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Confessions of a Would-Be Wanker: A Memoir/Manifesto by Andy Nowicki
Every fiction writer of substance has some foundation in philosophy, home-brewed or otherwise...In this volume Andy Nowicki takes you on the grisly spiritual and mental journey that dragged the tender soul of a young boy out of the Garden of Eden and into the talons of his Muse.
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First published January 1, 2014
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November 22, 2020
A surprising read, given that Nowicki is Catholic. And I'm talking about his agnostic metaphysics, not his anti-sex views. Because the latter is actually in line with Christianity to a degree: the New Testament does not praise marriage, Christ only sets certain standards regarding marriage, and Paul even discourages it. Fornication is sin, which St. Paul often warns against.
Granted, the NT does not go as far as the Gnostics did; for a believer, though, it's actually critical enough regarding sex to make one pause. Or at least it makes those pause who, for some reason, have been born with a nature that is anti-sex. His rejection of the usual "happy-go-lucky" attitude towards life is in line with his faith, too, actually; it's the modern "specious theology" -- Nowicki's own words -- he rejects. Yes, theology, after all, is opinion mostly. One may read it, but shouldn't take it as seriously as some do. After all, in Notes Before Death, Nowicki makes clear that he also thinks little of the new "Theology of the Body" innovations, finding them queasy. (I never liked my body, seeing it more as a burden and hindrance, just like Kierkegaard. Cf. Kierkegaard's journal entries IX A 74 and X 5 A 72, also cited in Garff's biography.)
Nowicki writes that already in his years as a teenager he became suspicious of sex; he longs for the innocent days of his childhood, rightly understanding that puberty is where this paradise ends; worse, mental anguish starts to torment certain souls for reasons we will never know in this life. "Genetics" may play a role, but as a Christian I am convinced that evil exists, and Satan is the prince of this world. This is enough food for thought.
It has been some time since I've read it (around January 2019), but I remember that part I of the "Confessions" regularly changes between Nowicki's own memories of his childhood and teenage days, followed by more general philosophical reflections on life and sexuality. I found this to be rather fitting.
Nowicki knows the world won't change its views. Most will never read it, and if they did, they'd at best be amused by his views. He mentions he writes for "the One", just like Kierkegaard did. And indeed, as a loner and someone who had an anti-sex outlook myself, I was pleased that I found this author. His depressive temperament I share as well: it even blocked his entry to become a priest, which he touches on in his "Under The Nihil".
My own development was similar: I wasn't that handsome either -- the fatso in class, in fact -- but one girl -- even one among the attractive, more popular ones -- somehow "fancied" me. In some classes she sat beside me, wrote rather "delicate" stuff into my pencil case etc. On the one hand, this was more pleasing than being bullied, which for me was the norm; but on the other hand it was, of course, already sexual in nature (age 13/14), and I found it rather confusing, even if it felt pleasant (she even hugged me once, which I stll remember very vividly; this was almost twenty years ago, and I never touched a woman since.). So I remained passive, since I knew that this was dangerous territory I better not tread, I felt that I might "lose" something, just as Nowicki writes, feeling rather awkward about it, even more so towards my male "friends" (here, too, I add that my circle of friends was similar to Nowicki's).
And it stopped at some point when we moved into another building; I dropped out at age 15 anyway, since my social anxiety, depression and mental disorders started to develop, turning me into a useless, mentally ill loner with a horrible life, culminating in a failed hanging attempt with a leather belt bought via Amazon -- social phobia -- at age 23 and forced hospitalization. But that is another story. Still, Nowicki's view that puberty is a kind of "second fall" is very apt, I can only agree.
I think another view against sex is this: Nowicki remarked that he was aware that while sex is desirable in a physical way, he knew early on that one ought to be cautious in these matters. And I would add that it may not even be pleasurable, at least not for everybody. Clearly, many women say their "first time" wasn't that great, maybe even painful; further, and I'm not trying to be vulgar, I have to make this point: if one lacks "girth" and/or "length", it may not only not be pleasurable for the woman, but also for the man. In other words, men have it harder, here, too, and reddit's "smalldickproblems" does not exist for no reason. Of course, even "too big" may be an issue too.
