Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat

by Derek Beres

Blood-and-semen anxiety is going increasingly mainstream. In April 2022, Tucker Carlson featured a “fitness professional” named Andrew McGovern in a Fox News documentary called The End of Men. McGovern talked about how testicle tanning with red-light therapy could help restore falling testosterone levels. (It doesn’t.) The vibe was self-care, but the context was the endless stream of Carlson conspiracism about how wokeness was destroying masculinity, and dog whistles at the Great Replacement theory. As the documentary aired, MAGA-inspired state legislatures across the United States were rolling back abortion rights and implementing anti-trans legislation, along with various forms of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. It’s no coincidence that body-fascist fears about permeable national borders and impure bodies go hand in hand with an obsession with genitals and the anxious desire to protect the right kind of semen.