A chorus of men are groaning and growling so loudly through the tinny recording of a Zoom call that I’m self-conscious about my open apartment windows. I’m watching the recorded session of the “Alchemy of the Divine Masculine: A Seed Release Ritual for Sexual Transformation workshop,” a one hour and 20 minute jerkoff instructional hosted by Manhood Academy. It costs $55, and promises to teach “techniques for harnessing sexual energy, exploring sexual desires and fantasies, and releasing blockages and traumas,” according to its description.
On May 27, 22 men showed up to the session—hosted by Brian Carew and Will Blunderfield—live on Zoom, to tap into a “remembering process.” This remembering involves a lot of deep breathing, moaning, and literal dick-swinging alongside other men.
Videos by VICE
Manhood Academy, founded by Blunderfield in 2020, is similar to many of the semen retention schemes going: it’s positioned as a community of men supporting each other’s physical and mental health, and focuses on the intrinsic power of one’s own cum. Carew is a “holistic embodiment coach,” according to his website, and frequently appears in Blunderfield’s videos as a session partner. “Platonic Male Erotic Bonding is a vitamin that I believe all men would benefit from,” he recently wrote on Instagram.
Blunderfield is a “Sex Kung Fu Coach, Musician + Podcast Host,” according to his personal website. Born in Canada, he studied theatre in New York at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, but switched career paths to focus on music and yoga, and has released several albums. But his work in “male rewilding” is what’s made him internet famous: Last year, Channel 5 released a short documentary about Blunderfield, which now has more than two million views. His sexual coaching content has gone viral several times in the last few years, with his urine drinking videos striking a special chord with viewers. In one video, he records himself pissing into a mason jar after a “really juicy anus workshop” and drinks it after touting the benefits of precum (there are some nutrients in semen, if you’re wondering) mixed in with the pee.
I spoke to Blunderfield a few days after the session, just before he and a buddy were about to head out to the beach in Vancouver to sun their buttholes—another wellness routine he evangelizes—do a cold plunge with some breath work, and “maybe hugging at the end with our dicks touching,” he told me.
He said he started doing virtual sessions in 2020, during the pandemic, and began Manhood Academy around that time. “It’s been three years we’ve been doing these rituals, in different forms, usually seed retention rituals, where I teach them how to separate the orgasm from the climax.” A lot of his clients have issues with premature ejaculation, he said, or struggle with cumming faster than their female partners. “So if I can teach them that they can have full body orgasms, without needing to come right away, then they don’t go into that refractory period,” Blunderfield said.
He and Carew offer five-day “bro challenges” that are more intensive and feature daily hour-long workshops culminating in ejaculation at the end of the five days. This Seed Release Ritual workshop is a more concentrated version of that, and May’s online event was the first time they’ve offered it as a standalone session.
Blunderfield’s brand could be described as “wellness guru for your dick,” or if Bear Grylls, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Alex Jones existed in one person. Based on his social media, he’s a believer in chemtrails as harmful pollutants, and is against COVID-19 vaccines, but sells superfoods and supplements as a remedy to aforementioned chemtrails, and is a staunch intactivist.
He’s tapped into a popular vein of men’s health culture that tells adherents that semen is a power source. He’s far from the first; people have believed this for centuries, from ancient Sumerians to Pythagorous and the Old Testament God. Today, health experts agree that not jerking off isn’t going to give you superpowers, and frequent orgasms might actually decrease the risk of cancer.
But not jerking off is not what adherents to the Divine Masculine are here to do.
*
At the start of the Semen Release Ritual, the pair sit cross-legged on folded Mexican blankets, both very tan, toned, and completely nude, Blunderfield with his signature long beard and bald head and Carew covered in tribal tattoos. Behind them is a view of a slightly messy loft apartment. My first impression, after I get over the clothes on the back of the sofa that seem like they’ve just been cast off, and the very deep—I’m sorry, it cannot be avoided—”cum gutters” on these guys, is how frequently men tug on their ball skin when pants aren’t in the way. They’re touching their nuts absentmindedly almost from the get-go. Soon, however, they’ll be touching their nuts extremely mindedly.
The ritual begins with a moment of intention-setting, and a few disclaimers about the activity that the participants gathered are about to embark on. Here and throughout the session, Blunderfield and Carew remind viewers that it’s not about one’s sexual orientation—”gay panic” is frequently referenced—and that at the end of the session, they’ll be guided through a release, but there’s no pressure to reach a specific outcome individually (meaning, ejaculation). “How you decide to show up is totally fine and absolutely amazing,” Carew says. “Beautiful.”
