Around 14 years ago, Gary Wilson started a website, yourbrainonporn.com. Within a year, his website became the “source material” for a new subreddit, /r/nofap.

He promoted this website with a famous TedTalk in 2012, which has since gotten over 41 million views. I first encountered this “NoFap” propaganda on 4chan, of all places.

I went back into the archives to find the “old school” NoFap material. Here’s an example from 2013.

NoFap always had a Christian following, but it was always justified in secular and scientific terms. Gary Wilson was an atheist and a former assistant professor of biology. He never referenced God, but always backed up his arguments with science. He was the right-wing Bill Nye, using brain scans and testosterone levels rather than Bible verses.

Just as Atheism+ (wokism) was a left-wing cult of New Atheism, NoFap was its right-wing cult. It amplified or fed into an existing industry of life coaches and masculinity gurus, ranging from Tony Robinson to Jack Donovan. Prior to Trump, the American far right was focused on “Riding the Tiger.” NoFap fed into the “manosphere” of the proto-alt-right, between 2010 and 2014.

In 2004, Gary was already working with his wife as a sex guru. She introduces himself as “healing from a long-term addiction and chronic depression.”

My intention isn’t to hate on Gary, but I will make some observations.

Gary Wilson is, like Jordan Peterson, a self-appointed post-Christian guru. While Peterson advocates that young men “clean their room,” Wilson advocates that they “heal from porn.” Both men struggled throughout their lives with severe depression. Both men dabbled in the occult (Peterson in African shamanism, Wilson in karezza and Daoist metaphysics).

While Peterson suffered from an addiction to pills, Wilson suffered from an addiction to porn. Supposedly.

Is porn addiction real?

We’ve all seen pictures of the brains of porn addicts, and concluded the obvious: porn injures the brain, physically. But is this true?

Pictures of degenerated brains are a reference to a 1987 campaign, “This Is Your Brain on Drugs.” The campaign was memorable, and inspired spin-offs and parodies. It was true. Drugs really do cause physical brain damage.

Even marijuana, the “harmless” drug promoted by Joe Rogan, can cause depression, short-term memory loss, anxiety, and even induce latent schizophrenia in some users. This is especially true for teenagers. Amphetamines, as found in ADHD drugs like Ritalin, can induce life-long anhedonia, as well as sexual dysfunction (both hyper and hyposexuality).

Porn induces feelings of pleasure, and excessive pleasurable stimulation might reduce one’s ability to feel motivation in other areas of life. Porn also change attitudes around sexual taboos and socio-sexual perceptions, especially when introduced at a young age. But neither of these harmful effects qualifies porn as an “addictive substance.”

Anti-sexual attitudes which develop in response to porn are also harmful, and should be compared in proportion with so-called “porn addiction.” Porn addiction is born out of an opposition to sexuality, rather than an embrace of it. Porn addicts are avoidant, fearful, and anti-social. Their reliance on porn as a stimming or coping mechanism is a result of the fact they that are anti-sexual.

sex addiction.

Biologically speaking, there no such thing as sex addiction. When an animal in nature has sex, we do not say, “the animal has a sex addiction.” If a mosquito sucks blood until it explodes, we do not say “the mosquito has a blood addiction.” If a moth flies into a bug zapper, we do not say, “the moth has a light addiction.”

Animals are not addicted to anything. “Addiction” is a superegoic moral judgment imposed upon erotic behavior. The Platonic term is epithumos, and the Vedic term is tamas. Epithumos and tamas refer to animal behaviors of the body, such as eating, drinking, sleeping, mating, and violence. Addiction is a conflict between logos (Freud’s superego) and epithumos (Freud’s id).

Addiction is not created by pleasure. No matter how pleasurable something is, addiction can never form until there is a social or moral taboo which imposes itself against it (anti-sexuality). The more moral or social taboos we establish, the more addictions we invent.