Oh, the irony! This mechanism that flings us into the world -- in such a debasing manner! -- seems to be one of the most important topics for man, occupying and driving even some of the best of us insane, leading to all kinds of humiliating situations, and yet creates so much misery and suffering! And then the Church, in posession of the Truth, says it is all a-OK ... (Iff kept in check, of course, which is hard enough for some.) God's "gift" to man even; man ... And what a gift! Indeed, "gift" it may well be, if one reads it in german, where "gift" means poison. For it poisons all male-female relationships, no matter on what level. At least among those of "fertile" age. (Here I may recommend Schopenhauer's "Metaphysics on Sexual Love".)
His "Confessions" might form Nowicki's "core" thinking about his anti-sex views; other volumes worth reading in this regard are "Notes Before Death", "Ruminations of a Low-Status Male Volume 2: Celibacy and Hypergamy" and the last pages of "Considering Suicide" as well as the first story in "Lost Violent Souls" (which made me laugh at times, as did a scene in "Columbine Pilgrim").
Also, his volume on the "IQ", the Incel Question, "A Final Solution to the Incel Problem", touches at least briefly on how attraction really is often rather disgusting and not very well understood. Shaming, of course, the degenerate PUAs with their petty lies and vulgar inclinations. They are, after all, pouring gasoline on a fire -- in fact, a whole culture on fire --, meaning they are not only adding to the ongoing destruction of the West, the unbearable vulgarity we find ourselves in, but they are turning men into clowns and sex-obsessed imbeciles, i.e. slaves. In "Confessions", he writes such men are led around by the nose by women, the nose in this case designating a wholly different organ, of course. Another reason I never found PUA appealing anyway was the fact of "changing" yourself into something you actually aren't, basically becoming a clown. Nowicki made this point in a response to Matt Forney, and I could only agree. Unfortunately, the Counter-Current crowd, just like most other publications read by a wider audience, was not able to really grasp Nowicki's points.
After all, does it seem "manly" or "alpha" to see a man "making love" to a woman? Rather, the man seems like a fly getting caught in a spider's net; or picture men who like to -- pardon the vulgarity -- who like to suck on a woman's breast: is this not a recession into babyhood? While such acts were private in the past, "thanks" to the net, those so inclined now have the ability to witness thousands upon thousands of images and even videos of such alpha men.
Nowicki describes himself as a "man of sorrows" in "Conspiracy, Compliance, Control and Defiance", a volume not about sexuality, but more about his melancholy view on life in general; here, too, I could only nod, even was surprised when Nowicki wrote about the "pangs of time". He included an essay that was published online in his book "Ravages of the Rough Beast Vol. 1" about the phenomenon of nostalgia, another topic linked to the thoughts developed in this volume. To quote Catholic reactionary Gómez Dávila:
"Who does not fear that the most trivial of his present moments will seem a lost paradise in years to come?"
Calling himself "Alt Right Novelist", I note that while the Alt-Right played an important part in my intellectual development, it did so more in terms of deepening my understanding of politics and history. Personally, I found Vox Day, usually shunned as "Alt Lite", even more worth reading in this regard. However, when it comes to philosophy and theology, the real "meat" of existence, the Alt-Right appears rather limited. For most, I regret to say, are not even remotely able to understand the points Nowicki makes. You hardly get to read such deep reflections on sex from most contemporaries; they are busy "gaming" women, "productively" PUAing their way through life ...
As much as I liked Vox Day's writing on immigration, politics, history and so on, his view that "sex is natural, sex is good" really seems immature. And I know Nowicki had some gripes with Vox Day and his whole SSH shtick -- socio-sexual hierarchy --, too. He made a fitting, if long, response to Vox Day's worst Darkstream: Men Going Evil's Way. Again, I think Vox Day is a smart guy and worth reading, but you "can't have it all".
Similarly, Jay Dyer, who also interviewd Nowicki at least once, is certainly rather knowledgable in terms of theology and philosophy, though he, too, is limited in his understanding of the anti-sex viewpoint. In one "video lecture" about Church history -- it was about the first volume of Pelican's History of the Early Church --, he remarked that the gnostics had this "weird" aesthetic argument, as he phrased it, against sex. Yet, aesthetics is an important argument against sex, and the Gnostics kind of had a point. After all, Christ Himself says to the Sadducees that in Heaven there will be no marriage, instead they'll be like the angels.