That said, it’s time to inhale deeply and “vibrate our balls” with a big “om,” and an invitation to the participants who attended live to leave their mics on, or turn them off if they prefer. Everyone can use a deep breath in the middle of the workday, I thought—with or without balls to vibrate—so I inhaled deeply and prepared to let it out, and jumped mid-exhale when one participants’ voice said “OOMMMMM,” drowning out the hosts and anyone else on the call. An auspicious start.
“The world needs more anchored men who are grounded in their balls,” Carew says. Hard to argue with this so far. It’s nothing too out-there yet: some talk of light healing the anus and energy bubbling up into the heart, but mostly it’s stuff you’d do and hear in any yoga studio.
After the “oms” they move to a tabletop position, then a forward fold, and here, a little less than 20 minutes in, is when things take a stranger turn. Blunderfield mentions the “three gates of the sperm palace,” which he says are located in the urethra, the base of cock, and anus, and instructs us to close them. Once they stand up straight, they start hopping, shaking up and down, dicks flapping, first to the side then facing front at the camera.
“Claim your right to be a free naked man in this moment,” Carew says. “Repeat after me: I am fearless. I am shameless. I am doubtless.” The penis is the “pillar of light,” he says, and participants should feel it slapping against their abdomens. Their view of the Zoom call windows, if cameras are on, has got to be thrilling. [Update: Blunderfield told me after publication that participants in virtual sessions are required to keep their webcams on, but don’t have to show their genitals if they prefer not to. “We ask them to do this because we don’t want any peeping toms and we want to create a safe container and energy of camaraderie,” he said.]
The next few minutes are a frenzy of lymph tapping, shaking, growling, and “testicular breathing,” which is mostly just how it sounds: breathing with a mental focus on the testicles. They chant “forgive, forget, let go” as they tap or massage areas around the heart, liver, kidneys, and spleen. At the spleen, someone on the call groans loudly.
“The world needs more anchored men who are grounded in their balls”
Moving along to “warming up the dragon pearls,” they start rolling their ball sacks between their fingers and ask the audience to repeat: “I have beautiful balls.” Someone on the call can be heard repeating it and really feeling it on the word “beautiful.”
More call and response: “My balls produce massive amounts of testosterone.” My balls produce massive amounts of testosterone. “My balls are engines of hormonal growth.” My balls are engines of hormonal growth.
“We’re gonna milk the juiciness of our nuts into our system before we shoot later on,” Blunderfield promises. With that imagery in mind, they move into a portion of the workshop that focuses on genital reflexology, a study most practitioners attribute to Taoist principles. Different areas of the penis represent different organs and systems: the upper third of the shaft correlates to the spleen, the middle third is the liver, and so on. Now that we’ve moved to a more purposeful focus on the penis, there’s more attention given to keeping “gay panic” at bay: this is “bro-y platonic comfort,” Carew says. They instruct participants to grab some lube or oil and start stroking their cocks. A few metaphors start going around between the hosts now, about taking a car to a mechanic being similar to tuning up one’s manhood with other men, and “steel sharpening steel,” a reference to a Biblical proverb.
At this point, a few specific techniques come into play: the “juicer,” where they grab their now erect penises by the base and twist the tips, and “making fire,” a rapid rubbing motion. “Smile into your dick. Feels so good to breathe into your dick and balls,” Blunderfield says.
So far, the session has been light on talk of porn addiction—something experts are divided on, and many now feel is not really an addiction at all, but a reflection of other issues like depression, anxiety, or shame stemming from religious beliefs. Part of Blunderfield’s brand is offering relief from “porn addiction” through his Pornhub and OnlyFans, where he directs followers to watch his videos, including ones titled “bisexual bro bonding techniques” and “pissing at the beach.” He also retweets a lot of sex workers’ accounts on Twitter.
After the session, I asked Blunderfield about his stance on porn and what seems like contradictory support of its platforms and performers.
“So, a lot of guys come to me with issues of premature ejaculation or not being able to get it up because they’re so addicted to porn, that when a real woman is in their space, they’re just not able to really interact erotically in the way that they want to, because they’ve been so desensitized through extreme pornography,” he told me. “Which kind of leads into the next theme of, you know, retweeting different sorts of adult and erotic stuff on my Twitter, and it’s really to encourage people to be okay with nudity and normalizing eroticism.”
“What I found with my clients, is if I say, ‘porn is bad, don’t ever look at porn,’ that’s not true because there are some beautiful adult and erotic videos that I’ve seen that are seemingly higher frequency than your typical stuff,” he said.
Blunderfield said he’s studied the work of Joseph Kramer, a sex educator who does “porn yoga” and bodywork: “The whole idea is: guilt and shame are the ultimate triggers for doing things that don’t necessarily serve you. They kind of shunt you into wanting to do it more,” Blunderfield said. “So with excessive ejaculation to porn, the feeling of shame and guilt while you’re doing it, I find it sort of triggers my clients to want to look at it more, paradoxically. So I say, well, don’t go cold turkey… I get them to literally dance and make it like a ceremony, and feel love for themselves and the actors, and then I try to get them to not release every time they watch. I say, you know, if you’re used to releasing six times a day to porn, try limiting it to once.”
