Crossing the Shithead Rubicon

I write here not to praise the poly community, but to bury it.

So this mess recently appeared on Reddit's /r/polyamory: Am I delusional to think that anti poly backlash is especially ironic and bigoted?

I grew up in a poly family, and am happily ensconced in a my own poly LTR, stable and happy for years.

I get the normal "oh you must be taking advantage of your poor girlfriends"* thing, but am I wrong to find this especially offensive and ignorant when it comes from a LGBT person? I Mean, Really? It seems like of anyone, I would expect them to understand or at least not be so vocally opposed - but honestly, I get the harshest feedback from these folks...Is it just me?

*(I joined a happy bi fem couple that was looking for a man to play with / be a father, so that couldn't be farther from the truth - if anything, I am the third wheel!)

So it starts out fucked up and quickly devolves, leaving the original post as a high-water mark of poly tolerance an awareness.  And for those who followed the link, yes, the OP really calls himself "I_love_latinas".

One person in the thread is reminded of reading Maus and there being a Holocaust survivor character who was racist.  Someone else suggested that it was a bad idea to compare anything to the Holocaust that was not in fact a genocide.  That person was repeatedly down-voted, because suggesting that polys aren't exactly like the Jews in the Holocaust is as bad as, I don't know, maybe the Holocaust.

The polys then veer off to complain that it's not like Jews and Nazis, but rather like "the black community", and no I'm not making that up, and how they're all hella homophobic, including, I guess, the gay ones.  The polys go on to say that it's even worse when black people are homophobic, as they all are, given that white people have gotten so good at tolerating their blackness.  Hear that, people of color?  You're disappointing white polys.  Get on that.

One guy makes up a conversation he supposedly had wherein he told a gay man that he was thinking of trying out polyamory and the man responded with, I shit you not, this is him quoting the guy, "I don't think I approve of your lifestyle".  Yep, that definitely happened.  That sounds exactly like what a human would say to a person suggesting he might be interested in polyamory.  Wait, no!  It doesn't even sound like something that an alien impersonating a human using only lines of Java code as a guide to human dialog would say.  I mean seriously, who the fuck talks like that?  No one.  Ever.  That's who.

What really gets awful, is that the most fucked up, racist, homophobic posts got up-voted while those very few people dissenting were down-voted dozens of times in single comments.  So the message is loud and clear.  See what happens you social justice types?  If you don't let the polys into the parade, you're probably taking your orders from the homos, the Jews, or teh blacks.  The whole thread rapidly started to feel like it had cribbed the script of an episode of "Fox & Friends", but with 50% more bigotry.

And this is not just an example of Reddit being the gaping asshole of the Internet.  It's the steady state of online poly meeting spaces.  It's a fucking constant.  It's a feature, not a bug, and it's only gotten worse.

Poly is largely white, middle class, and thoroughly clueless about privilege and race.  Want to see how they really feel about the gay community, drop into a poly sphere and bring up marriage equality.  Better yet, do that at in the same post as you suggest that co-opting the language of queerness  while suggesting that a relationship model can't be a sexual identity is maybe not cool.  The indignant sputters will be heard all the way from Minneapolis.  But I was born poly!  It is so a "coming out".  People are killed for being poly all over!

If you really want a fiesta of whining, try suggesting that there's something to the fact that non-monogamy has been super common in the gay community long before poly was a thing, yet the number of gay people identifying as poly is shockingly small.

So many are quick to point out that they can't be homophobic.  After all, the wife is totally bi and hooks up with a bi woman some times.  Also, they know a lesbian who has been to their Saturday munch.  Hell, several of them even have a gay friend or something.  Just kidding.  They don't have friends.  Potential friends tend to scatter when a pack of gamers wearing Three Wolf Moon shirt and kvetching about the gays walks into the room.

No, we're not poly.  The reason we're not now, or ever going to identify as poly comes down to the community and their fucked up baggage.  We date other people, but to call ourselves poly is to stand in solidarity with some really shitty human beings behaving badly.

No, not all poly people are like that, but a quick look at that thread is a clear demonstration that the the bad is a huge majority.  It's also not going to get better any time soon.  Look around and see what serious discussion is going on in the poly community.  Nothing.  Zip.  Nada.  Pepomint used to write some really insightful pieces on it, but now we're just left with people posting about snuggling with their paramours and talking about the great things about poly.  They get mad that the queer community keeps them at arms' length but don't care to understand why beyond throwing out homophobic statements with little prompting.  That is, fundamentally, a function of privilege and a function of poly.

If it gets better, we'll let you know.

It's not getting better.

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.