The guys behind the men’s purity movement
It's Been a Minute
NPR
4.7 • 9.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
The majority of men consume porn, and most use it for masturbation, but two thirds of men under 25 think porn should be harder to access, according to research from the Survey Center on American Life. There's a broader discussion now among some men about the role of porn and masturbation in their lives – and manosphere figures like Andrew Tate and Hamza Ahmed are urging their listeners to stop watching it. Some men are cutting it out entirely: they congregate on Reddit pages like r/pornfree or use porn addiction alleviation apps like Quittr and Fortify. But what do men think watching porn says about them? And is this just “purity culture for boys”?
Brittany is joined by Rebecca Jennings, features writer at New York Magazine who wrote a piece about anti-porn men, and Scott Burnett, assistant professor of African Studies and Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University, who has published research about men's anti-masturbation trends.
(00:00) Why are (some) men turning against porn?
(03:49) Gen Z men and shame around porn
(11:18) "Real sex with real women": how anti-porn men view women
(14:30) The fear of losing control to porn addiction
(19:15) Is this just "purity culture for boys?"
(22:27) Desire can be embarrassing - but maybe that's okay
For more episodes about gender, sexuality, and internet culture, check out:
The price women pay for being online
The joy of breaking up with dating apps
Gen Z is afraid of sex — and for good reason
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A warning to listeners, this episode includes an extensive discussion of pornography and masturbation. |
| 0:07.4 | Have you ever done a month-long challenge? |
| 0:10.1 | I have for a story. It was for journalism, but yes, I have. |
| 0:14.7 | A couple years ago, I did a story about the rise of glow-up challenges, like these kind of self-improvement challenges. |
| 0:20.1 | So I did this one called like 75 Soft, which is 75 hard. |
| 0:25.4 | You may have heard of it. |
| 0:26.3 | Right. |
| 0:26.6 | The kind of strict regimen where you have to follow a diet, exercise twice a day, read a certain amount, and all these other things for 75 days. |
| 0:34.9 | But 75 Soft is just like, just like think about moving your body and think about what you put in. It was great. It was fine. Oh, that sounds nice. That sounds nice. What about you, Scott? Have you ever done a month-blank challenge? No, not at all. I have absolutely no self-discipline. I'm of that sort of Oscar Wilde persuasion that the best thing about temptation |
| 0:56.5 | is when you yield to it. I love it. You make it sound so beautiful. I fear that I'm living the same way |
| 1:02.9 | except, instead of sounding like very glam, like how you have it, I'm currently surrounded on my desk |
| 1:07.6 | by stacks of notebooks where I act like I'm going to, like, I fully believe. |
| 1:15.1 | I've, like, hyped myself into thinking through all these written entries and master's do |
| 1:19.0 | lists that I am going to do something for 30 days. And it never happens. I will say, |
| 1:23.9 | though, there is one month-long challenge that when I heard about it, it had me |
| 1:28.3 | scratching my head a little. I will spare you the name, but it's where men try not to |
| 1:34.2 | masturbate for the month of November. Some of you may have heard of this before. And then I realized |
| 1:41.4 | that some men were turning that one-month challenge into entire years of zero masturbation. |
| 1:47.6 | Because now there's a much broader discussion among some men about the role of porn and masturbation in their lives. |
| 1:54.4 | The majority of men consume porn and most use it for masturbation, but two-thirds of men under 25 think porn should be harder to |
| 2:02.0 | access, according to research from the Survey Center on American Life. Manistphere figures like |
| 2:07.1 | Andrew Tate and Hamza Ahmed are urging their listeners to stop watching porn or giving tips to help |
... |
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