I am not saying this in defense of moral nihilism or moral relativism, or to undermine moral objectivism. My point is that, in a state of nature, that there is no such thing as sex, food, or sleep addiction.

Weird modern chemicals in food can cause hormonal imbalances, destroying the body’s natural equilibrium, leading to disease. Bad diets and drugs cause abnormalities, preventing the body from reaching this equilibrium. Henry VIII had leg ulcers, which caused him to develop obesity. Herman Goering was injured in 1923, and became addicted to morphine. Drugs, diet, and injuries are all sources of physical malformation.

However, someone who eats fast food all day, or who watches porn all day, is doing so not because they are a healthy man who has been injured by an external force, but because they are a deeply broken person seeking comfort in their brokenness.

So-called addictions are the result of brokenness, not its cause. The reason why people tend to blame external forces like fast food, porn, or Satanic influence for their bad decisions is because they do not want to take responsibility for their underlying resentments, grudges, and fears.

Fast food and porn do not cause people to become broken. They were already broken, and porn and junk food fill the cracks and crevices, like glue in glass.

that which comes out defiles a man.

Jesus says (Matthew 15:11):

“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.”

Followed by:

“Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?”

When I say “porn is not an addiction,” many Pharisees are offended. Jesus, like Socrates, enjoyed rustling jimmies.

We shouldn’t blame the phone for making people depressed. We should blame depression for making people use social media.

Social media didn’t make you lonely. You were already lonely, so you chose social media.

Causal Inference

It’s easy to use lies, damned lies, and statistics to confuse correlation and causation.

Conservatives claim, “if it wasn’t for Satanic propaganda, no one would be gay.” And apparently, “if it wasn’t for porn, no one would be sex-obsessed.” Sexual obsession precedes the internet, and the internet merely provides an outlet for these desires.

Mentally ill people do mentally ill things. They are like dogs who eat random things off the flood: bacon, feces, vomit, cereal, doesn’t matter. They abuse themselves with whatever mechanism is available and convenient. If you ban porn and fast food, they will choose something else. In South Korea, they did ban porn, and people are obsessed with plastic surgery.

Some become obsessed with sex; some become politically polarized; some become religious fanatics. The permutations are limitless.

The porn addiction model claims that:

“Porn makes you stupid; porn makes you sad; porn ruins your relationships; porn makes you anti-social; porn lowers testosterone; porn creates sexual problems; porn creates sexism”

So-called “porn addicts” were already predisposed to stupidity, depression, and weakness before they ever saw porn. If they were smart, happy, sociable, strong, high-testosterone chads, they would be sexually successful.

Porn use is an expression of a pre-existing condition. Escaping into a world of sexual power is an attractive distraction from the cold reality of a world where you don’t fit in.

Wilson claims that when people quit porn, their brains start healing, they gain more energy, they become physically stronger, and they gain “superpowers.” But these “causal findings” are weak.

Let’s say that you have 100 so-called “porn addicts.” How many of these “porn addicts” are going to quit? How many will succeed if they try?

Let’s say for every 100 addicts who “tries” to quit, only 10 succeed. What will those 10 be like? Will they be exactly like the 90 who fail to quit? No — they will be the most motivated, functional, and capable.

Maybe these 10, in the first week of attempting to quit, find a girlfriend that motivates them. They find a girlfriend, unlike the 90, because of their social skills and abilities. These “before and after” studies are plagued by selection bias. They don’t control for the underlying human quality of those who succeed, vs those who fail.

To put this another way: (prior to Ozempic) losing weight requires will, drive, and determination. If someone suddenly begins to lose weight, that means they have suddenly gained all those positive internal traits, possibly because of some intervention, like the encouragement of family or a traumatic event which “woke them up.”

If we compare the “before and after,” we are comparing two different people: one who was passively complacent with their ugliness, and another who is actively working on themselves. It’s not accurate to causally attribute every improvement to the fat loss itself when, in fact, the positive benefits began the moment the person dedicated themselves to changing.

