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This paper reconsiders celibacy not as a mere absence of sexual activity but as a substantive ethical and existential stance with a long history in Buddhist, Christian, and classical philosophical traditions. Drawing on antinatalist ethics, Epicurean hedonology, and Schopenhauerian pessimism, I argue that the conventional justification of sexual activity as a societal necessity-grounded in concerns about reproduction and demographic continuity-conflates descriptive biological function with normative ethical value. Once this conflation is set aside, I argue, the ethical evaluation of one's mode of living can be grounded instead in individual autonomy and self-sustaining quality of life (QOL) rather than reproductive obligation. Engaging with David Benatar's asymmetry argument, I suggest that the moral status of humanity's demographic continuity need not be treated as self-evidently overriding individual self-determination. I then draw on Epicurus's distinction between stable and transient pleasure, and on Schopenhauer's account of sexual desire as an expression of a species-oriented will-to-live, to argue that celibacy can constitute a coherent discipline of autonomous, self-sustained flourishing. Finally, I consider four objections-from relational psychology, from the alleged self-undermining character of universalized antinatalism, from the charge of theological parochialism, and from the subjectivity of QOL judgments-and offer replies. I conclude that celibacy, properly understood, merits recognition as one exemplary and defensible path of ethical self-cultivation, rather than as a deficiency to be explained away.