Hot Take: The Porn Altering Sexuality Argument is Hurting the Growth of NoFap

V

Vagar Incipi

Fapstronaut
As a 15-year-old gay/homosexual teen who has been doing NoFap for months, it has come to my attention that a lot, and I mean A LOT of people have tried telling me I might not be gay, etc and I might actually be heterosexual/straight, due to various reasons, such as pornography.

First of all, I must mention that I don't watch pornography often, which I know must be rare for my age. I've mentioned this to these very same people but they do not refute their argument. I believe that NoFap is and has the potential to be a very safe and healthy space for those who do not choose to PMO, however, in order for people to find this safe and healthy space, the community must not be taken out of context. Many news organizations have said that NoFap is quote "extremely homophobic", and used clips from the forums that sounded homophobic, but in reality, users just trying to help people with Homosexual Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (HOCD).

I 100% believe that HOCD is real, western scientific studies prove so. However, we must also realize that less than 1% of America has HOCD. Although many may argue that that is a high percentage since around ~7% of Americans identify as LGBTQ+, that would not be the case. According to Mantracare, HOCD is "focused on doubting your sexual orientation" while being LGBTQ+ is not. Using the argument that pornography alters your sexuality, is impractical and simply not the case most of the time.

In addition to this, the number of pornography consumed must be carefully taken into consideration. When I was told that what I was experiencing was HOCD, most people just disregarded the fact that my intake of pornography was little to none. HOCD is categorized as a mental illness and even Brain On Porn states that HOCD is caused by "chronic overstimulation. We as humans are sexual creatures, but we are also simply... creatures. We have a sex drive not to have sex every day, but to prevent the eradication of the human species. However, to survive, sex (masturbation included) 24/7 is not ideal! Pornography can cause HOCD due to the intensity of that pornography. For example, simple erotica won't cause as much damage (due to the ability to imagine) as an hour-long pornography video with 8 people. Adding on, watching pornography once a week/once a month, won't cause as much damage as an hour a day.

Although most people who claim that I have HOCD have good intentions, we as a server must educate ourselves thoroughly and realize that even if we might be partially right, those who are not NoFap treat themselves and each other as "holier than thou" so we must be careful as a server, to make sure the positivity of NoFap spreads.
 
Vagar Incipi said:
As a 15-year-old gay/homosexual teen who has been doing NoFap for months, it has come to my attention that a lot, and I mean A LOT of people have tried telling me I might not be gay, etc and I might actually be heterosexual/straight, due to various reasons, such as pornography.

First of all, I must mention that I don't watch pornography often, which I know must be rare for my age. I've mentioned this to these very same people but they do not refute their argument. I believe that NoFap is and has the potential to be a very safe and healthy space for those who do not choose to PMO, however, in order for people to find this safe and healthy space, the community must not be taken out of context. Many news organizations have said that NoFap is quote "extremely homophobic", and used clips from the forums that sounded homophobic, but in reality, users just trying to help people with Homosexual Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (HOCD).

I 100% believe that HOCD is real, western scientific studies prove so. However, we must also realize that less than 1% of America has HOCD. Although many may argue that that is a high percentage since around ~7% of Americans identify as LGBTQ+, that would not be the case. According to Mantracare, HOCD is "focused on doubting your sexual orientation" while being LGBTQ+ is not. Using the argument that pornography alters your sexuality, is impractical and simply not the case most of the time.

In addition to this, the number of pornography consumed must be carefully taken into consideration. When I was told that what I was experiencing was HOCD, most people just disregarded the fact that my intake of pornography was little to none. HOCD is categorized as a mental illness and even Brain On Porn states that HOCD is caused by "chronic overstimulation. We as humans are sexual creatures, but we are also simply... creatures. We have a sex drive not to have sex every day, but to prevent the eradication of the human species. However, to survive, sex (masturbation included) 24/7 is not ideal! Pornography can cause HOCD due to the intensity of that pornography. For example, simple erotica won't cause as much damage (due to the ability to imagine) as an hour-long pornography video with 8 people. Adding on, watching pornography once a week/once a month, won't cause as much damage as an hour a day.

Although most people who claim that I have HOCD have good intentions, we as a server must educate ourselves thoroughly and realize that even if we might be partially right, those who are not NoFap treat themselves and each other as "holier than thou" so we must be careful as a server, to make sure the positivity of NoFap spreads.
Click to expand...
I definitely agree with you Vagar. However, those who suffer from HOCD will tend to be overrepresented on a forum like NoFap. These are people who are doubting a fundamental aspect of themselves, so they're more likely to seek help for their compulsive use. I was somebody who suffered from HOCD and recovered.

Now the press will definitely take the HOCD recovery aspect of NoFap and label it as a sort of conversion therapy, but what separates it from that defunct methodology is that the opposite can happen - gay people can start to like straight porn too!

In fact in the book Your Brain on Porn, the author cites an account by a homosexual male who described starting to feel attraction to women's breasts after years of watching porn, which caused him excessive amounts of anxiety,

I think our terminology needs to change. We can address HOCD-related issues as an artificial change in sexuality or something of the ilk.
 
