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Sexless in the City: A Memoir of Reluctant Chastity

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Anna Broadway is like many hopeless romantics. Since childhood, she has dreamed of meeting Mr. Right, whom she shaped from the men in sappy novels, romantic comedies, and love songs. And, as she begins to date, she even tries to see how each interested guy could possibly be "The One." But Broadway's story has a twist: this hopeless romantic doesn't want to just find a guy--she wants to find God too. In fact, as Broadway learns, finding God is more important and proves to be more satisfying than the right guy could ever be.

Broadway grew up in a stable household, was raised by loving parents who home-schooled her, and never doubted that she had the so-called "relationship with God," even before she really understood what that meant. However, through her journey to find the right guy, she realizes that she was prioritizing romantic love over love for God. Even as she grows in her relationship with God and seeks His will for her relationships, she continually learns lessons about God and guys that any young Christian woman could both identify with and learn from. Overall, in Sexless in the City, Broadway successfully chronicles the sexless life of a Christian woman pursuing God and waiting for her "Hoped-for-Husband," as she calls him. Broadway's writing is light-hearted but transparent, allowing the female Christian reader to sympathize with Broadway, learn valuable lessons about faith and love, and still enjoy the process. For instance, Broadway shares early in the memoir this lesson concerning her relationship with God: that when she "sought God Himself... he met [her]; if [she] sought just an experience, He let that comfort wither..."-a good reminder to any Christian, as it is all too easy to slip into auto-pilot faith and not actively seek God Himself. These kinds of lessons are seamlessly woven into the fabric of Broadway's life-story. While it does not feel like you are reading a devotional or a self-help book, Broadway's memoir provides almost as much substance and encouragement as books from those genres. Broadway's book is a must-read for young Christian women.

While Broadway claims that the romantic genre of media did not help in her journey through relationships, her book could easily be considered an enjoyable, new breed of romantic comedy--but by the end of this story, Broadway has a her own definition of happily-ever-after: "No matter what the future held, if I found my purpose in seeking God's kingdom, my identity couldn't be shaken." Rather than an ideal life centered around having the perfect man, Broadway learns to seek God first in spite of her desire for a husband. Christian women who feel, like Broadway did, that the only way to learn about love is from romantic movies, songs, and books will find this memoir refreshingly honest about the process of Christian dating. Overall, female Christian readers will learn truths about God, His will for relationships, and how to grow in one's relationship with Him--even without having found Mr. Right.

This book is a "memoir of reluctant chastity." More than that it is a spiritual journey. It is about a woman trying to find God's purpose in her life and develop a working relationship and peace with Him. One of her major obstacles was life's refusal to conform to the romantic script she had written in her fantasies -- find a suitable Christian knight in shining armor as her soulmate in college, get married, have a brood of kids. As the old Yiddish proverb goes, "We plan, God laughs."

When the perfect man doesn't materialize on schedule, Anna Broadway tries various methods of searching out and piquing interest from the opposite sex, some of them merely ineffective, some disastrous, some embarrassing.

The book is probably easiest to read in the beginning, as she reveals her upbringing and personality, her early romantic experiences or lack of same, her obsession with love and romance and sexuality, her conflict between what she expects from God and what He actually delivers.

I found the middle part of the book a little confusing, with too many characters (identified by aliases the author has given them) drawn with sketchy details. It is long on descriptions of feelings and impressions of events that occur -- as it were -- off the stage, and it is short on full conversations and exposition of scenes that would put a reader in the middle of the action. Another reviewer of Sexless in the City wrote that the author should "show, not tell." This is probably the biggest barrier to getting the point across to the reader. This reticence to fully reveal such scenes might have been done to lessen exposure of other people in her narrative. (?) Perhaps a novel format would have better enabled the author to tell her story, with enough fudging of details to maintain plausibly that "any similarity to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental." As a memoir-writer, Anna is hyper-analytical, and we do get a great amount of analysis, but less of the actual people and happenings being analyzed than I would have liked.

The book ends neatly with an epiphany of sorts, brought on not by rejection or romantic fulfillment, but by acknowledging irreconcilable differences between her and one of her most hopeful prospects. How she deals with that letdown is a lesson for Christians in letting go of something less (though deeply desired) to gain something more -- a closer covenant relationship with God. The answer turns out to be faith and trust in God to supply our needs and be our focus, not another human being.

