by men” – a fear she feels every young woman shares to some degree. Describing celibacy as something that “chose her”, she sees it as an act of self-preservation in a world where sex is treated as a “meaningless commodity reducing people to another body on a list”.
Experiences with men who “offered little but sex, without genuine interest in her well-being or emotional needs” only confirmed her choice. She adds, “With the election and the nauseating win of that man, Trump, I think celibacy is the way to go.”
Cait agrees that casual sex is no longer safe in America due to both restrictive abortion policies and a rising climate of hostility toward women. With only a short time left before Trump takes office, many women would struggle to find options if newly pregnant, especially given the looming threat of further abortion bans. At the same time, she notes, the surge in hate crimes and misogynistic chants like “your body, my choice” add to the risks, which she doesn’t see as "empty threats" but as real dangers.
From reproductive rights to women in conflict.
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Barely a week in, the West 4B movement has faced mass criticism online. Prominent liberal voices said this movement is “steeped in rape culture”, arguing that it promotes the idea that women don’t want sex and that it's instead something simply done to them by men. Others have argued that the protest is counterproductive since Republicans, generally speaking, are pro-celibacy – at least if their historical investments in abstinence programmes are anything to go by. “Way to give the bad guys exactly what they want; why don’t you protest another way?” said one viral post opposing the movement.
That idea of the 4B movement being accidentally Republican is propped up by the masses of Republicans responding to the West 4B movement with viral X posts and TikTok videos stating, “Perfect, go celibate – that means fewer abortions!”.
But Cait disagrees with this completely, telling GLAMOUR that restricting abortion access “was never about abortion and always about controlling women,” since Republicans notoriously block initiatives that would prevent unwanted pregnancies like sex education programmes and contraception access. “They want to shrink women's options to keep them out of higher education and well-paying careers, and ultimately dependent on men," she says.
She adds that while celibacy might seem like control, it actually challenges men’s desire for sex and commitment because “ men do want sex, but on their terms,” and 4B challenges that. Essentially, celibacy is the device used to spread the message – not the message itself, which is what Natalia describes as “a new age of power”.
In a world that places all the emphasis on romantic relationships, it's time we gave single friendships the recognition they deserve.
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The real criticisms of the movement worth tackling for Cait, Natalia and Aaliyah alike are the associations with transphobia. The original 4B movement in Korea has come under fire for its leaders being transphobic in the past, and many have warned there are already signs of similar behaviour in its Western re-enactment. In fact, one prominent collective in the movement, West 4B Movement, proudly states “#TERF” in their X bio. Many women participating have also said it’s for “biological women only” based on the transphobic notion that trans women are, in fact, men and, therefore, can’t take part in de-centring them.
“The transphobia (more specifically transmisogyny) and white feminists that the movement welcomes, as a non-binary Black person, has made me quite uncomfortable to say the least,” they share. “It’s hard to build community and sisterhood (which is a core principle in the movement) with white, cisgender women that don't have any basic values or principles.”
Aaliyah is concerned that white, trans-exclusive feminism could hold the movement back because it’s not just about celibacy, and shouldn’t just include cis women. “It’s about "radicalising young women to confront internalised misogyny, critique themselves, and reject the status quo and name men as their oppressors”. They also believe this kind of feminism discourages self-criticism, which this fight requires to dismantle real oppression.
This, among many other reasons, is why Cait believes this movement has to go beyond celibacy. She’s inspired by the long history of women supporting each other in the book Flowers of Fire by Hawson Jung, which, in part, documents the 4B movement and shows how it isn’t just about withholding sex, but de-centering men completely and lifting women – all women – up by supporting their businesses and communities, whether it was buying more tickets for films made by women or exclusively buying products from female-run stores.
“Imagine if we all sought out women to support and elevate, even in the smallest of ways,” she says. She believes this kind of solidarity is vital today, as political hostility grows toward independent women, and sees it as something any woman can do, regardless of whether they’re celibate.
As Aaliyah puts it, this movement doesn’t just stop at celibacy, but it “requires us as feminists, as sisters, as women to protest and advocate heavily for political change. If we can do that, then I do have hope.”
The resources and helplines you need to know.
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