No-Fap and Semen Retention: Worth It?

I guess it’s been a couple of years now since I started seeing YouTube videos on the No-Fap movement and the benefits of semen retention. And now there seems to be an explosion of interest on social media. It’s taken me a while to get my head wrapped around it all, but I see two good things coming out of this: to try to get men to relinquish the hold porn has over them, and to somehow ‘cleanse’ or renew their sexual energy, even make it more powerful. Those are great goals but the No-Fap community and those that espouse semen retention approach those goals in completely different ways.

From what I gather, for men, No-Fap means avoiding sexual activity of any kind, including masturbation, completely and utterly, usually for a period of a month. I even think November has been chosen as the month when No-Fap is ‘celebrated’ and done by fans and promoters of this practice. The thing is that the promoters of No-Fap don’t address the importance of sexual energy in a man. It’s as if men have a ‘shut-off’ valve for that energy and can simply turn it off or ignore it for an entire month. There doesn’t seem to be any respect or understanding of sexual energy (much less its Sacred nature) and none if any strategies are offered to help a guy get through it!

Semen retention is a whole different matter: it’s about avoiding ejaculation, not avoiding sex. Based in Tantric techniques and practices, promoters of semen retention welcome a healthy approach to one’s sexual energy, first by recognizing that it exists as well as the fact that it has tremendous personal power. These masters then teach ways to generate yet conserve sexual energy. Its foundational practice is in the breath: learning how to breathe from one’s core and into the heart and learning how to visualize where the breath comes from and where it goes. I’m a great believer in making a ‘heart to cock’ connection within myself through breath. I clench my PC muscle, inhale, visualize the breath going up, up, up the body to the heart (or to the forehead, the Third Eye chakra), then exhale, unclenching the PC muscle and visualizing the breath leaving the body. (Some masters suggest visualizing the breath leaving through the penis.) Others teach the ‘fire breath’, a quick inhale/exhale focusing on the abdomen. (I sometimes do this once I’ve reached a peak in my self-pleasure practice and it brings on a kind of whole-body orgasm, with all the joys and contractions that an orgasm comes with…but without the cum!)

There are many other techniques, and we may recognize some of them from edging, reaching the point of no return (before ejaculation) then backing off, letting our sexual arousal go down for minute or two, then starting up again. Some men do this for many hours. Some choose to cum, others choose to just bring the session to a quiet close. If you’ve chosen the quiet close, then what you’re doing is generating your sexual energy to a peak, then letting it drift freely away. In choosing to use semen retention to gain more sexual energy and more psychic or spiritual power in your life, you need to move that energy through the rest of your body! I massage up from my genitals when I self-pleasure to move the energy to the upper parts of my body: my gut, my heart, my brain! I am finding that I typically don’t cum very often any more during my erotic practice for this very reason: to be able to conserve that sexual energy and use it throughout the day, allowing it to shine and glow. It attracts people. It gives me an inner glow that makes me more effective and powerful as a person walking through the world. I’ve experienced this on many, many occasions.

I’m all for semen retention for the development and growth of your sexual energy. I recommend it highly. Try it for a few days. I’m on day seven of a 30-day program and I feel great. I can already feel some of the benefits of the practice. But I’m used to conserving it because of my professional life as a Somatic Sex Educator, Sexological Bodyworker and Sacred Intimate. Give it a try for yourself and see what happens. (By the way, both No-Fap and semen retention guides require stopping all porn for the duration of your practice. I concur. The more you can get into your own body’s pleasure, noticing how different parts of your body wake up to your own touch, the better you’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of semen retention.)