Notes on 'No Nut November'

A few thoughts on the memeified month

Hello and welcome to Many Such Cases. I’m so glad that you’re here.

Today I’d like to reflect a bit on this year’s “No Nut November,” a month-long Internet challenge in which primarily young men attempt to get through November without ejaculating.

Among those who reference participating in No Nut November, I would classify them broadly into four categories.

• The unserious, engaging for the sake of the meme

• The fetishistic, engaging as an opportunity to be dominated and restricted

• The manospheric, engaging for the alleged “masculinity enhancing” powers of semen retention and other pseudoscientific beliefs

• The confused, engaging for potentially any of the above reasons but guided primarily by the sense that they feel disconnected from their own sexuality and yearn to regain control

Of these four groups, I find the fetish and manosphere participants least compelling. For them, the purposes of the month are transparent — to either revel in the kink of it all or enjoy some purported biological benefits. The unserious and the confused, however, offer much more to analyze.

The r/NoNutNovember subreddit offers some of the richest insights into these demographics. Though the subreddit has since “closed” until next November, it continues to provide an extensive catalogue of source material explaining the challenge. Between the dozens of Spongebob images are posts that reveal part of why many men are participating in earnest, even if they’re only communicating this via memes and jokes.

The above meme lays it out quite flatly: many of these men participating aren’t just doing so to see if they can, but because they yearn for a better sense of control over their own bodies and sexuality. Both sides of the image are correct — orgasming is healthy, and so is having self-discipline. The problem, however, is that some feel unable to maintain a proper relationship with masturbation. The fact that guys are attempting to commit to a month without it says that alone.

What unfortunately appears to be missing from much of the discourse of r/NoNutNovember, however, is that those who yearn for a better sense of discipline over their sexuality likely don’t have a problem with orgasming, but with excessive pornography viewing. These are, generally speaking, not people whose issue is that they masturbate several times a day relying upon their own imagination. Instead, their porn viewing habits are what dictates their sexuality above all else, yet no one seems to stop to consider that perhaps porn and masturbation don’t have to be entirely synonymous. There are some who do frame the month in the context of addiction to porn and masturbation, yet even in these cases there is little introspection surrounding it or the idea that perhaps these two things could be uncoupled. r/NoNutNovember begins and ends with its memes, without much else in the way of thinking critically about one’s sexuality.

Much of the content on the subreddit centers not just around avoiding touching oneself, but of avoiding viewing content that would inspire them to do so. On TikTok, some of the most popular NNN videos are specifically about what to watch in order to fail the month, naming off various adult performers to look up or vague TikTok-safe teases from women looking to build an OnlyFans following. Whether someone goes into it trying to succeed or fail, then, NNN is not actually about the challenge of it all, but that it offers an opportunity to discuss sex and desire and to form a community around it. Those who are in it “for the memes” demonstrate this, too — sure, some of the jokes are funny, but not to the point that they entirely explain giving up a bodily routine for a month. It’s safer, though, for these men to cite their participation as some sort of bit than to earnestly claim their desire for personal control or a shared community surrounding their sexuality. Whether they see it as a joke or not, the result remains the same.

Again, while I do think masturbation is itself an entirely healthy and normal activity that ideally would not require an intentional month of abstinence, I find there to be something noble in attempting NNN among many of those who do. Here are guys recognizing the need for change, even if misguidedly, and making a serious effort in doing so. Moreover, they are taking part in a rare opportunity to safely discuss their habits among their online peers, mediated through meme.

There are corners of NNN that believe in white supremacist conspiracy theories surrounding porn, among other things, but this isn’t present in the subreddit. Some may furthermore use NNN as an entry point into the “NoFap” community¹, a group that explicitly locates itself within porn addiction recovery and encourages participants to never masturbate or at least take periodic breaks. The subreddit for this have over one million members. NoFap is often rightfully the subject of much disdain, particularly because there do seem to be some who follow that aforementioned conspiracy, see porn as “evil” or otherwise think that not masturbating/watching porn will yield physical transformation and make them more attractive to women. This appears to represent a loud minority of those involved in these practices elsewhere — conspiracy theories are prohibited from the subreddit. The majority, instead, are young men with no ties to these fringe ideologies. We can agree that there is an inherent toxicity to NNN and NoFap’s broader culture without entirely damning those looking for a way to reframe their relationships with their sexuality and porn.

What’s needed here is a better appreciation of the nuances of this — it doesn’t have to be all or nothing! Again, masturbation is healthy, and porn can be a normal component of this. It’s clear, however, that there is a massive group of people seeking a communal way of changing their relationship with desire, even if only for a month out of the year. and even if only under the guise of participating in a culture of memes. Shouldn’t we consider why?

1. More on NoFap will be part of a future essay.