Masturbation abstinence practices have returned to the USA in the form of semen retention communities. Followers on one of these male, anti-masturbation forums, “NoFap,” on Reddit (denoted “r/NoFap”), have engaged in homicidal behaviors that appear to be linked to these sexual beliefs and practices. This study uses a systematic search on r/NoFap and two control forums (r/pornfree, and r/stopdrinking) to define a corpus of violent content. The study’s goals were to describe the nature of threats on r/NoFap and suggest whether the violence might be attributable to sexual deprivation or false beliefs that non-sexual targets caused their violent urges. Of the 421 violent posts identified from September 2011 to September 2022, r/NoFap contained the majority (94.3%). Violent threats on r/NoFap mostly targeted pornographers, women, scientists, specific persons, or any person (i.e. homicidal “rage”). Violent threats against r/NoFap’s own followers were growing most quickly. Violent posts were well-supported with upvotes by other followers in r/NoFap. These data are important because NoFap may represent a growing threat for real-world violence.

  • Tommasi [she/her, pup/pup's]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    The nofap “movement” tell depressed, alienated guys that cutting out porn and masturbation is the key to turning their life around. This is how you can gain back your confidence and self-respect, become the person you want to be and stop being so alienated to everything around you.

    Since the real world doesn’t actually work like that, I’m not surprised it can lead to insane amounts of anger and frustration in some followers.

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    This is part of why history search of comments and posts on reddit had to die via shutting down the api.

    Reddit could not allow too much research like this to expose the underbelly of the site.

    Once the site IPOs it introduces a financial incentive for shorts to find things on the site that can be turned into drama that damages its value, so research like this would find potential finance motivated backers and massively increase in quantity.

    • GinAndJuche@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Thoughts on the wisdom of betting against reddit once it goes public? It sounds like free money, especially now that the VC money faucet is turned off.

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Personally think it’s going to be a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Depending on the starting price r/WSB hype might pump it to begin with. There’s no real telling what happens if that fuckhead Elon involves himself too.

        In the longterm I predict there’s way too much cancer on the site for it to survive with the financial incentive people will have to use that cancer to tank the value. But again it depends on how much they clean up before IPO and whether that clean up avoids a drama collapse in and of itself.

        • GinAndJuche@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Long term shorting below the open seems wise in that case. They still don’t have an income stream that covers costs right?

          • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            I think Spez said a while ago that they were in the black. So I’m not really sure. Various financials will have to be made public too though I think? There’s no way that’s going without incredible scrutiny.

            • GinAndJuche@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              If it makes sense, Palantir proved that being a favorite of the deep state doesn’t reflect stock price. I eagerly await the opening of the books

      • Juice [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I’m convinced that the company is being propped up by CIA money, which means they could keep the lights on for decades. They’ve done it before, dumped money in businesses to keep them afloat because they were part of an intelligence operation, like that company that sold encryption machines to foreign governments that all had secret backdoors built into them. Reddit has never made money and it probably never will. Idk as much as I’d like to bet against that hell site I think the thumb is on the scales

      • Owl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        The people planning the IPO are going to try really hard to time/hype/price it so that the stock goes up for a while. They might not succeed, but they’ll keep stalling until they think they can. So give it a few weeks or months before you start betting against it.

        Also use puts instead of actual shorts.

    • Omniraptor [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Iirc reddit automatically gives you access to pushshift if you’re the mod of even a small subreddit, or manually if you send an email explaining you’re a researcher. It’s not completely dead

    • drhead [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Religious people have been doing shit like this for centuries, this is just the same thing in a shiny new package, just like the whole “Fight The New Drug” campaign.

