1. introduction
how much longer will we wait for politics to fix all of our problems? we seem to endlessly wait for 'progress' or 'revolution', yet nothing ever really changes; politics never truly frees us. we still live under the oppression of patriarchy, civilisation, the state, capitalism, the family, heterosexuality, gender, 'biological' sex, racism, humanism, ableism, religion, morality, linear time, science, etc., all of which demand the sacrificial conformity of our bodies and lives to guarantee their endless preservation, to guarantee 'the future'. this is patriarchy's 'reproductive imperative'.
we altogether refuse this oppression and stagnation. instead, we aim to create a new paradigm of radical, individualist, nihilist feminism, focused on living on our own terms and embracing jouissance.
2. the left
our critique of politics will primarily focus on the political 'left', as the 'right' and 'centre' tend to support most of the oppressive systems we live under, and are thus hardly worth addressing.
the current left is an absolute mess. the last remnants of the old left (social democrats, socialists, communists, syndicalists and classical anarchists) still hold on to inept and significantly outdated theory, praxis and aesthetics. their class reductionism (usually into classes that don't even exist anymore) tends to ignore all other forms of oppression, particularly under patriarchy, the state and racism. even when they can achieve mass appeal (which the more radical and esoteric movements cannot), they struggle to achieve significant political change, because they cannot even organise themselves; their organisations continually fall apart under internal disagreements and purity-testing, or stagnate into either uncompromising ideology or bureaucratic moderatism.
the rest of the left has somehow been totally subsumed into pacified liberalism - they speak of systemic change, but their praxis is completely inept: they vote for political parties, participate in peaceful protest, or have utterly pathetic 'discourse' online. it is abundantly clear that this cannot possibly lead to any real change. their theory is inept too - their supposedly 'radical' thinkers have been seduced into industrial ivory towers, where their ideas are systematically sedated and encrypted into incomprehensible, esoteric, useless nonsense.
this 'liberal left' is also infatuated with identity politics, although the concept of essential, universal identities actually functions to ensure conformity within patriarchy through homogenisation and exclusion. rather than identities existing before their identification within political structures, 'subjects regulated by such structures are, by virtue of being subject to them, formed, defined, and reproduced in accordance with the requirements of those structures'.1 thus, by assimilating, for example, the radical potential of queerness into a classifiable 'queer identity', queerness is merely incorporated into the political system, in which 'each intelligible form can be recuperated, represented, or annihilated'.2 ultimately, although we as individuals have hardly any autonomy in the process of our own identification, if we must personally identify with 'woman', 'lesbian', 'queer', 'transgender', 'feminist', etc., this must only be a temporary pragmatic rallying point from which to escape patriarchy and identity altogether, rather than an end in itself.
there are projects with more radical conceptions of queerness, such as baedan, whose expansion of lee edelman's critique of reproductive futurism into a queer critique of civilisation itself is novel and exciting. unfortunately, however, it is marred by an essentialist and primitivist romanticisation of the natural, assuming the existence of a wild human that exists before civilisational corruption. this is an image manufactured within civilisation, and thus only exists within it. we oppose civilisation without romanticising a world pre- or post-civilisation; we merely wish to live freely from its oppression. we also believe that baedan's conception of the 'pure negation' of queerness neglects the implication that this 'pure negation' is necessarily predetermined by the conditions of its existence (whether social, material, political, linguistic etc.); being their negation, it exists within their terms. thus, queerness can only exist within patriarchy, which created queer potential when it created the patrilineal, heterosexual, monogamous, nuclear family and its reproductive imperative. there is no essential, wild queer, tainted by civilisation; queerness is a destructive tendency purely within civilisation. if freedom from the determinism of being defined by our conditions is possible, it is less likely to lie in the 'pure negation' of these conditions than in total independence from them (although this 'pure negation' is likely to be necessary at first to escape these conditions).