Although this book fatigued me at times, I found it valuable as a story of someone very serious about Christianity, who after many errors (which is how most of us learn -- many, many errors), comes to understand and turn away from things that are in essence idols, or at least weights and distractions. It might be particularly meaningful for young women who are obsessed, as the author was, with the ideal of courtship, marriage, and happily ever after with a real soulmate. I appreciated the author's deep honest thoughts about her conflict with God and how she came to perceive His purposes, while not always agreeing with her interpretation of God's action or inaction. It gave me added incentive for self-examination.

The book may also be an education for men trying to understand at least some of the inexplicable behavior of the women in their lives. How a small thing a man says and does, or doesn't say and doesn't do, can lead to five different and inconsistent interpretations in a woman's mind. In an old Star Trek episode, a space probe scans and describes a human female as "a mass of conflicting impulses." Women are from Venus, but reading Anna Broadway might help the Martians learn a little of the landscape of that alien shore. We can't really understand, but we might become more understanding.

I couldn't put Anna's memoir down. I usually take months to finish a book, but I sped through this one in just a few days (in the midst of usual, busy life). Her storytelling is captivating and draws the reader in--you feel like you're having coffee with her and she's sharing the story of her life with just you. Her lack of pretense makes her appealingly relatable. The climax of her story brings joy as she portrays the very tangible way in which God met her in the midst of very human, very real pain. This is a beautifully transparent story of redemption and hope.

With all due respect to the creator of "Sex in the City," I think more people-especially young women searching for answers-would benefit from reading this engrossing coming-of-age memoir/spiritual chronicle. In fact, I know a few of them, although I doubt they would pick up this book, unfortunately. Although the theme of contemporary Christians confronting the lure of temptation is not novel by any stretch of the imagination, I think that Anna Broadway brings an important perspective to this subject. She critically analyzes her own religious upbringing and beliefs, and attempts to reconcile them with her innate longings and literary visions of romance, which is what makes this work so compelling. In addition, she recounts her story of spiritual struggle with an eye on the lyrical nature of her journey, with carefully excerpted songs preceding certain chapters giving you an inkling of how integral music is to her humanity. I also enjoyed reading about her family, which seems to have given her the necessary grounding to explore these issues and deal with them on her own terms. A great book worth reading, even if you're a pagan.

After having read many Christian books on sexuality that rely solely on the "true love waits" mantra, I found this book to be very refreshing. Broadway uses her experiences to show the fallacy behind the American myth that true love and marriage will solve every problem in life. She dispels this myth and shows that only the love from God can ever truly satisfy our huge need for love. She also does not shy away from discussing her own desires and I truly appreciated that.

I couldn't wait to read this book once I heard about it. "Anna" has tackled a subject that every single woman of faith has grappled with at one point or another, and she's done it with a measure of wit and self-deprecation that is refreshing. We really don't need any more dogma, or "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts." The sexual roles in our society are so mixed up anyway - add an overlay of faith to the mix and it gets really crazy.

I appreciated that this is a memoir about being true to who you are, bad choices and all. Anna writes with a clear eye on the culture and on the faith community - and boy, are they confused about each other when it comes to sex and relationships!

I look forward to reading more from this author.

With a distinct voice, Anna vulnerably divulges the intimate confessions and struggles of a Christian woman not always confident of comfortable in her faith or self. Anna is bold in her integrity to remain abstinent before marriage and similarly bold to be open about it to a public that lost belief in such mythical creatures as 29 year old virgins. But despite this public confession of counter-cultural sexuality, I don't believe this is the true struggle in the book, rather, it is Anna's search for community like she knew as a child in a family of six - surrounded by accountability and support. In an ideal world, the Christian Church is supposed to fill this gap - but Anna admits that the Church often fails to fill this need. Nonetheless she maintains loyalty to Christ, His broken people, and perhaps most shockingly - His high expectations for His people. This is her true and rare triumph.

Three other reading experiences come to mind after finishing Sexless - Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, Anne Lammott in general, and Blue Like Jazz. If anything strikes a chord with you in these three, Sexless is worth exploring for its search for community, vulnerable honesty about one's own failings and faith, and her willingness to admit the imperfections in the Church without giving up her commitment to it altogether.

