It’s officially November, which means turkey, seeing family, and Christmas music if you like to celebrate that early. It also means that it’s No Nut November (NNN), the societal celebration of… yup, not masturbating. The premise of NNN is for men to refrain from ejaculating for the month of November. NNN was first mentioned in 2011 as an Urban Dictionary post. It started out as a way for men to combat masturbation and porn addictions, but it has turned into some sort of male right of passage, and has now turned into friendly competition between men to see who can make it the entire month of November without masturbating and sometimes even having sex with a partner. Some women partake in NNN as well, whether it be with their female friends or in competition with men to see who has more self control.
Before NNN emerged as the meme it’s become, “No Fap Months” became popular, tracing back to as early as 2009. To clarify, No Fap and NNN are not the same thing, but NNN would not have emerged as we know it today without the No Fap Movement. No Fap (NF) gained popularity after a 2003 research paper about the relationship between ejaculation and serum testosterone level in men resurfaced in a reddit thread. The paper claimed that when men refrain from ejaculating for extended periods of time, their testosterone levels increase, thus “increasing their masculinity” and women’s attraction to them. This claim has been notoriously debunked, but many still believe and preach that this practice is effective and even go so far as to use NF to justify their own superiority complexes.
NF, and in turn NNN, villainize porn and adult entertainment workers, claiming that porn is a way to control men and push them out of power. The NF community puts emphasis on men abstaining from masturbation and sex because giving into these temptations distracts them from reaching their full potential. The belief that sexual desires prevent people from reaching their full potential is heavily linked to misogynistic and sexist ideals. This belief can lead to the villainization of women who express their sexuality, supposedly with the intention to entice men and strip them of their masculinity and power. Men with porn and masturbation addictions who seek “help” are honored and respected in the NF community and aren’t ridiculed for their history with the addictions, while women who express any element of their sexuality may be hated and blamed. There have even been threats of violence against women, especially women who work in the porn industry, from members of the NF community. These threats don’t only extend to women, but groups of men who aren’t part of the NF community, making statements such as, “kill all pornographers.”
NF takes on extreme right wing ideologies, including but not limited to, racism, anti-semitism, misogyny, and sexism. Not to mention, it harms men too, especially young and impressionable men. Many members of NF joined the community as early 13 or 14 years old and were thus socialized to believe that masturbation and sex are wrong, which immensely damages the psyche and makes having a healthy relationship with sex almost impossible. Though there is nothing inherently wrong with abstaining from masturbation and porn for personal choices, the messaging behind the NF movement (and the early days of NNN) demonized sex and masturbation in such a way that young men’s relationships with their own sexuality and the sexuality of their potential partners were harmed and manipulated detrimentally.
None of this even addresses the many health benefits associated with masturbation and the science as to why NNN is basically pointless. At this point, most men who participate in NNN do it for the meme and to engage in some friendly competition with their male friends, but that is all it is: a meme. NNN has no proven health benefits and abstaining from masturbation for such a long period of time can actually lead to irritability and lack of focus. Regular masturbation in men has been linked to incredible health benefits such as, “lower risk for prostate cancer, improved memory, deeper sleep, improved immune cell function, boosting one’s immunity, reduced risk of heart disease, and decreased inflammation.”
The health benefits of masturbation don’t only apply to men. That’s right, women masturbate too, and they benefit from it! Another aspect of the misogyny within NNN lies in the fact that NNN originated from men and is still primarily targeted toward men. In a way, the exclusion of women in NNN perpetrates the belief that women don’t masturbate or shouldn’t masturbate and increases the female masturbation stigma. There is a lot of shame around female sexuality and pleasure, within the context of NNN and outside of it. Personally, I felt a lot of shame around my sexuality growing up and believed that masturbation was wrong. In my article “Sex Silent to Sex Positive,” I talk more about my own journey sex positivity and how the shame I developed around masturbation negatively impacted me. The idea that masturbation is a problem that people need to solve and should be abstained from is damaging to young men and women. NNN may only encourage this abstinence for a short period of time and does so in a lighthearted way, but the message behind it is dangerous nonetheless.
There is nothing wrong with participating in NNN, so long as it is done so in a positive way that doesn’t lead to self-shaming or the shaming of others. Even the original premise of NF as being a way to test self control and connect to other parts of life outside of sex isn’t a bad thing, but the traction and communities developed around these movements has caused a lot of harm that is essential to acknowledge.