political ideologies are themselves obsolete and harmful in their rigidity. at a personal level, ideologies are a way of viewing and interpreting the world, like religion, and thus tend to foreclose complexity and nuance, especially when everyday life becomes viewed through a purely political lens. political ideologies also don't actually function at a political level. reformist ideologies are obviously useless in a world of fundamentally and irredeemably oppressive systems; 'it is clear that reforms do not change women's status relative to men',3 nor do they mitigate capitalism's misery, address systemic racism or free us from the oppression of the state. however, revolutionary ideologies are arguably even more naive and idealistic. revolutionaries, particularly marxist-leninists, foolishly ignore marx and engels' core claim that 'revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily... everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties'.4 unfortunately, by now, liberalism has resolved the economic conditions of capitalism enough to allow it to thrive on its own instability, thus making marx's conception of revolution practically impossible. furthermore, the utopias that revolutionary ideologies aim for are clearly impossible to create, let alone maintain. the concept of an unchanging utopia at the end of time is laughable - even after some miraculous global revolution, the continuous and necessarily authoritarian work needed to maintain a pure utopia would be utterly infeasible. the fact that all previous attempts at utopia have failed should provide enough proof that even when revolution happens, it can only bring more misery and more reproduction of the future.
mark fisher's capitalist realism had the potential to build a new conception of radical anti-politics based on the acceptance of the neoliberal condition. instead, despite his repeated emphasis on how deeply embedded capital is, with his crucial observation that it has now fully permeated our culture, he still attempts to push for new leftist projects, with the same old pathological misery that defines leftism. fisher betrays his naive humanism when he claims that 'capitalism is inherently dysfunctional',5 implying that economic systems are ever meant to serve their subjects. capitalism actually functions incredibly well, but its function is only to perpetuate itself. as a parasitic force, it has hijacked humanity to serve its own expansion, becoming an entity entirely independent from human control. it has rapidly achieved total domination of the planet through its unstoppable memetic and colonial power. it is so deeply embedded in our world, that it cannot be stopped by any revolution - it has even colonised our own minds. 'capitalist realism' is merely the waking from utopian delusion; it is not to be overcome as a cultural pathology, because capitalism truly cannot be ended or replaced. instead, we wish to break away from it entirely, refusing to live on its terms, not even engaging in its dialectic through political anti-capitalism - if truly anti-capitalist desire is possible (which is difficult within capital, the main source of our desire), transforming it into a political project is still a fruitless endeavour: when such desire is articulated, it becomes rationalised and assimilated into capital's own, predetermined, political positions. thus, political anti-capitalism attempts to use capital's own logic, symbolism and language against itself. as this dialectic is made on capital's own terms, it can only strengthen it - 'by absorbing every source of social dynamism, capitalism makes growth, change and even time itself into integral components of its endlessly gathering tide'.6 if a political ideology has emerged from within capitalism, it can be safely assumed that capital has already captured, instrumentalised and commodified it, perhaps as a marginalisation and outlet of what could otherwise be a more dangerous force:
if we can determine anything from our project of queer negativity, it is that capitalism has an unlimited capacity to tolerate and recuperate any alternative politics or artistic expression we could imagine. it is not a political negativity that we must locate in our queerness, but rather a vicious anti-politics which opposes any utopian dreams of a better future residing on the far side of a lifetime of sacrifice... ours is not the struggle for an alternative, because there is no alternative which can escape the ever-expanding horizons of capital. instead we fight, hopeless, to tear our lives away from that expanding horizon and to erupt with wild enjoyment now. anything less is our continued domestication to the rule of civilization.7
we reject the fundamental beliefs of the left. through the construct of linear time, leftist politics attempts to construct a progressive narrative out of millennia of exploitation and destruction. this narrative then compels our participation in order to continue its 'progress', reinforcing the reproductive imperative - we are forced to sacrifice our livelihoods to reproduce society, humanity and the phallus in the hopes of a better future, despite there being no intrinsic value to us in doing so. we must reject the coercion of the future and embrace life, not merely in the present, but entirely separately from linear time.
