Is ‘No Simp’ September a veiled call for male empowerment, or an attempt to break a modern sex stranglehold?

This month's campaign of ‘No simping’ ostensibly encourages men to stop spending money on lewd pictures of female strangers online. But opponents say it is also about re-asserting male dominance.

Whether you look at modern relationships or any sort of interactions between men and women in the digital age, it's safe to say that things are a little strange – pecifically in the realm of what we would call ‘adult entertainment’. With the internet, it couldn't be easier to get your hands on anything pornographic that you want. 

There are thousands of women who sell anything from lewd content to outright porn of themselves online. Many of them aren't even pornstars. And we see men spending thousands of dollars on this content. This is where ‘No Simp September’ comes in. 

If you were to look up ‘No Simp September’ on Google, you're mostly going to find a whole lot of people joking about it on Twitter. But those taking it seriously say that it is about men putting themselves – and their priorities – first.

“Simping is ultimately when you put her priority above your own,” explains YouTuber Troy Francis. He encourages men to eschew giving women “free attention,” “complimenting too much” or putting in “too much investment… unless you are getting something back.” He warns, “It makes you unattractive… that you put someone else above you… you are signaling you don’t value yourself.”

On the Reddit board r/NoSimpSeptember, there’s a set of rules for those who wish to participate in the campaign. The main goal here is to break young men away from spending catastrophic amounts of money on what could basically be described as online strippers.

There is an emphasis on exactly how unhealthy this is. In fact, I would compare it to the NoFap community that I wrote about months ago. There are several occurrences online of men spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on semi-pornographic content. The website OnlyFans (which allows users to upload lewd or pornographic content as a subscription or pay-per-view service) has grown to over 30 million users during the Covid pandemic. Though spending limits have recently been created because of the Bella Thorne controversy, they may not do much to stem the tide. 

Looking at the rules, which include a specific “no porn” one, it’s obvious that the men participating do not want you to be looking online at women whatsoever, lest you spend your hard-earned money to see the lady’s butt. There’s another diktat that urges participants to spend time with their families. It all comes across as a bit of a conservative message when it comes to sex and relationships. 

There is a swath of young men out there that spend so much hard-earned money on women who would never look at them with any sort of interest out on the street. It reminds me of the time I took a one-night bouncing gig for a strip club. Being a man whose body type can best be described as ‘gorilla’, it wasn't uncommon for me to take such bouncing jobs back in the day.

One particular thing that has stuck with me to this day is seeing college students spend hundreds of dollars to see a woman naked, and walking home with nothing more than a fading memory and empty pockets. Every single day, we are seeing the exact same thing online through this ‘simping’. This is being done instead of actually going out and talking to women. It does not seem to encourage the development of healthy relationships or building an actual future with someone you care about. It gives a temporary dopamine hit but ultimately becomes like a drug.

Leaving aside the wider no-simp ideology of people like Troy Francis, It seems to me that a bit of “no paying to watch” might actually be a good thing, and that young men should start going through a detox of sorts from this kind of content. If more and more young men start to ‘simp’, you're going to have more and more young men who check out of relationships entirely. 

They will become hooked on pay-per-view content and see their life's savings drift away just because they paid somebody to keep seeing their boobs. It's a sad state of affairs, which cannot be good for the males involved. Or the females objectifying and selling their bodies for money. 

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.