Seduction, Post-Capitalism, and Sexual Asceticism: The Far-Right Transmutation of the “Manosphere” Among U.S. Eastern Orthodox Online

The digital manosphere has been an object of scholarly analysis for several years. Crucial, but often missing, in the assessment of the manosphere is the role of religious belief and moral framings about the body. This paper intervenes by analyzing how online manosphere elements interact with both religious traditions and forms of political authority in order to produce discourses, technologies, and self-improvement regiments related to Orthodox masculinity. Drawing on three years of research, this paper offers a case study from the online Eastern Orthodox manosphere, showing that this mode of masculinist discourse unites reactionary religiosity with affective energy borrowed from, and recognizable to, participants within the manosphere. In doing so, we argue that manosphere culture, focused on social debate as a normative form of corrective instruction, helps Orthodox men craft vernacular theologies of the body that are inspired by Orthodox theology and manosphere culture but arguably at odds with both.