thus, we reject the futile consequentialism of political activity:
because a better tomorrow requires a tremendous "good work" today, leftists of all stripes are caught in a never-ending anxiety of activity, yet never get any nearer to their fleeting utopias... the ideology of leftism is truly a living death for all who it entrances.8
for most leftists, the impossibility of political victory is fine, their enjoyment merely being in the erotic pursuit of their utopias, but we refuse this pursuit, instead embracing acts for their intrinsic value.
our self-determination cannot rely on the perpetual stagnation of politics, nor even on the hopes of abolishing merely one system, whether capitalism, the state, etc.; authority is everywhere, embedded into our culture, our bodies and our minds - if 'escape' is possible at all, it must be away from all social systems and towards raw, chaotic jouissance.
3. feminism
while we deeply respect the depth and necessity of the feminist theory that precedes us, we are (perhaps arrogantly) dissatisfied with all previous iterations of feminism to varying degrees. we hope to identify and overcome their issues in order to move towards a new paradigm for feminist theory and praxis.
1. liberal feminism is a shallow, reformist ideology. it believes that women's liberation can come from collaborating with the state for legal reforms, which is clearly futile - anarcha-feminists like emma goldman were right to denounce women's suffrage ('if voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal'), arguing that women should focus on liberation from the state, not within it. this issue has repeated itself most recently in the movement for gay marriage, which tries to integrate homosexuality into the state and the patriarchal institution of marriage, despite homosexuality being fundamentally incompatible with patriarchy through its endangerment of gender and the reproductive imperative. liberal feminism does not deeply question the foundations of patriarchy, or how gender, capitalism, humanism and universalism are harmful to women. humanism is a force of oppression - the normative distinctions made to define a 'human', and the rights ascribed to this human, lead to the exclusion, discrimination, imprisonment and slaughter of those who fall short of this definition (usually women, disabled people, people of colour, queer people and 'animals'). liberalism's assumption of the universal subject - rational, bourgeois, white - is also clearly problematic.
2. marxist feminism is overly focused on capitalism - while capitalism and the further division of labour may have entrenched women's oppression and domestication, it was not the source of it - patriarchy has existed since long before capitalism, and domestic labour is only one embodiment of its physical domination. ultimately, marxist feminists must contend with the marxists they associate with, who tend to subordinate women's liberation to the class struggle, not truly committing to ending patriarchy.
3. ecofeminism has provided very little value to feminism (except for its vegan critiques of anthropocentrism). it is essentialist, romanticist and reactionary, idealising a supposed original matriarchy, maternal and completely harmonious with nature, corrupted at some point by industry, colonialism or patriarchy. this image is clearly manufactured, and ecofeminism's maternal ideal seems to merely be a construct of patriarchy's reproductive imperative. while we oppose civilisation, we are unequivocally not environmentalist, rejecting the romanticisation of nature and conservation. while we vehemently oppose the domination, exploitation and slaughter of other living beings, particularly for food or as 'pets', this is out of respect for their autonomy, not out of some reverence for 'nature', which merely reinforces oppressive, essentialist dichotomies, such as human/nature or natural/unnatural. ultimately, the planet has already been made irrevocably inhospitable to most life, which will lead to mass extinction, and instead of endless moral hand-wringing about this fact, we must simply accept it and embrace the lives we have right now. we refuse to sacrifice our livelihoods for an impossible theoretical future, rejecting moral allegiance to any imaginary 'future generations'; they do not exist, so they cannot suffer. the future does not have intrinsic value - on the contrary, it is merely a continuation of patriarchy's death march.
