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Concept
Abstinence
Summary
Abstinence is a self-enforced restraint from indulging in bodily activities that are widely experienced as giving pleasure. Most frequently, the term refers to sexual abstinence, but it can also mean abstinence from alcohol, drugs, food, etc.
Because the regimen is intended to be a conscious act, freely chosen to enhance life, abstinence is sometimes distinguished from the psychological mechanism of repression. The latter is an unconscious state, having unhealthy consequences.
Abstinence may arise from an ascetic over indulgent, hasidic point of view in natural ways of procreation, present in most faiths, or from a subjective need for spiritual discipline. In its religious context, abstinence is meant to elevate the believer beyond the normal life of desire, to a chosen ideal, by following a path of renunciation.
In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, amongst others, pre-marital sex is prohibited.
For Jews, the principal day of fast is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
In Western Christianity, Roman Catholics abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and on Fridays except solemnities. During the Christian season of repentance, Lent, many Lutheran Christians abstain from alcohol and meat on Fridays. In the Anglican Communion, the Book of Common Prayer prescribes certain days as days for fasting and abstinence, "consisting of the 40 days of Lent, the ember days, the three rogation days (the Monday to Wednesday following the Sunday after Ascension Day), and all Fridays in the year (except Christmas Day, if it falls on a Friday)". Catholics distinguish between fasting and abstinence; the former referring to the discipline of diminishing intake of bodily pleasures, and the latter signifying the discipline of completely restraining from bodily pleasures, most notably meats on Fridays (for example, there is the Traditional Catholic practice of fasting from food and liquids from midnight until the reception of Holy Communion).
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