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By David Futrelle
NoFappers — they call themselves fapstronauts — give up masturbating to porn because they’ve convinced themselves that it drains them of their “life force” and makes them lethargic and dull-witted.
Some fapstronauts with suspicious minds have begun to wonder if draining men of energy has been the secret intent of porn all along — and then start asking themselves just who might be behind such a dastardly scheme.
One NoFap Redditor thinks he’s found the villain: feminists.
“Maybe, and just maybe, feminists have realized what PMO [Porn Masturbation Orgasm] does to men,” oruto1058 wrote in a post on the NoFap subreddit,
It makes us beta. Weak, fragile creatures unable to make attempts at real women and instead wait for them to make a move on us. We slowly kill our testosterone and our ability to focus and create and instead we become followers ready and willing to do what we are told.
Uh oh!
Maybe the feminists (militant) have realized that there is no way to end the patriarchy from an academic discourse so they come at all men through guerilla tactics i.e. make porn more readily available and encourage all men to indulge.
These days there may be more sex-positive feminists than there are antiporn feminists. And there are feminist pornographers. I’m nonetheless fairly confident that “the feminists (militant)” aren’t the prime movers behind the porn industry — unless you think there’s a secret feminist agenda behind real porn titles like “Dirt Pipe Milkshakes” or “Dude, Where’s My C*nt?”
But go on.
That is why we are seeing a generation of weak men unable to fend for themselves. Men unable to lead their communities.
oruto1058, evidently worried that he was starting to sound like a big ol misogynist, added a caveat that actually made it worse:
This is not to imply that women cannot do so but PMO is definitely make it harder for men to have such ambitions.
He finished with a question:
Does any of this make sense or is it just a conspiracy cooked up in a struggling addict’s head?
Pretty sure it’s the latter, dude — as a number of the NoFappers responding to oruto1058’s post also also suggested.
But others thought he was on to something.
“You’re completely right,” RicardoABB308 decl;ared.
Different cultures have relevated [sic] the importance of sexual energy retention. … the feminism agenda is looking forward to make men weak through sexual liberation. It is a crime against men nature, allied to science as a religion. If it says PMO is healthy, you’ll follow its message.
Revolt against modern world!
That last bit was presumably a reference to Revolt Against the Modern World, a book by Italian fascist philosopher Julius Evola that’s very popular amongst the more pretentious members of today’s alt-right — in case you’re wondering about the sort of reading material some NoFappers are keeping on their nightstands.
KingJonStarkgeryani was also convinced that the feminists were behind it all:
Femmism [sic] created the sexual revolution that led to the birth of the porn industry, o yeah it certainly seems like the stuff they call advancement leads to thensiffering [sic] of millions of men.
“Thensiffering?” Does he mean “the suffering?”
Evidently the new mental sharpness one is supposed to attain after giving up masturbation doesn’t extend to typing or proofreading.
Others, while convinced that there is some nefarious villainy behind porn, weren’t convinced that the OP had found the real culprits.
“No, it’s not the feminists lol,” swilson99 declared. “If anything it’s the frickin Illuminati.”
Well, yeah, they’re the ones making the really good porn. Everyone knows that. Have you seen “Eye of Whore-us?”
There has been porn for as long as people have been able to get aroused by images.
And are feminists distributing porn to undermine and weaken men, or are they trying to destroy porn to oppress men? If you guys are so sure you’ve discovered the truth about our society, why can’t you come to an agreement as to what that truth is?
@Katamount – Trumpism is the wrong answer to the right question (“why am I falling so far behind?”) If the right wing hadn’t spent the past 50 years destroying trade unions and making collectivism into a dirty word, these guys might actually be able to organize to improve their lot in life. Instead they’re rallying around a fake populist billionaire who regards them as scum. Their “activism”, such as it is, consists of red MAGA hats, dank memes, trolling, and whining about immigrants and women. Meanwhile, plants continue to close, the minimum wage continues to stagnate, the earth continues to warm, and millions of people can’t afford basic health care.