4. cyberfeminism is perhaps the least essentialist strain of feminism, but is overly optimistic in its claims that current technology inherently undermines essentialism, gender, humanism or patriarchy. perhaps it seemed in the 90s that 'computers... run on lines quite alien to those which once kept women in the house'9 or that 'the boundaries between male and female, man and woman, have continued to blur in parallel with the erosion of the borders between man and machine',10 but it seem now that, while the internet has widened gendered possibilities, the concepts of gender and identity themselves have simply been entrenched through increasingly granular categorisation. we do not believe that simply creating new identity categories actually frees us. of course, technology can occasionally be reappropriated for insurrection against patriarchy and gender, such as through 'grassroots telemedical abortion clinics, gender hacktivist and diy-hrt forums',11 but, ultimately, technology is merely an extension of the phallus, another way to enforce the reproduction of the future, and it certainly is not resulting in 'a process of gender shredding where the feminine wins out in a cybernetic warfare against the crumbling tower of the masculine',12 as much as we wish that were the case.
5. postmodern/post-structural feminism exposes and critiques many important issues, but perhaps to an unhelpful degree. it overly problematises valuable concepts like 'patriarchy' or 'woman' - while there is no universal, essential 'woman', with 'woman' being socially constructed differently in every respective social context, 'woman' is likely still a real and vital term, not as an identity but as a condition within patriarchy. postmodern/post-structural feminism tends to overly fixate on language; while it is correct that language is often patriarchal in structure and influence, patriarchy is primarily embodied rather than linguistic - language merely reinforces it. ultimately, post-structuralism is a product of the bourgeois ivory tower, and the value of its gratuitously complex theory in the real, embodied struggle against patriarchy has yet to be proven.
6. trans-exclusionary radical feminism is wrong to claim that transgender people inherently entrench gender - through transition, we subvert and expose its faults. in contrast, terfs seem to have reverted from a nuanced radical feminist critique of gender to conservatism and biological determinism, through simply replacing the word 'gender' with 'sex'. this could not be further from gender abolitionism, as gender and sex are deeply intertwined, both being social constructs that place expectations on social roles and the body. while there is obviously no possibility of actually abolishing gender, we refuse to participate in it as a system where 'being erotically owned by a man who takes you and fucks you is a physically charged and meaningful affirmation of womanhood or femininity',13 perhaps its only meaningful affirmation. instead of hoping to abolish this system, we embrace transgender insurrection against gender and lesbian separatist exit from gender.
7. 'sex-positive' feminism's goal of freeing women's bodies and sexuality is undermined by its support of pornography, prostitution and heterosexual intercourse, all of which legitimise and directly cause the domination, physical harm and objectification of women:
intercourse is a particular reality for woman as an inferior class; and it has in it, as part of it, violation of boundaries, taking over, occupation, destruction of privacy, all of which are construed to be normal and also fundamental to continuing human existence.14
we reject heterosexual intercourse as 'an act of possession in and of itself',15 and simultaneously reject the mandate to continue human existence at all. perhaps penetration in and of itself is not oppressive, but it becomes so under patriarchy through the construct of the phallus.
'sex-positive' feminism is merely 'choice feminism'; it ignores the fact that the oppressive systems we live in largely predetermine choice for women: within capitalism, money certainly does not count as consent to the abuse of pornography and prostitution, and within patriarchy, there arguably is never true consent to heterosexual intercourse:
the context in which the act takes place, whatever the meaning of the act in and of itself, is one in which men have social, economic, political and physical power over women.16
the only true 'choice' we have within patriarchy is either participation or total refusal. free will, if it is possible, can only exist outside the system.
we are not 'sex-negative', as we embrace jouissance as our greatest goal, but we oppose the institutions and forms of sex that uphold patriarchy, perhaps seeking 'a more diffuse and tender sensuality, that involves the whole body and a polymorphous tenderness'17 in place of the localised violence of the phallus. (of course, we have no intention to impose our beliefs on other women in any way, so perhaps we have also fallen for choice feminism.)