The moment when someone says “I am going to change” is a moment of bifurcation, where that person (for whatever reason) has become activated. They have already changed and are no longer behaving in their old ways.

Obesity is a radical physical disease which destroys the body, so in addition to the effects of the “bifurcation event,” it also does genuinely help to lose weight. But in the case of “porn addiction,” all the so-called “superpowers” are downstream of a psychological activation which precedes the decision to quit. The change is rooted in the introduction of motivation and the decision to improve one’s self, not in the removal of porn as a totem. To think otherwise is a cargo-cult fallacy.

It’s true that porn suppresses testosterone, but so does having children. All sorts of things suppress testosterone. That doesn’t make having children an “addiction,” nor does it make porn an “addiction.”

Here’s a thought experiment: take two men, one who is “addicted to porn,” the other who is “normal.” Lock them both in a prison (without porn) for a month. They will both be miserable, deprived of friendship, physical activity, and intellectual stimulation. But according to “porn addiction theory,” the first man will be healthier, because he will be “deprived of the evil” of porn.

If this were true, we should expect that, upon release, the former “porn addict” will be flourishing. In reality, he will probably just go back to his old life, including his porn habit. This is because the problem isn’t the external imposition of porn upon him, like a drug, but his internal psychology, which is avoidant and seeks to escape from reality.

depression and “addiction.”

“Porn addicts” are like repressed homosexuals. They view their sexuality as radically separate from themselves. This is a deeply Christian worldview: that we can split ourselves into “spirit” (anti-sex) and “flesh” (pro-sex) and declare one “real” and the other “fake,” rather than affirming the reality of both. This split personality or denial of the self results in depression and alienation from their own egos.

Depression comes in all shapes and sizes, but the symptoms are familiar: low energy, low motivation, fear of failure, low risk-tolerance, pessimism, passivity, self-criticism, self-hatred, self-pity, victimary moralism (“I’m a tragic fallen man”), anti-heroic narcissism (“no one has it as bad as me”), hopelessness, anhedonia, and apathy.

Depression is not a disease. Depression is a defense mechanism in response to social alienation. It is an attempt at tribal re-alignment. Depressed people don’t “fit in,” which, in evolutionary terms, means they have been rejected by the tribe. Depression is an attempt to integrate into a new tribe by emulating a child-like, passive, feminine, weakened state, to appear less threatening.

The best way to avoid conflict when encountering a new tribe is to appear depressed. Depression is a form of learned helplessness to facilitate tribal re-integration.

“Porn addicts” are depressed and lonely. The problem isn’t porn — it’s depression and loneliness. Curing depression and loneliness is easier said than done, because it is usually rooted in deeper anti-social tendencies which the “porn addict” would rather not give up. But physically removing porn from a depressed, lonely, anti-social person won’t cure the underlying problems.

If you are force-fed poisoned food, you will become sick. If you are forced to take heroin, you will probably become addicted, even if you lived a good life previously. Poison and heroin are exogenous chemicals that enter into your body and alter your state. Porn, on the other hand, is not like that at all.

“Video game addiction” and “social media addiction” are identical to porn. If you live a miserable, lonely, boring life, video games are the best you can do with what you have. Trying to quit video games without replacing them with anything is useless, and won’t accomplish anything.

I am not arguing that gooning for 24 hours is “good” or “acceptable behavior.” As Norman Finkelstein argues, gooning is a form of fascism.

But porn addiction isn’t real; video game addiction isn’t real. Addiction is good, just directed wrongly.

in defense of obsession.

Obsession is good. I am obsessively writing articles all day long. Look at my Substack: I’ve published 1.6 million words, publicly, to the internet. The psychological effort that I put into this isn’t much different than if I were to work a full time job and dedicate all my money to prostitutes and OnlyFans. In both cases, people would think I am crazy and what I am doing is a waste of time. But I do not care, because I have this single-minded determination to succeed.