Thinkers with similar inclinations do exist; Kierkegaard, one of Nowicki's influences, certainly saw the debasing and denigrating character of sexuality. He touched upon this in his journals from time to time. Schopenhauer, too: in the II. volume of his "The World as Will and Representation", in his additions to the fourth book of the I. volume, he lashes out brilliantly against sex as well. Of course, Augustine has often been attacked due to his views on lust and sex, and the Orthodox Church almost downright rejects him, if I'm not mistaken.
I'll end this now, it's long enough; I have occupied myself with Nowicki for the last year quite a bit. Certainly, the fact that Nowicki is similar in many ways to myself from a character/temperament point of view is soothing, if not amounting to much except knowing "that one is not all alone" with one's views. Or, to quote Gómez Dávila again:
"We should not be frightened: what we admire does not die.
Nor be delighted: neither does what we detest."
I noticed that in his videos, he rarely makes his attitude towards sex known, which may be understandable. Somewhat more than a month ago, he did upload such a video, and already a user commented in a rather shallow way along the lines of "my God, Nowicki! Being anti-sex -- and at age sixteen already! What went wrong! Maybe you were a gnostic in another life." yaddayaddayadda. I understand that such responses are often stomach-turning, at least for me. A similar comment I found on one of his blogs. Therefore, it might indeed be more productive and constructive that Nowicki rather chooses to defend monogamy and a return to Christian sexual morality, i.e. writing and talking against our current debaucherous age, with "malignant hypergamy" and "thirsty simps/PUAs" running amok.
It is sad but true: PUA or "feminist" pro-sex literature is certainly more popular than such deep anti-sex reflections.
Therefore, this book will most likely be understood by few. Most contemporaries would rather ask back "Who the FUCK is anti-sex?!", as a pupil threw back at Nowicki one time when he made his views known (see "Notes Before Death"). My disagreements are, I guess, mostly superficial (I don't like graphic language that much, which Nowicki sometimes uses), though the core of his thinking in this volume is of extreme importance. Sadly, it will be mocked or ignored, the world will continue in its madness until God is no longer able to bear it and pours out His wrath on man.
Ending with another "escolio" by "Don Colacho":
"The only man who thanks life for what it gives him is the man who does not expect everything from life."
A lesson I'm still in the process of learning, and may always be.
Granted, the NT does not go as far as the Gnostics did; for a believer, though, it's actually critical enough regarding sex to make one pause. Or at least it makes those pause who, for some reason, have been born with a nature that is anti-sex. His rejection of the usual "happy-go-lucky" attitude towards life is in line with his faith, too, actually; it's the modern "specious theology" -- Nowicki's own words -- he rejects. Yes, theology, after all, is opinion mostly. One may read it, but shouldn't take it as seriously as some do. After all, in Notes Before Death, Nowicki makes clear that he also thinks little of the new "Theology of the Body" innovations, finding them queasy. (I never liked my body, seeing it more as a burden and hindrance, just like Kierkegaard. Cf. Kierkegaard's journal entries IX A 74 and X 5 A 72, also cited in Garff's biography.)
Nowicki writes that already in his years as a teenager he became suspicious of sex; he longs for the innocent days of his childhood, rightly understanding that puberty is where this paradise ends; worse, mental anguish starts to torment certain souls for reasons we will never know in this life. "Genetics" may play a role, but as a Christian I am convinced that evil exists, and Satan is the prince of this world. This is enough food for thought.
It has been some time since I've read it (around January 2019), but I remember that part I of the "Confessions" regularly changes between Nowicki's own memories of his childhood and teenage days, followed by more general philosophical reflections on life and sexuality. I found this to be rather fitting.
Nowicki knows the world won't change its views. Most will never read it, and if they did, they'd at best be amused by his views. He mentions he writes for "the One", just like Kierkegaard did. And indeed, as a loner and someone who had an anti-sex outlook myself, I was pleased that I found this author. His depressive temperament I share as well: it even blocked his entry to become a priest, which he touches on in his "Under The Nihil".