4. praxis
nihilist feminism fully embraces individualism. individualism is often critiqued on the basis of material conditions; collectivism, euphemised as 'social responsibility', is seen as morally necessary because not everyone is materially privileged enough to live as a free individualist. we vehemently oppose this critique - it is precisely an individual's perpetually abject material conditions that should prompt a rejection of collectivism as clearly inept and authoritarian. the existence of the individual itself is also sometimes critiqued as a dubious construct with blurred social borders and unconscious influences, but we do not believe that this negates its utility or reality.
we believe in insurrection, self-assertion and independence (but vehemently oppose phallic roles of aggression and domination). we recognise the value of social connection, cooperation and mutual aid, but not when it is mediated by social or moral obligation - morality is inherently authoritarian. we embrace novatore's 'enthusiastic and dionysian pessimism... that mocks any theoretical, scientific, or moral prison';18 we
reject society for the triumph of the i. [we] reject the stability of every rule, every custom, every morality, for the affirmation of every willful instinct, all free emotionality, every passion and every fantasy.19
despite the violent biological essentialism and utopian idealism of the scum manifesto, we agree with valerie solanas that
a true community consists of individuals - not mere species members, not couples - respecting each other's individuality and privacy, at the same time interacting with each other mentally and emotionally - free spirits in free relation to each other.20
patriarchy, as a deeply entrenched system, largely operates independently from individual male will - however, as its perpetrators, people who embrace and embody the oppressive role of 'man' must eventually be abandoned. furthermore, since participation in any of patriarchy's corresponding institutions (civilisation, the state, capitalism, the family, heterosexuality, gender, 'biological' sex, racism, humanism, ableism, religion, morality, linear time, science, pornography, prostitution, etc.) directly contributes to its preservation, we must attempt to practice total separatism from patriarchy in all its forms. when this is not possible, the solution must be violent insurrection.
the body is the primary site of both oppression and freedom. patriarchy polices the body through the state, capital and 'biological' sex, all of which work to categorise and homogenise bodies - deviants are punished, 'corrected' or simply abandoned. we embrace desire and jouissance as an escape from the tyranny that patriarchy imposes on the body, a form of praxis fundamentally opposed to the futility of trying to influence the grand movements of political systems. we fully root our struggle in the body.
our potential for unmediated passion, destruction and pleasure must even resist reduction into the dismal confines of the institution called 'art'. we refuse to be productive at all.
we, as nihilist feminists, refuse to wait any longer for politics to free us from oppression. we will seize back control of our bodies from patriarchy and its endless future. we will relentlessly resist any attempts at recapture with all the power we have, because we have discovered our limitless potential for jouissance, and now we are completely unstoppable.
notes
1 judith butler, gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity (routledge, 2007), p. 3.
2 baedan, baedan (the anarchist library, 2012. available at https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/baedan-baedan.pdf), p. 25.
3 andrea dworkin, intercourse (basic books, 2007), p. 161.
4 friedrich engels, the principles of communism, appendix c, the communist manifesto (capstone classics, 2021, pp. 99-134), pp. 118-119.
5 mark fisher, capitalist realism: is there no alternative? (zero books, 2009), p. 19.
6 nick land, fanged noumena: collected writings 1987-2007 (urbanomic, 2025), p. 625.
7 baedan, baedan, p. 54.
8 ibid., p. 40.
9 sadie plant, zeros and ones: digital women and the new technoculture (4th estate, 1998), p. 38.
10 ibid., p. 210.
11 laboria cuboniks, the xenofeminist manifesto: a politics for alienation (verso, 2018), p. 81.
12 nyx land, gender acceleration: a blackpaper (vast abrupt, 2018. available at https://vastabrupt.com/2018/10/31/gender-acceleration/), para. 72.
13 andrea dworkin, intercourse, p. 83.
14 ibid., p. 156.
15 ibid., p. 100.
16 ibid., p. 159.
17 ibid., p. 159.
18 renzo novatore, i am also a nihilist (nichilismo, 1920. available at https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/renzo-novatore-i-am-also-a-nihilist), para. 3.
19 ibid., para. 20.
20 valerie solanas, scum manifesto (verso, 2015), pp. 50-51.