I agree with @Dr.J_76ers . I do not believe diminishing the very frequent cases of HOCD related to porn is going to solve the situation. I think every person should be taken at face value, to consider their preferences and tendencies before porn, after porn, and made a deeper study in order to say if it is porn induced or not. Just saying "is impractical and simply not the case most of the time" is invalidating with so many struggling with it, of any gender and sexuality.

But at the same time, just like J. said, I understand and I can see how it can be misused in order to serve a negative ideology. Changing the terminology and listening to everybody, step by step, rather than generalizing might be the best solution.

Edit: I'm sorry your situation was unfortunate and that people didn't listen to you. I understand that is upsetting.
 
Dr.J_76ers said:
I definitely agree with you Vagar. However, those who suffer from HOCD will tend to be overrepresented on a forum like NoFap. These are people who are doubting a fundamental aspect of themselves, so they're more likely to seek help for their compulsive use. I was somebody who suffered from HOCD and recovered.

Now the press will definitely take the HOCD recovery aspect of NoFap and label it as a sort of conversion therapy, but what separates it from that defunct methodology is that the opposite can happen - gay people can start to like straight porn too!

In fact in the book Your Brain on Porn, the author cites an account by a homosexual male who described starting to feel attraction to women's breasts after years of watching porn, which caused him excessive amounts of anxiety,

I think our terminology needs to change. We can address HOCD-related issues as an artificial change in sexuality or something of the ilk.
Click to expand...
I think we need to stop labeling mental disorders as identity. For example HOCD and homosexuality. Instead, we should state SOCD or Sexuality Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. If we label HOCD with homosexuality, no good will come to this community.
 
user12345 said:
I agree with @Dr.J_76ers . I do not believe diminishing the very frequent cases of HOCD related to porn is going to solve the situation. I think every person should be taken at face value, to consider their preferences and tendencies before porn, after porn, and made a deeper study in order to say if it is porn induced or not. Just saying "is impractical and simply not the case most of the time" is invalidating with so many struggling with it, of any gender and sexuality.

But at the same time, just like J. said, I understand and I can see how it can be misused in order to serve a negative ideology. Changing the terminology and listening to everybody, step by step, rather than generalizing might be the best solution.

Edit: I'm sorry your situation was unfortunate and that people didn't listen to you. I understand that is upsetting.
Click to expand...
I did not mean to invalidate anyone, what I meant to say was that people in this community tend to jump to the conclusion that any same-sex attraction must be HOCD, which I believe we must move away from.
 
Vagar Incipi said:
Many news organizations have said that NoFap is quote "extremely homophobic", and used clips from the forums that sounded homophobic
Click to expand...
It was not always like that, but NoFap has become slowly infiltrated by people / organisations pushing right wing agendas, and of course, these are the ones who make all the noise.
They target the insecurities of the weak, and fill their heads with blame and hatred.
The slow normalisation of these profiles is responsible for the perception that NoFap is homophobic.

Vagar Incipi said:
I did not mean to invalidate anyone, what I meant to say was that people in this community tend to jump to the conclusion that any same-sex attraction must be HOCD, which I believe we must move away from.
Click to expand...

The new way forward.
If you can't face your reflection, blame somebody else.
 
Massive said:
It was not always like that, but NoFap has become slowly infiltrated by people / organisations pushing right wing agendas, and of course, these are the ones who make all the noise.
They target the insecurities of the weak, and fill their heads with blame and hatred.
The slow normalisation of these profiles is responsible for the perception that NoFap is homophobic.



The new way forward.
If you can't face your reflection, blame somebody else.
Click to expand...
It hurts me that all organizations that are good at the core are being toxified by larger, less ethical organizations. It really does.
 
Vagar Incipi said:
I think we need to stop labeling mental disorders as identity. For example HOCD and homosexuality. Instead, we should state SOCD or Sexuality Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. If we label HOCD with homosexuality, no good will come to this community.
Click to expand...
The issue is that this mental disorder is an obsession over a key element of one's identity.

However, I do like the term SOCD and I think it would do good for the community to use it instead of HOCD.
 
There is probably some truth in what you are saying but I read your previous threads and very few people suggested that your sexuality was porn induced, so either you must be referring to another community or you are amplifying the views of a minority. Everyone else was fully supportive of you so it's a bit of a slap in the face to accuse this forum of such things.
 
Massive said:
It was not always like that, but NoFap has become slowly infiltrated by people / organisations pushing right wing agendas, and of course, these are the ones who make all the noise.
Click to expand...
Yes, there are probably users promoting right wing (incel, red pill) content.
 
Massive said:
It was not always like that, but NoFap has become slowly infiltrated by people / organisations pushing right wing agendas, and of course, these are the ones who make all the noise.
Click to expand...
Matthew Plummer runs nofap.com, Alexander Rhodes runs r/nofap. Both of them are leftists. Most accounts banned by moderators on this forum were right wingers. NF the organization has a left wing bias if anything.

