Includes bibliographical references and index.

Celibacy in cross-cultural perspective : an overview / Sandra Bell and Elisa J. Sobo -- Private lives and public identities : an example of female celibacy in northwest India / Peter Phillimore -- The women who refuse to be exchanged : nuns in Zangskar, northwest India / Kim Gutschow -- The maintenance and reinforcement of celibacy in institutionalized settings / Hector N. Qirko -- The chaste adolescent / Alice Schlegel -- Virgins in the spirit : the celibacy of Shakers / Peter Collins -- Staying clean : notes on Mazatec ritual celibacy and sexual orientation / Michael Duke -- Can women be celibate? Sexuality and abstinence in Theravada Buddhism / Hiroko Kawanami -- Sexual fluids, emotions, morality : notes on the gendering of Brahmacharya / Meena Khandelwal -- Ritualizing celibacy : the poetics of inversion in Chile and Kenya / Mario I. Aguilar -- Like a natural woman : celibacy and the embodied self in anorexia nervosa / Rebecca J. Lester -- Cultural schemas of celibacy / Victor C. De Munck -- Celibacy in American prisons : legal and interpretive perspectives / Mark S. Fleisher and John R. Shaw -- A swallow in winter : a Catholic priesthood viewpoint / Paul Southgate.