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.
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”.
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.”