My own development was similar: I wasn't that handsome either -- the fatso in class, in fact -- but one girl -- even one among the attractive, more popular ones -- somehow "fancied" me. In some classes she sat beside me, wrote rather "delicate" stuff into my pencil case etc. On the one hand, this was more pleasing than being bullied, which for me was the norm; but on the other hand it was, of course, already sexual in nature (age 13/14), and I found it rather confusing, even if it felt pleasant (she even hugged me once, which I stll remember very vividly; this was almost twenty years ago, and I never touched a woman since.). So I remained passive, since I knew that this was dangerous territory I better not tread, I felt that I might "lose" something, just as Nowicki writes, feeling rather awkward about it, even more so towards my male "friends" (here, too, I add that my circle of friends was similar to Nowicki's).
And it stopped at some point when we moved into another building; I dropped out at age 15 anyway, since my social anxiety, depression and mental disorders started to develop, turning me into a useless, mentally ill loner with a horrible life, culminating in a failed hanging attempt with a leather belt bought via Amazon -- social phobia -- at age 23 and forced hospitalization. But that is another story. Still, Nowicki's view that puberty is a kind of "second fall" is very apt, I can only agree.
I think another view against sex is this: Nowicki remarked that he was aware that while sex is desirable in a physical way, he knew early on that one ought to be cautious in these matters. And I would add that it may not even be pleasurable, at least not for everybody. Clearly, many women say their "first time" wasn't that great, maybe even painful; further, and I'm not trying to be vulgar, I have to make this point: if one lacks "girth" and/or "length", it may not only not be pleasurable for the woman, but also for the man. In other words, men have it harder, here, too, and reddit's "smalldickproblems" does not exist for no reason. Of course, even "too big" may be an issue too.
Oh, the irony! This mechanism that flings us into the world -- in such a debasing manner! -- seems to be one of the most important topics for man, occupying and driving even some of the best of us insane, leading to all kinds of humiliating situations, and yet creates so much misery and suffering! And then the Church, in posession of the Truth, says it is all a-OK ... (Iff kept in check, of course, which is hard enough for some.) God's "gift" to man even; man ... And what a gift! Indeed, "gift" it may well be, if one reads it in german, where "gift" means poison. For it poisons all male-female relationships, no matter on what level. At least among those of "fertile" age. (Here I may recommend Schopenhauer's "Metaphysics on Sexual Love".)
His "Confessions" might form Nowicki's "core" thinking about his anti-sex views; other volumes worth reading in this regard are "Notes Before Death", "Ruminations of a Low-Status Male Volume 2: Celibacy and Hypergamy" and the last pages of "Considering Suicide" as well as the first story in "Lost Violent Souls" (which made me laugh at times, as did a scene in "Columbine Pilgrim").
Also, his volume on the "IQ", the Incel Question, "A Final Solution to the Incel Problem", touches at least briefly on how attraction really is often rather disgusting and not very well understood. Shaming, of course, the degenerate PUAs with their petty lies and vulgar inclinations. They are, after all, pouring gasoline on a fire -- in fact, a whole culture on fire --, meaning they are not only adding to the ongoing destruction of the West, the unbearable vulgarity we find ourselves in, but they are turning men into clowns and sex-obsessed imbeciles, i.e. slaves. In "Confessions", he writes such men are led around by the nose by women, the nose in this case designating a wholly different organ, of course. Another reason I never found PUA appealing anyway was the fact of "changing" yourself into something you actually aren't, basically becoming a clown. Nowicki made this point in a response to Matt Forney, and I could only agree. Unfortunately, the Counter-Current crowd, just like most other publications read by a wider audience, was not able to really grasp Nowicki's points.
After all, does it seem "manly" or "alpha" to see a man "making love" to a woman? Rather, the man seems like a fly getting caught in a spider's net; or picture men who like to -- pardon the vulgarity -- who like to suck on a woman's breast: is this not a recession into babyhood? While such acts were private in the past, "thanks" to the net, those so inclined now have the ability to witness thousands upon thousands of images and even videos of such alpha men.