      • duderium [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        religious people

        capitalist society

        exploitative society

        patriarchal society which subordinates sexual desires to private property

        Wilhelm Reich / Bronislaw Malinowski.jpg

  • Brutticus@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    So I have some real insight here. Around 2017 I decided to try Nofap. I joined their forums at nofap.com. I downloaded their countdown app. Honestly, I thought that porn had taken over my life. I abstained from six months. I kept up with the people on the forum. So I really immersed myself in it and their culture. My findings:

    The claims of the effects of Nofap may have a grain of truth. Im not sure if it is because of my libido being focused out like they claimed, or if was other factors (I stated regular excersize and I went back to college around that time) but I was more interested in sexual matters and more sexually successful.

    The people on the forums are completely and utterly insane. Evangelical men being forced to abstain by wives who considered porn cheating. Incels who thought that this was the secret code. Semen retentionists. It felt like I was the only one who wanted to be free of porn just because I wanted to.

    Lastly, I wanted to point out that they are misreading, as they always seem to. the problem is not porn, but Capitalism.

    • el_eh_chase@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      I’ve had a similar experience. I’ve been trying to quit porn off and on for a while now. At one time I considered myself as practicing NoFap. I consumed all the introductory content you first come across, abstained from masterbating for varying stretches of time, and visited the subreddit fairly regularly.

      I would say overusing porn can for sure have downsides, and abstaining from masterbating for a short time could help with getting out of the habit of using porn. The community just gets so much more weird and cringe from there, not to mention the violence that is fostered there which I wasn’t aware of. Maybe the forum was more hardline.

      That video looks interesting too, thanks for sharing!

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      or if was other factors (I stated regular excersize and I went back to college around that time) but I was more interested in sexual matters and more sexually successful.

      It was this.

      How is this in doubt? No one knows if you’re jacking it or not; people do notice if you’re exercising. Being around single people in a social setting (college) gives you more opportunities to meet people, which is a real thing, unlike semen magic.

    • GinAndJuche@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Bit Idea: ummm actually sweaty I need to goon daily for the sake of reducing violence. I have stats to back it up.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      That’s generally a good idea, but the r/nofap people take it further, they say you shouldn’t masturbate at all. Then that gets paired with some misogyny and the promise that women will just throw themselves at you for doing this, and you end up with some very frustrated boys that should’ve knocked one out periodically to relieve their stress.

  • Snackuleata [any]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    So wonderful we can casually have what other nations consider national tragedies because some guy convinced himself that not touching himself would make him a genius or whatever.

  • Phish [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Some fuckin’ world we got here.

    My guess is that those communities tend to attract the types of people who are more likely to commit a mass shooting, not so much that participating in abstinence from masturbation turns people into mass shooters. I’m sure it’s a very unhealthy group to socialize with though.

    I think there’s a level at which masturbating and looking at porn becomes unhealthy, but there has to be a better way to address that.

    • drhead [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I think there’s a level at which masturbating and looking at porn becomes unhealthy, but there has to be a better way to address that.

      Unfortunately, discourse on where that actually begins has been so thoroughly and completely poisoned by religious groups that are only using it as a recruiting opportunity, as well as nominally secular groups like this which are also effectively used as a recruiting ground for reactionaries, apparently to a degree more similar to incels than I previously thought. Arguably, the better move is to not give these groups an inch, because arguably most places in the world tend to have pretty reactionary views on sexuality and people are generally going to have a low estimate of when this becomes a problem, which then makes them prime targets for these groups. There are also studies finding that self-reporting for porn addiction is a much more reliable indicator of religiosity than it is an indicator for porn consumption, which should pretty plainly show that the actual effect of this rhetoric is that people who aren’t really doing anything unhealthy end up manipulated into a cycle of self-hatred and shame far more often than it actually helps someone who actually has a problem.

    • Tripbin [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      That’s when therapy should come in to play. If someone really thinks their masturbation is negatively impacting their lives then trying to fix it by joining reddit incels groups is obviously a bad idea. But trying out a couple sessions with a psych to see if they think it’s a problem and if so then they use real, evidence based, ways to help. Now convincing them to try therapy in the first place is obviously a huge problem itself