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.
That “porn industry” spike during COVID, combined with a decrease in threats against a specific person, which is then followed by a massive increase in theatening other users of the nofap subreddit post 2020, is very telling. Quarantine broke them. Probably went back to watching porn during quarantine and got gulit tripped by fellow nofap crazies afterwards.