Throughout this session, the hosts mention The Matrix more than once; the red pill versus blue pill metaphor from the Wachowski sisters’ 1999 film is frequently used by right-wingers and incels (plus a third, nihilistic “black pill”) to talk about disconnection from a society they believe is lying to them or stifling their true nature. But in our conversation, Blunderfield denounced more strict semen retention subcultures that “demonize ejaculation,” according to him, such as NoFap.
“There’s the whole NoFap community where they’re like, don’t ever touch yourself, don’t ejaculate ever again, or you’re gonna die. It’s actually good to touch yourself, as long as you don’t, you know, release your seed six times a day, right?” Blunderfield said.
In this workshop, Blunderfield tries to distill a lot of these complex themes into a little over an hour spent in front of a webcam.
“We don’t need to look at porn because we are erotic,” Blunderfield says in the session, as he strokes his cock on camera for a live audience. “Now let’s do a little screwing.” They gyrate their hips in circles, stroking themselves slowly and taking deep moaning breaths all along. “Let’s celebrate our cocks together.”
Next, they do two “draws,” their term for dry orgasms. These take a lot of energetic effort, including “spiraling the vitality from their cock and balls up to their brains”; Blunderfield does this while holding his breath, full body tense, and swirling his head around in small circles, eyes rolled back. Carew is more still.
I have heard of dry orgasms—an orgasm where no ejaculate is produced—but not whatever this is. So after the session, I asked Tony Chen, MD, clinical assistant professor at the Stanford School of Medicine urology department, whether it was physically possible to intentionally dry orgasm.
Chen reminded me that orgasm and ejaculation are two distinct physiological phenomena: Ejaculation is semen coming out of the urethra, while orgasm is a process of build-up, climax, and relaxation that’s considered more mental. Unintentional dry orgasms can happen in retrograde ejaculation, where semen goes into the bladder, or in cases involving cancer or surgery.
“It sounds like the intentional dry orgasms described in these types of programs seem to just be re-packaging or re-branding of older traditions and practices like Tantra or Tantric Sex, of which a lot has been written about already,” Chen said. “I also would remind individuals out there that there is evidence that it’s healthy to have regular ejaculation—research has suggested that it may even prevent prostate cancer. As with anything, I would recommend moderation and common sense with any sexual habit or practice.”
At this point, almost an hour into the seed release ritual, there’s a lot more moaning and groaning happening from inside the Zoom call. Carew directs: “remove your hand” if you’re getting close. Some guys definitely are, by the sound of it. “Really good work gentlemen… beautiful, brothers,” he says. “There’s no shame in ejaculation, it can just be done in a more profound way.”
Knowing we’re getting close to the big payoff now, Blunderfield starts peppering in more semen retention rhetoric. “The potency of your seed is meant for impregnating a human, for creating life,” he says. “And that’s why getting rid of that seed is so taxing to the system because it can literally create human life. It’s a seed of creation.” Hyperventilating and smacking one’s dick around for an hour also seems taxing to the system, but as a casual observer lacking the prerequisite equipment, I can only assume.
*
Almost exactly one hour since we began, it’s climax time. They beat off standing up, and Carew reminds everyone that there’s nothing wrong with going first, and nothing wrong with going last. It’s a virtual circle jerk, now, and lasts for several minutes.
Post-nut, Blunderfield encourages participants to find their “center” again. “I find one powerful way to keep gay panic at bay is to remind yourself that you are an animal. So feel your antlers. Feel your hairiness, feel your feet rooted.” People are doing what I can assume is gnashing teeth or rutting sounds. It sounds like the River Styx blowing loads.
“Allow yourself to laugh,” Blunderfield says, and a few men do, nervously. (He told me later that all 22 participants did, in fact, cum.)
What they’ve done seems like a clever loophole in the semen retention world: Blunderfield says that they only “skimmed” part of their semen off, thanks to the energetic orgasms earlier. They’ve retained semen, they believe, but still got to cum—albeit in an intense, communal, and ritualistic setting.
To end the session, Carew directs everyone to rub an imaginary golden orb across their torsos. “Your balls are back online,” Blunderfield announces. “Take your dick and balls and growl,” he says, and they swing their dicks around in their hands.
Blunderfield lies down flat on his back, and Carew plays a handpan.
“I think a lot of men want to perform these rituals with their bros,” Blunderfield told me. “I mean, look at all that college hazing, and all that sort of low vibrational expression of these rituals. It’s like, if you repress something, if you suppress something, it’s still going to happen, but it’s gonna squirt out in more sort of low caliber ways.”