When it comes to self described fapstronauts, what do you expect? Leftists generally oppose any sort of restriction on sexual activity nowadays so it should not be a surprise that there's fewer of them among us than rightists. You can't derive from that fact alone that nofap has been co-opted.

But maybe you're right. Maybe it's really covert agents of Hitler connecting from secret Nazi bases deep under the ocean.
 
By the way I agree with OP that the label HOCD (the neutral term is SO-OCD) is not a good one but for a different reason.

Here we have people who started experiencing desires incongruent with their sexual preference long after it had stabilized (which is not your case OP since you're only 15).

Calling that "OCD" implies that the feelings you developed while using porn are fine, it's you worrying about them that's the problem.

Well, if that is the case, the individual in question should just accept this new state and I guess keep consuming pornography because it's his obsession about this issue and not the issue itself that needs to be mended.
 
Freiherr von Münchhausen said:
Most accounts banned by moderators on this forum were right wingers. NF the organization has a left wing bias if anything
Click to expand...
I wouldn't exactly say that the NF organisation has a left-wing bias, since they let right-wingers spew their insane rethorics for quite some time. The bans the right-wingers receive is when they start going more and more unhinged, by promoting misogyny, condoning sexual violence, rape apologism, endless trolling...etc. Other than that, when right-wingers stay as vague as possible, or simply promote their ideologies without focusing on its most controversial aspects, they won't get banned for sure.

Freiherr von Münchhausen said:
When it comes to self described fapstronauts, what do you expect? Leftists generally oppose any sort of restriction on sexual activity nowadays so it should not be a surprise that there's fewer of them among us than rightists.
Click to expand...
I don't think that the noticeable presence of right-wingers here is due to the fact that 'leftists oppose any sort of restriction on sexual activity', I'd say that the real reason leftists aren't as much present here is because of the general climate of this platform. This forum attracts a lot of unstable men who have trouble interacting with society, particularly women, due to the side-effects of their addiction and sustained isolation. These side-effects are usually characterized in the psychological damage caused by the pervasive misogyny, violence, degradation, racism, and even pedophilia present on the mainstream internet P.

As this platform is primarily populated by men who have been affected by this kind of damage, their views and attitudes are likely going to be molded through the recurring themes present in internet pornography, it's only natural to see those young men reinforcing and regurgitating the messages they internalised through years of P usage. Due to these factors, right-wingers are likely to feel more comfortable in this environment, as their beliefs and worldview align with these elements.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I'll have to disagree. It might not be the case in your part of the world but in Europe/America unrestrained sexuality is almost a defining characteristic of the modern left-wing.

Sure, many people don't fit neatly in boxes (and some of those are here) but in most cases somebody of the progressive persuasion would never even consider limiting porn or masturbation.

I took this image on a stroll through town recently:
xyz.jpg

I'd also like to add that significant amount of people here are either motivated by religion directly (Christians, Muslims) or indirectly (young secular Indians influenced by Hinduism). That's another thing that many progressives will find unappealing or downright incriminating.
 
Freiherr von Münchhausen said:
Yeah, I'll have to disagree. It might not be the case in your part of the world but in Europe/America unrestrained sexuality is almost a defining characteristic of the modern left-wing.
Click to expand...
Don't forget that the left isn't a single unified force - the creators of NoFap and FightTheNewDrug have strong left-wing leanings, while radical feminists who have opposed pornography and the sex trade for over 50 years are also leftists. In recent times, the part of the left which advocates for an unrestrained sexual lifestyle is becoming increasingly scrutinized even by fellow leftists.

Freiherr von Münchhausen said:
I'd also like to add that significant amount of people here are either motivated by religion directly (Christians, Muslims) or indirectly (young secular Indians influenced by Hinduism). That's another thing that many progressives will find unappealing or downright incriminating.
Click to expand...
It's not simply about religion - it's true that religion can be a factor in why right-wingers are drawn to this platform, but it's more about the messages that are being spread irrespective of the package they come in. Right-wingers are more focused on the ideas vehiculated by religions rather than the religions themselves, which explains why right-wing groups may attract individuals from various faiths.
 
Last edited:
As an LGBT+ member of the mod team, and speaking only as myself here not for others, I am urging you to please report anything you deem homophobic. I again speak for myself but I can assure you it will be treated promptly and with the gravity it requires. This is a big forum and sometimes things pass through the cracks, unwillingly.
 
So, I take a different view on this. I don't necessarily think porn has turned anyone gay for instance. People are who they are. They are born with certain preferences to a large degree. However, I find a number of people feel troubled - LGBTQ+ as well, because they are in a sexual minority.

For me, I have a fetish that I was born with and as a result, I found that it has resulted in me being less attracted to normal women. So sometimes I wonder, is it my porn use or is it the fetish or life experiences or both? I don't really have a solid answer. There's a chance that my porn use could have escalated this because I never had an issue with ED until I started masturbating to porn. I also don't think a number of the sexual fantasies in porn were originally ever mine - I found them from someone else.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top