No Fap September — Blank black-and-white 30-day monthly calendar with weekday headers

No Fap September

2009eventclassic

Published September 8, 2026

No Fap September / No Fap Months is an annual abstinence challenge that spread from 4chan and small forums in August 2009, daring participants to skip masturbation for the entire month. What started as a joke calendar image grew into a lasting online tradition, spawning derivatives like No Nut November and the /r/nofap recovery community.

annual tradition memes 4chan memes self improvement memes subreddit origin memes challenge memes

Overview

Participants pledge to avoid self-pleasure from September 1st through September 30th, though the rules generally allow sex with a partner6. The format spreads through calendar images, motivational YouTube edits stitched from anime like Dragon Ball and He-Man, and forum threads where members trade progress updates and confess relapses6. Tone swings between earnest self-improvement and pure shitposting, with subreddits, gaming boards, and even car enthusiast forums running their own annual threads.

The concept branched into No Fap October, No Fap November, No Fap February, and a hypothetical No Fap Decade discussed on IGN and Bungie.net boards6. By mid 2011, /r/nofap had formalized the challenge into an actual community with terminology like 'fapstonaut,' framed around porn addiction recovery rather than pure joke content and citing claims that abstinence lifts testosterone and self-control3.

Origin & Background

Platform
4chan / Cheat Engine Forums (earliest verifiable post)
Date
2009

No Fap September / No Fap Months is rumored to have started on 4chan's /b/ board in August 2009, though no archived thread has ever surfaced6. The earliest verifiable post came from Cheat Engine Forums member Jonas on August 28th, 2009, titled 'No fap september' and paired with a calendar image reading 'Must not fap'6. One day later, YouTuber AlmightyDevin uploaded an official video walking viewers through the rules4.

Within days, threads jumped to Club RSX Forum, Mustang World Forums, and Body Building Forums, with Mustang member Ducky clarifying that sex with a partner did not count as failure. Urban Dictionary user stewfubuddy filed the first entry for the term on September 1st, 20096.

How It Spread

On July 5th, 2010, YouTuber AngryAussie released 'Must Not Fap! The remix,' a spoken-word track urging viewers through the month5. The subreddit /r/nofap launched on June 20th, 2011, becoming the movement's central hub and pushing the challenge past its joke origins into porn addiction recovery3. In May 2012, the TED YouTube channel posted Southern Oregon University professor Gary Wilson's talk 'The Great Porn Experiment,' which name-dropped /r/nofap and pulled the community into mainstream view7.

The format spawned No Nut November after Urban Dictionary user bicboi6969696969 coined the term on November 3rd, 2011, though it only went viral in November 2017 through /r/BlackPeopleTwitter and 4chan's /pol/ board6. A separate high-profile run came from Portland's Rory Patrick, who announced a 100-day abstinence challenge on Twitter on April 5th, 2014, drew the #rory100 hashtag from friends, and finished on July 14th2. Vice ran a sit-down interview with Patrick the following week1.

How to Use This Meme

Participants typically declare their attempt on social media or a forum thread at the start of the month, post daily progress updates, and admit relapses in the same thread. Common conventions include sharing motivational edits sourced from anime like Dragon Ball or He-Man, using tags like #NoFap or #NoNutNovember, and applying the /r/nofap 'three strikes' rule popularized by later No Nut November image macros6.

Frequently Asked Questions