What In The Fuck Is NoFap?

If you spend a decent amount of time in Internet culture, particularly Internet sex culture, you may have heard of NoFap. What started as a weird subforum within Reddit (yes, clearly, The Boy and I have recently started finally reading Reddit, with equal parts enthusiasm and horror) has become a semi (see what I did there) major movement, warranting a bit of attention in the sex-positive blogopshere and even a mention on the Savage Lovecast.

It's also creepy, puritanical, and dangerous.

I, as a lady, wanted to write about it, because I feel I can be a bit more fair to the underlying reasons behind NoFap than my husband, who understandably has proclaimed you can pry masturbation from his cold, dead hands.  Literally.

I am somewhat sympathetic, as a lady who enjoys having sex primarily with men, to some of the issues and frustrations that have given rise to NoFap culture.  But first, I guess I should explain what it is.

NoFap.com describes itself as a movement for self-improvement, but it's really a movement about men not masturbating.  Potentially for a "short" period of time - like a week - but most advocates of NoFap see never masturbating ever again as the ideal goal.

Let that sink in.  This is a modern Internet movement in the year 2014 that advocates men abstaining from masturbation.  Those of us in Western countries enjoy the most sexually liberated society in all of recorded history, yet there are people who believe that masturbating is not a good idea.  And they haven't used a TARDIS to travel with Dr. Kellogg from 1890.

To be fair, I actually do worry that we have now an entire generation of young men whose entire experience of sex is based on the infinite availability and variety of Internet porn, and that the outcome of this is unique in human history, and has the potential to be very damaging.  I am not anti-porn, but I recognize porn as an inherently attractive reward system, vis a vis masturbation and orgasm, as something that can give young men in particular (although young women are certainly not immune) a false sense of reality and expectation when it comes to partnered sex.

In clearer terms, wanking to a hidden Playboy or even a lingerie catalog in stolen moments is not the same as having a series of devices that you can access at almost all times that show literally any kind of sex act that can be imagined.  A host of studies have shown that most men who use porn heavily will increasingly resort to more and more "extreme" porn to get off for the sake of variety.  Older guys raised pre-unlimited streaming porn seem somewhat better able to withstand the onslaught and regulate themselves, but what about the teenagers and young men whose entire introduction to sex has been through this entirely unregulated access to porn?  How does that affect their sexual development and their ability to connect with flesh and blood partners?

According to the NoFap advocates, very, very poorly.  And I believe them.  The anecdotal landscape of sex and relationship forums are littered with tales of men who prefer masturbating to pornography to having sex with their partners.  And the fact that some men themselves believe they are suffering due to this phenomenon seems to be reason alone to take it seriously.

But I still have a difficult time doing so.  For starters, NoFap advocates seem to see abstinence from masturbation as more than just a way to improve their sex lives in a relationship.  It's viewed as a panacea to fix all their problems, from decreased energy to issues with masculinity.  They claim that not masturbating gives them super powers - and they're only half joking.  NoFap is full of tales of men who report greater self-confidence, athleticism, and happier relationships when abstaining from masturbation.  Of course, they don't realize that actively trying to improve oneself will often result in...self-improvement.  No, it had to be the masturbation holding them back all these years, not just regular ol' laziness.

There's also the fact that NoFap tends to attract "Red Pillers" - men from the most infamous of Reddit subforums who are basically anti-feminists, pick up artists, and all-around misogynists.  The level of misogyny present in NoFap also isn't surprising given that the formal founders of the movement are practicing conservative Catholics.  In short, NoFap is advocating some very old, outdated ideas about sexuality wrapped up in a hip new Internet package.

And it's becoming quite successful.  NoFap is gaining members by the thousands each month, due in part to the fact that NoFappers tend to proselytize for their cult on virtually every relationship and sex subreddit, as well as outside the Reddit community.  Their message of a better, more confident, more "alpha" life is very appealing to young men who feel unfulfilled and have some lingering shame about their sexuality.

That's why it's dangerous, and deserves a critical response.  And besides, we pick on the Polys way too much here.  Polyamorists can be annoying and give advice that's destructive to relationships, but to my mind any potential harm caused by Poly is a drop in the bucket compared to how NoFap is fucking with the emotional and physical health of men.