https://www.docdroid.net/sC5EYDM/involuntary-celibacy.pdf

...The lives and circumstances of involuntary celibates when viewed through a life course perspective

One of the presuppositions of this study on involuntary celibacy focuses is there is something called a “life course perspective”, in more familiar terms these would be “sexual milestones”.

Our study on involuntary celibacy focusses on transitions and trajectories

As described by the author, a transition is “brief events that mark chronological movement from one state to another”, for example, a transition would be: first kiss, graduating high school or first job. The second part is called a trajectory, a trajectory is “the long pattern of events in an individual’s experience in specific life spheres over time", examples of trajectories are: sexual history, high school experience or married life.

As a side note, the trajectories and transitions are socially constructed models, meaning they will change within the context of the culture, country, community etc. However, every context in the world has these socially constructed models.

For the majority of persons in Western societies, dating, sexual experimentation and take place sequentially, with individuals progressing from one to another in a somewhat linear fashion.

The author also notes these timing may vary from one individual to another, but it is assumed that adults have hit all of these transitions by their mid to late twenties, the author also talks about how missing these transitions can have consequences for those individuals, that consequence being lack of sexual relationships.

In summary, we theorize that involuntary celibacy is more than one event, it is a combination of timing, sequencing, and duration of sexual behavior.

The study goes on after describing the premises of trajectory and transition, going in depth about each the sequences and transitions in the lives of involuntary celibates, the participants were 60 males and 22 females, it even talks about celibates in relationships who have partners, so if you are interested in that the study there is a link at the top (just in case you missed it).

How accurate do you think the authors portrayal of life milestones was?

In addition what do you think of the premise of the study?