Maybe they ought to try giving up the mental kind of masturbation.
I’ll translate this as I see it….
That is why we are seeing a generation of non-aggressive men who prefer diplomacy, beauty and art over pummeling & killing. Men unable to rule everyone and everything with an iron fist.
But what Katamount said also makes sense, too; Why try to “Fight the Power” and change the system for the better when one can just be a lazybones and crab online?
Besides; The guys responsible for the way things are are rich white “Alphas” and they can’t possibly vilify those “Gods among men”….Which is why this graphic is also the case….
….After all; To put the blame on the REAL SOURCE of all the Rightie’s malaise would be blasphemy to them….for they see themselves as Mumford T. Robberbarron themselves….they admire Mumford and can’t conceive that a well-to-do white man would screw them over!
Wouldn’t calling oneself a “Fapstronaut” imply the opposite of “NoFap”?
It’s like an astronaut is a person who stays out of outer space. I guess I’m the next Sally Ride, then!
These bozos can’t even get their new words straight!….
* Fail at language, analogy and metaphors….
* Fail at organizing protests, rallies and conferences….
* Fail at propaganda and memes….
* Fail at movie-making and humor….
* Fail at relationships….
* Fail at humanity and life….
….ONE BIG FAT FAIL!
Regarding porn before the 60s…
We’ve found lewd and erotic graffiti in the ruins of Pompeii, for crying out loud. Everything from brothel artistry to the ancient Roman equivalent of ‘for a good time call …’ bathroom wall scribbles.
OT: looks like Heather Heyer’s killer is going away for a long time:
Because if there’s one thing I associate with feminism, it’s promoting pornography?
Never mind that most liberal feminists, and tbh feminists outside of intersectional feminism/third wave feminism in general, are actually anti-porn. To the extent that their politics can actively harm sex workers and marginalized people working in the adult industry.
Ok, time to actually go read this article, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system.
Update: I didn’t realize pro-porn, sex positive feminism was that common? But it might be, idk.
I love how even the Illuminati people are like “lol no way it’s feminists doing this, wtf”
Wait, I thought feminists in the form of Andrea Dworkin’s Howling Commandos were gonna take away all our delicious, delicious pr0nz?! Which is it?
@Victorious Parasol No kidding. 😀 *has a copy*
@M K:
Well, part of the problem is that even a lot of the more sex-positive feminists recognize that the porn industry as it is today tends towards worker exploitation and feeds into a lot of objectification. And they don’t see any easy way around the existing power structures from where we are now to where we would want to be, even if they could all agree on where we want to be.
(On the lower end, there’s a good bit of female-written lesbian porn out there, it just tends to be personal stuff rather than major studio. Granted, I’m no expert on the internal workings there.)
Same sort of thing applies to sex work. While a number of feminists believe sex workers should be supported (to the point where SWERF, Sex-Worker Excluding Radical Feminist, has become a term used to indicate those against it), and some have even engaged in sex work, even the ones who believe it should be legal realize that just legalizing it can make certain forms of sex trafficking easier to get away with, and that even making it legal wouldn’t end the problems with police officers leaning on people or other serious cultural problems about sex work that have built up over centuries.
It’s a complicated problem. Essentially there’s no real way to make sex work or porn completely ‘safe’ without disassembling the existing male-focused power and cultural structures first. But pushing on the sex work and porn industries can be used to loosen those power structures from the inside, and at least make it safer for the people involved. So a bit of a Catch-22.
I can no longer sit back and allow Feminist infiltration, Feminist indoctrination, Feminist subversion and the international Feminist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
Cat Mara, I would definitely buy that comic book. I’m imagining Dworkin as drawn by Jack Kirby, barking out, “Come on, you lunkheads!”
@epitomy of incomprehensibility:
I second you.
Seriously, very few feminists have anything positive to say about porn. Stop blaming feminists for porn, please. If you must blame anyone for it, start with capitalists in general.