While porn consumption is passive and does not result in anything good, my articles are saving lives and saving the planet. (Eventually. Someday. It’s called the Butterfly Effect. Look it up.)

“Porn addiction” is not going to save the world, outside of reducing the fertility of anti-social personalities through McGenics.

If a person is stuck living with their parents, unemployed, exhausted, depressed, what are they supposed to do? I’m sure you (dear reader) have a bunch of ideas for them, but the problem here is not that they are “unaware” or “ignorant” of your bright ideas. They don’t want to do it. This is a spiritual problem, not a logistical or strategic one. They hate themselves, they hate life, and they don’t want to try. If they wanted to try, they wouldn’t be in that position.

The secular psychology (theology in disguise) around “addiction” is total nonsense, based on worthless proofs of “causality.” No, porn isn’t making your life bad. If your life sucks, that’s why you goon — to fill the void left by the emptiness of life. You’re escaping. This is not “addiction” but a coping strategy to deal with a pre-existing problem. Blaming porn is like blaming a murder on the gun. The weapon of choice does not explain the motive.

People have been writing about how to cure “pornography addiction” since 2005. Yet the number of self-professed “porn addicts” is skyrocketing. The reason for this is that therapy and psychology do not help so-called addicts. What they need is not therapy or psychology. What they need is for their lives to stop sucking, so they don’t need to escape their lives with porn.

If they had good social skills, confidence, self-awareness, motivation, drive, goals, optimism, zeal, fanaticism, obsession, and turned that toward winning in the real world, they wouldn’t need porn. But what is this real world?

Is this real world making money to buy prostitutes and lambos, as Tate alleges? Is the real world going to church, reading the Bible, and praying to God? Is the real world selling your car to buy malaria nets? Why are we even asking these silly questions? If the world is real, shouldn’t it be obvious?

There are some things which seem obvious in the negative, even if it is hard to answer questions in the positive. Porn is not the real world. If you do not have a positive answer to the question of what is real, you must settle for an obviously fake obsession like porn.

Life cannot be lived via negativa, but only via positiva. You must answer the question of life affirmatively. You must find your God. You must find something worth dying for, and living for. For many people, they have no answer, and porn fills the void. But something must. Porn is not an addiction, but a religion. And NoFap is another religion, equally false.

orgasm addiction?1

Wilson’s wife wrote a book in 2009. Here’s the intro:

“Zing! Cupid’s arrow skewers a primitive part of the brain. Obediently, we fall in love amid showers of passionate fireworks, bond for a time … and then often get fed up with each other and grow irritable or numb. Perhaps we try to remodel our mate, seek solace online, or pursue a new love interest. Ancient sages recognized this biological snare and hinted at a way to dodge it: use lovemaking to balance one another and harmony arises naturally. With an entertaining blend of personal experiences, the latest neuroscience, and forgotten insights from around the globe, Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow confronts current assumptions about sex and love and offers a refreshing, practical approach to sexuality.”

Wilson and his wife had sexual problems long before Gary started watching porn. The year 2004, when they began their activism, was early in the “internet porn” scene. Few kids were growing up watching porn, getting their “brains rewired.” The prejudice against porn formed by this couple wasn’t the result of internet porn. Their sexual problems preceded porn. Porn just filled a void left by their sexual dysfunction.

There’s a thread of “anti-biology” throughout their propaganda. Evolution is the culprit; evolution is the criminal. Evolution is ignorant and foolish. It’s up to us to “dodge” evolution, to “remodel,” to “rewire,” to “trick.” It’s “woo-woo” spirituality disguised as objective science.

I am skeptical of sex advice coming from committed anti-natalists.2 Anyone claiming to provide “sexual healing” and simultaneously advocating for childlessness, while bashing “evolution” as the source of all evil (the primordial Eve?), seems to be missing part of the picture.

