Why I Quit Masturbating

Okay, now that I have successfully clickbaited you away from whatever mindless drivel you were doing previously. I am going to come at you with some sciencey stuff and some philosophical stuff and some more mainstream stuff and, by the end of the article, you will probably have decided to quit wanking. Or, if you are a lady and this male-centric article applies to you in no way whatsoever, then, by the end of the article, you will be… slightly amused?

When people ask me why I quit wanking, I make my answer short and snappy. If I am going to have any chance of convincing them that not wanking is a worthwhile pursuit, then I have to not bore them with the research and the science but tell them what they want to hear. Since I’ve quit wanking, I have MORE energy, MORE confidence, MORE desire to meet new people, MORE drive and, MORE ambition. That’s the short answer.

In this article, I am going to give you the long answer. The answer that is backed up by research, by testimonials, by evidence and by results. Firstly, let’s begin with the origins of the NoFap movement.

Origins

NoFap was a movement founded on Reddit by a man called Alexander Rhodes, back in 2011. It served as a support group for men who wanted to quit wanking or who wanted to combat a porn addiction. Interestingly, the term fap is a slang word for male masturbation and it derives from the sound made during masturbation.

Since 2011, the movement has grown substantially. In particular, the phenomenon known as ‘No Nut November’ which is now a mainstream movement, similar to the likes of Dry January and Movember, whereby men abstain from masturbation for a whole month.

Now, the movement boasts its own website, weekly newsletter, and browser plugin to try and prevent men from relapsing. In addition to this, the movement has trademarked several related terms including NoFap, Fapstronaut, People Over Porn, and Get a New Grip on Life.

The Reddit page boasts nearly 500,000 members and remains an important community for giving men support. Indeed, one of the main themes of the page is a religious dislike for pornography and the sites that host readily accessible and free pornography.

Porn

Large swathes of the virtual world we call the internet are made up of pornography. Indeed, porn is accessible to children of all ages and researchers generally agree on several negative effects that the over-consumption of porn can have.

1. Erectile dysfunction: The sheer diversity and creativity of certain porn categories (German, Cuckold, Pissing, Smoking, need I go on?) gives men an unrealistic idea of what sex is like and studies have shown that this can lead to ED in the bedroom.
2. What is seen on screen is replicated. For example, the rise of unprotected sex can be linked to porn, labiaplasty surgery to reduce the size of the vaginal opening can be linked to porn. In fact, this number increased by 40% in the US in 2016 as women try to emulate what they see in porn films.
3. Furthermore, porn can lead to infidelity as it gives people a ‘grass is always greener’ mindset to sexual relationships.

These are just a few of the reasons that the NoFap movement is aggressively against the porn industry. However, the negative effects of porn are old news. I have been familiar with the nasty way porn affects my brain for years now. Read on to find out the real reason I quit wanking.

Science or Magic?

When you have an orgasm, the hormone oxytocin is released in your body and this causes a reduction in the main stress hormone, Cortisol. Sounds good right? NO! Well, yes… it depends. Cortisol is used in your body for several different functions: regulating blood pressure, keeping inflammation down, regulating blood sugar levels, regulating your sleep/wake cycle and other functions.

Until the NoFap movement came into existence, wanking had a cultural hegemony on the idea of cool. It was cool to wank. Remember in Wolf of Wall Street when McConaughey’s character did that weird humming thing and told Leo to wank more often. That was cool. There are literally thousands of articles online about the virtues of wanking.

The logic is that wanking is good for de-stressing yourself, it reduces Cortisol levels so that you can relax each evening and watch television with a contented smile.

But, what if you don’t want to fast track your way into relaxation just by beating your meat? What if you don’t have a fantastic social life, or many friends, or a girlfriend, or a job or a family. You NEED that energy; you need that drive to go out there and do something about it.

So, imagine this, you are a 20-something-year-old bloke, with a job you dislike and no girlfriend and a bunch of mates who rinse you every Friday night because your hair is receding way back. You don’t need to trap yourself into a cycle of artificial relaxation by wanking religiously every night. When you do that, and you watch a new porn video each evening, you are convincing your subconscious brain that you have a harem of women who you visit each night. Your brain thinks you are a PLAYER when in fact you are a sad, lonely LOSER.

Since I quit wanking, I have way more confidence, way more desire to meet people, way more sexual energy that I can channel into other energies. It only takes three weeks of abstention before you start to feel better, more enthusiastic and excited about day-to-day activities. By the time you reach 7 months, like me, wanking will be a distant memory.

Submitted Anonymously