Nowicki describes himself as a "man of sorrows" in "Conspiracy, Compliance, Control and Defiance", a volume not about sexuality, but more about his melancholy view on life in general; here, too, I could only nod, even was surprised when Nowicki wrote about the "pangs of time". He included an essay that was published online in his book "Ravages of the Rough Beast Vol. 1" about the phenomenon of nostalgia, another topic linked to the thoughts developed in this volume. To quote Catholic reactionary Gómez Dávila:
"Who does not fear that the most trivial of his present moments will seem a lost paradise in years to come?"
Calling himself "Alt Right Novelist", I note that while the Alt-Right played an important part in my intellectual development, it did so more in terms of deepening my understanding of politics and history. Personally, I found Vox Day, usually shunned as "Alt Lite", even more worth reading in this regard. However, when it comes to philosophy and theology, the real "meat" of existence, the Alt-Right appears rather limited. For most, I regret to say, are not even remotely able to understand the points Nowicki makes. You hardly get to read such deep reflections on sex from most contemporaries; they are busy "gaming" women, "productively" PUAing their way through life ...
As much as I liked Vox Day's writing on immigration, politics, history and so on, his view that "sex is natural, sex is good" really seems immature. And I know Nowicki had some gripes with Vox Day and his whole SSH shtick -- socio-sexual hierarchy --, too. He made a fitting, if long, response to Vox Day's worst Darkstream: Men Going Evil's Way. Again, I think Vox Day is a smart guy and worth reading, but you "can't have it all".
Similarly, Jay Dyer, who also interviewd Nowicki at least once, is certainly rather knowledgable in terms of theology and philosophy, though he, too, is limited in his understanding of the anti-sex viewpoint. In one "video lecture" about Church history -- it was about the first volume of Pelican's History of the Early Church --, he remarked that the gnostics had this "weird" aesthetic argument, as he phrased it, against sex. Yet, aesthetics is an important argument against sex, and the Gnostics kind of had a point. After all, Christ Himself says to the Sadducees that in Heaven there will be no marriage, instead they'll be like the angels.
Thinkers with similar inclinations do exist; Kierkegaard, one of Nowicki's influences, certainly saw the debasing and denigrating character of sexuality. He touched upon this in his journals from time to time. Schopenhauer, too: in the II. volume of his "The World as Will and Representation", in his additions to the fourth book of the I. volume, he lashes out brilliantly against sex as well. Of course, Augustine has often been attacked due to his views on lust and sex, and the Orthodox Church almost downright rejects him, if I'm not mistaken.
I'll end this now, it's long enough; I have occupied myself with Nowicki for the last year quite a bit. Certainly, the fact that Nowicki is similar in many ways to myself from a character/temperament point of view is soothing, if not amounting to much except knowing "that one is not all alone" with one's views. Or, to quote Gómez Dávila again:
"We should not be frightened: what we admire does not die.
Nor be delighted: neither does what we detest."
I noticed that in his videos, he rarely makes his attitude towards sex known, which may be understandable. Somewhat more than a month ago, he did upload such a video, and already a user commented in a rather shallow way along the lines of "my God, Nowicki! Being anti-sex -- and at age sixteen already! What went wrong! Maybe you were a gnostic in another life." yaddayaddayadda. I understand that such responses are often stomach-turning, at least for me. A similar comment I found on one of his blogs. Therefore, it might indeed be more productive and constructive that Nowicki rather chooses to defend monogamy and a return to Christian sexual morality, i.e. writing and talking against our current debaucherous age, with "malignant hypergamy" and "thirsty simps/PUAs" running amok.
It is sad but true: PUA or "feminist" pro-sex literature is certainly more popular than such deep anti-sex reflections.
Therefore, this book will most likely be understood by few. Most contemporaries would rather ask back "Who the FUCK is anti-sex?!", as a pupil threw back at Nowicki one time when he made his views known (see "Notes Before Death"). My disagreements are, I guess, mostly superficial (I don't like graphic language that much, which Nowicki sometimes uses), though the core of his thinking in this volume is of extreme importance. Sadly, it will be mocked or ignored, the world will continue in its madness until God is no longer able to bear it and pours out His wrath on man.
Ending with another "escolio" by "Don Colacho":
"The only man who thanks life for what it gives him is the man who does not expect everything from life."
A lesson I'm still in the process of learning, and may always be.
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