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.
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.