Back in 2008, Wilson’s wife did an interview where she called orgasms evil:

Marnia Robinson [she never took her husband’s last name] suggests that orgasm addiction might be the single largest problem plaguing intimate, romantic relationships.

Really? ORGASM ADDICTION? The thing that has kept the species going for millions of years? When plants emit sperm as pollen, are they also “orgasm addicts” in need of reform?

Marnia goes on to explain that orgasms are evil:

Your body uses a surge of a neurochemical called dopamine to trigger the sensation of orgasm in the reward circuitry of your brain… the central player in this natural programmed “hangover” appears to be dopamine.

It’s clear that dopamine levels drop after orgasm, and that another neurochemical, prolactin, surges (a sexual satiation signal) to keep dopamine in check…

One can view the orgasm cycle as similar to a drug or alcohol cycle because it emanates from the same mechanism in the brain, using the same neurochemical, dopamine. When anything -- whether a substance (cocaine, too much sugar) or an activity (gambling, orgasm) -- over-stimulates your reward circuitry, it produces a high, followed by a period of recovery.

That recovery is, in a sense, a withdrawal. The difference between sex and drugs is that the orgasm “hangover” is so much a part of us, so natural and programmed, that it is hard to recognize -- unless, of course, you escape the cycle [samsara] entirely. It can make you feel uncharacteristically needy, irritable, anxious, depleted, or desperate for another orgasm.

The pseudo-scientific justification for “porn addiction” is used to demonize orgasms. These are spiritual, moralistic, Daoistic concepts, dressed up in the language of neuroscience. They bedazzle the reader with fancy words, and convince them that orgasms are “addictive.” It’s a sneaky form of Buddhism. I prefer the honest version.

I would respect these people more if they didn’t hide their intentions, motivations, and sources:

Not one mammal or bird is completely sexually monogamous. Subconscious, neurochemical mating programs are the way Mother Nature pushes mammals apart. She wants you to fertilize in a passionate frenzy, bond temporarily, and then grow disillusioned and move onto your next partner.

To fool Mother Nature, you obviously have to do something different in the bedroom. This is why the Taoists, and others, recommended learning to make love in a way that doesn’t trigger our subconscious mating program -- or rather, triggers only the attachment part of it, not the move on part of it. We can make use of this natural attachment program, which bonds us to our children and parents [pro-incest?], in our romances, too, by emphasizing generous affection, playfulness, gentle intercourse, and, of course, by avoiding orgasm. Results include greater harmony and wellbeing, and, remarkably, less sexual frustration.

Hypothetically, would you be surprised to learn that this couple struggled with infidelity, jealousy, and sexual dissatisfaction, and that their solution was to declare an all-out Daoist war on orgasms? The NoFappers deny the primacy of monogamy as a social technology, declaring war on Greek civilization, not in the manner of Richard Dawkins, but as religious fanatics of a different flavor:

I think polyamory is a very logical solution to the fact that mammals are not monogamous. Hunter-gatherer societies are polyamorous…

[Sexual compulsions] decrease your freedom and cloud your judgment, so as a spiritual matter they slow your evolution. Unfortunately, anyone who decides to move beyond a sexual compulsion has to go through an uncomfortable withdrawal period.

The pursuit of orgasm is the point of western civilization. It is the climax of victory — discovery, invention, adventure, conquest — that which Faustian man seeks.

Rather than blaming orgasms or porn for ruining our lives, maybe we need to consider the possibility that late-stage civilizations tend to degenerate into moralistic favelas. NoFap isn’t the solution, but just another symptom of the problem. With frontiers calcified, civilization turns inward to the task of domesticating man into a harmless, polyamorous housecat.

The problem with “porn addicts” isn’t that they are busy cranking it to pixels on a screen. The problem is that they aren’t doing anything else. Their disease is essentially fake. It is a void, a lack, an absence of fire in the soul. Porn is merely a canary in the coal mine. Don’t shoot the messenger! Maybe there is a solution… Are you willing to find it?

Thanks for reading.

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