Circumcells!!!
*maniacal laughter
I mean, the basic theory behind NoFap has a long and respectable intellectual history in many cultures. It’s not that far off from Taoism, for instance. Except that Taoism led to the rise of sex manuals filled with techniques for having a lot of fun without ejaculating.
As for the people castrating themselves: that’s just cheating. Chastity is supposed to be a matter of self-control. It’s why Klingsor, in the legend of Parsifal, doesn’t get to be a knight of the Grail. He really really wanted to be, but figured he couldn’t hack the chastity part, so, figuring he’d found a loophole, he… well, hacked away at himself instead. That still didn’t get him in, though, because it proved he’d missed the point.
@Jenora Feuer:
Some examples here. Some are actually quite moving, especially when you think of the fate that might have befallen the writers…
Nooooo, not Gaius and Aulus! They survived, right? Friends forever! ???
They were just hanging out! Just shooting the breeze, not expecting to have a volcano bury their town! Oh Gawd, the feels! ???
OK, I hope this dude got what was coming.
There is definitely and absolutely a lot of pro-porn feminism.
I’ve researched most “waves” of feminism, and all of them have strong pro-porn elements (even in the 19th C).
This takes me back to my Honours thesis on the “sex wars” of 1980s feminism. Back then, the main points of disagreement were:
Porn
Sadomasochism
And lingering remnants of “can straight women be real feminists?”
@Cat Mara, thanks for the links and commentary on Pompeii porn <3
@rzs, hello and welcome!
I've been following that story. I could only watch a minute of the actual footage. Clem Ford and others have had good takes on it, especially re the multitude of excuses people have been making for him.
Yes, Cat Mara, thanks for that. 🙂 I hope Gaius and Aulus got out okay.
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1824. “Let everyone one in love come and see. I want to break Venus’ ribs with clubs and cripple the goddess’ loins. If she can strike through my soft chest, then why can’t I smash her head with a club?”
Found the incel.
There’s a sweet Gaius/Alus fic on AO3 from last year’s Yuletide.
@Desperate Ambrose
Bad news: feminism has infiltrated ALL of your bodily fluids. In addition to NoFap, you’re going to have to practice NoSpit, NoPee, NoBarf, NoHock, NoCry, NoPaperCut, and NoNoseBlow.
You can do it. I believe in you!
Ooh. Did we get a new troll? It’s probably just another seagull sock. Prove me wrong, Ambrose. Entertain me.
I think Ambrose is just doing General Ripper, with feminism standing in for fluoride and Communism. Maybe?
@Moon Custafer: Aww, that is very sweet. Thanks for sharing.
I mean, I just feel like if feminists were the ones pushing porn to drain men’s precious bodily fluids or whatever there would be more quality control?
@Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy
I am a very sex-positive feminist.
Can porn use some good reform and lose the sexism and other isms? Of course!
Can it use fairer labor practices and stronger health safeguards? You bet!
Should it be outright banned? AW, HELL NAW!
I think there should be two DESIGNATED OFFICIAL types of Adult Entertainment in regards to XXX movies, animation, comics, novels, etc. “Porn” and “Erotica”….with the difference being that Porn is “lowest common denominator” in nature….
Example #1: A sex flick involving a transwoman….
PORN: “The Dick Girl Cometh!” or “She-Male Slut Orgy!”
EROTICA: “Gia Darling’s Delightful Encounter” (not a real title though I used the name of an actual porn star).
Example #2: A Black man/White woman situation….
PORN: “Little Chrissy and the Big Black Cock!”, “Good Girl Goes Ghetto!”
EROTICA: “Ebony & Ivory”, “Desire Knows No Color”.
Both Porn and Erotica can come in “Softcore” and “Hardcore” varieties and cover many of the same genres but Erotica would be more artistic, sensual, better acted and not reliant on junk like bigoted stereotypes or sexism.
Thus; Everyone is happy.
PS: I personally think porn movies are stupid and prefer to just watch porn gifs.