I found out about "Sexless in the City" through the wonders of twitter and am very glad to have stumbled upon it. As a single Christian woman in the 30 year-old age range, I was very encouraged to hear of another woman's journey through culture, faith, hormones, and emotions. It's a battle in there, and Anna Broadway's take on her experiences was humorous and thoughtful. The writing wasn't always easy to read; it did get a little too descriptive and sometimes convoluted, but the main themes shone through, and I am thankful for this book. If being Christian and single is sometimes hard for you, I think it will help you, too.

Uggggh sorry to be harsh but actually I could not even finish this book. From a stylistic perspective it was just too much! Too many catchy phrases, and descriptive overkill. From a content perspective maybe this is relevant to a 20 something single, but rarely if ever does it really touch on deeper truths of life long singleness.

I just finished a great book that I want to tell you about: Sexless in the City: A Memoir of Reluctant Chastity by Anna Broadway. I'm still trying to process through this books because it has radically changed my thinking on most every part of my life! It's a book by a woman who loves to blog. Yes, she is of the generation that started blogging in the late nineties and created an entire blog world. This book is based on this blog. The first 1/3 of the book is difficult to follow but as you get past that introductory information and mish-mash of stories the effort starts to even out and become beautiful. It is all about how Anna tries to find her husband before graduating college and all the misadventures that ensue. She names all the people in her life based on their relationship with her. Things like Hippie the Groper, Poster Boy, and The Winner. With creative names like these it is easy to keep everyone straight and see Anna's colorful way of looking at life. I highly recommend this book to any woman (and even some men) who thinks finding their life-mate is the goal.

I have never really been much of a romantic (hopeless or otherwise) and I've never really been much into "finding a man" but I realized as I read this book that I take way too much stock in what others think of me and how effective I am at making and keeping friends. I try to control and manipulate most of my relationships because I don't want to be abandoned. If I was completely honest with myself, I would have to admit that I don't think I'm worth most people's affections. I don't trust God for my relationships. And I don't trust God for attention. It is attention that we all seek ... as Anna puts it ... the desire for the Eden relationship that is lost.

We want that unconditional love and affection. Do we trust God to give it to us - not in other people but in Himself? I realized that I don't do this. Now the logical next step would be, what do I do now?! Now that I know I don't trust God as much as I pretend to. (That's a fragment). Well, I could list a bunch of ideas and strategy points to pursue, but in all fairness that would just be more of the same manipulation I'm used to. I think I'm going to try trusting. Yes, TRY! I'm going to turn to God when life seems overwhelming and I'm going to turn to Him when it isn't. I'm going to try to ask His thoughts more and WAIT for the answer! Anna's book is still rolling around in my head and my heart ...

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I was talking to a friend last night and thought I'd share a little more of what this book is doing to my thoughts on relationships!

"The problem with many Jesus freaks is that we claim to "build our house on a rock," but when a storm comes we have such confidence in the building that all our focus is on the house. As if its surety comes from construction, not from the foundation." - Anna Broadway

This really spoke to me. She goes on to speak of a storm in her life that left her feeling abandoned and broken as she tried to rebuild her house on the sure foundation that she knew couldn't be shaken. I've been through many storms in my life - most of which I caused - and during those dark times, I have found that I didn't wait patiently in my house or even sit outside in the presence of the Father. Instead I ran to the houses of others in my life! I ran from my shack - my condemned property - to the confines of someone else's construction AND foundation. The problem is that eventually that person went through a storm and I stayed in their house with them as the caught the rain in buckets. I couldn't live up to their foundations and construction because it wasn't mine. I needed to go back to my plot of land and work out the construction of my own property with the correct tools that I could only get from the Father through Jesus!

It's like the song Anywhere by Evanescence. The bridge of the song (which I have tattooed on my back) is:

Forget this life Come with me Don't look back You're safe now Unlock your heart Drop your guard No one's left To stop you now

When I first listened to that song I thought it was a friend or lover singing to another, but as I've been maturing and radically trying to change my "house" I've come to realize that it is a love song from God! Whether that is what Evanescence originally intended, I don't know! God wants us to give up what we think we need - what we believe to be good and right - and TRUST Him not to provide that in others but to provide that goodness and rightness in Him. I need to unlock my heart to God. I need to forget this life because what God has in store is better! Wow! This is really going to continue to affect me. I'm not ready ... or willing ... to just glance over these things anymore.