I’ve Been Doing 4B Way Before It Was Cool — 'No Marriage, No Children, No Men, No Drama'
The absence of men and love interests brought me incredible peace.
Lia Bekyan | Unsplash If only my great-grandma knew her decision to stay single for life is no longer frowned upon, she’d be coming back from the dead to live her life without a man one more time. Her name was Ana. She was a beautiful blonde woman living in a small village in the Carpathian mountains. 4B wasn’t a thing back then. Neither was the idea that you can live your life without being married.
So she got married and got pregnant, and the Second World War started right after. Her husband was drafted. Ana had her daughter alone, raised her alone, and lived alone. Her husband came back a few years later, the hollow shell of the man he used to be, with his brains scrambled by PTSD and his lungs broken by tuberculosis. He died not long after he came back.
Scores of men started to come over to court Ana. She had those big blue eyes with a tint of violet like Liz Taylor used to have. Inadvertently, she was a menace to the male kind. One that wanted nothing to do with the victims of her charms. She just wasn’t interested. Forced by dire circumstances, she had already tried life on her own. And it worked.
She was happy with it. It was not only functional but also calm and happy. At 27, Ana decided that was it. She was no longer interested in being with a man in any way, shape, or form. So, she stayed single for the rest of her life.
My grandma was participating in the 4B movement and didn’t even know it and as you can see, 4B is nothing new.
Tima Miroshnichenko | Pexels
The only difference is now that choice has a name and women no longer have to hide the intention behind it. That’s because we stopped treating being purposefully single like first-degree murder. Now we treat it like nothing more than a life choice.
Since Roe vs. Wade was overturned and Trump was elected, women are also doing it as a way to take back control over their bodies and lives. What started as an act of rebellion on the fringes of a highly misogynistic, conservative, and violent South Korean society, is now beginning to take shape all over the world.
"The growing interest in the 4B movement in the US seems to be driven, as it has been in South Korea, by 'the desire for bodily autonomy.' In South Korea, at the time, abortion was banned — the country’s Constitutional Court overturned the ban in 2019. […] An abortion rights advocacy group, B-wave, argued, “If we don’t have the right to an abortion, we won’t engage in activities that could lead to pregnancy.” — Aljazeera
It’s only logical that if some of your actions could result in unfortunate consequences, you stop doing those actions. I remember when I quit smoking. The year was 2020, and society was stuck inside because of COVID.
That created a much-awaited and wonderful opportunity for me to finally quit because I no longer had the social interactions that would usually goad me to put a death stick into my mouth and puff cancer-infused smoke into my lungs.
The social isolation made it easy for me to quit. And once I did, I came to a huge realization: “This whole smoking thing had been completely useless!”
I’ve never even dreamed of putting a cigarette into my mouth ever since just because it wasn’t doing me any good. The same happened to me with men. The only difference is that I wasn’t trying to quit men. I had no intention to live a single life, and I didn’t consider men harmful.
Quite the contrary. The last time I got out of a relationship I was looking for the next one, although the one before had been quite unhealthy and draining.
But not for a second did I consider this was because of men as a whole, but rather because I had chosen the wrong man at the time. It just so happened that I didn’t fall in love with anyone for a while; I think it must have been over a year, and unless there’s love, I’m not interested in a relationship just for the sake of it.
At the end of that year, I came to a huge realization that the whole relationship with men thing had been useless.
Zen Chung | Pexels
This year allowed me some time to heal from my broken past relationships and live life on my own. And what I found is that the absence of men and love interests brought me incredible peace. There was no drama. No tension. No sleepless nights.
I could focus on myself, my life, my work, my cats, my home, and my wants and needs, rather than focusing on somebody else’s. My life flourished. I felt happier and more at peace than ever before. It just felt right. And now, almost 10 years later, it still does.
However, I do see how 4B is easier for me than it might be for other women. I never had the desire to have children, so that part of the equation was never an issue. Getting married was also not a priority for me unless I had found the right man, and I didn’t.
Dating is an excruciating ordeal that I never wanted to be a part of, that’s why I always chose my boyfriends from my group of friends. This way I got to know them well without going through the whole dating process. And the sex part … to tell you the truth, once you are abstinent for a while, you‘re no longer interested in it.
I never thought I would say that about myself, since I was always one of those women who could never get enough of it, but here we are. I just didn’t care anymore.
In one study of more than 50,000 people, 95% of heterosexual men said they usually or always orgasm when intimate, while only 65% of heterosexual women said the same. — The Conversation
If I take care of myself without men, my chance to have an orgasm is 100%. Every time. As I said, once you get out of the “sausage fog” (a term I once heard in a sitcom and it stuck with me because of its unexpectedly funny accuracy), things are clear and peaceful.
I’m not doing 4B as a rebellious movement and I’m certainly not against men.
Rodolfo Quirós | Pexels
I live in Europe and we (still) have the right to abortions. My country is incredibly safe compared to others and to tell you the truth, I’ve never feared rape or violence from men.
I’m not attracted to angry, violent, and physically abusive men, and so far, they haven’t been interested in me either. My guess is that’s because I see right through their alpha façade and laugh at how ridiculous it is. That makes them keep away from me.
My 4B is not against men. But it is for me, and so far it’s proven to be an excellent choice for me. I don’t plan to keep it going for the rest of my life, but I don’t plan to quit it any time soon either. I’ve reached that point where a possible partner would have to bring a lot of value to my life while also not disturbing my peace for me to consider a relationship with him.
Until then, 4B works like a charm. It’s not for everyone. But it is for more women than have ever dared to try it. If my gorgeous great-grandma did it during famine, depression, and global war, it’s obviously not an impossible task. It’s nothing more than a preference.
Mona Lazar is an unapologetic writer, unconventional relationship coach, and wild dreamer with words published in Better Humans, Medium, Illumination, The Soulciety, Newsbreak, The Startup, Hello, Love, The Good Men Project, Curious, and others.