I'm going to go ahead and lock this thread. I had no idea this would be such a contentious issue. Future posting about porn compulsions and related communities will be done with more care.
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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I'm member of the no fap community
Please, stop purposely misunderstanding us and keep perpetrating us this pro-porn propaganda. The NoFap community is a MASTURBATION ADDICTION RECOVERY COMMUNITY, not a place where we tell people that masturbating is inherently bad!
Humans have been masturbating since they're on this planet basically, but it has never been a problem until porn on the internet. With all the things you see on mainstream social media of course 13year olds are going to be masturbation addicted, everywhere they go on the internet is either full of borderline soft porn or people claiming that masturbating 10 times a day over some random mysogynistic adult content is fine. Masturbation is healthy, but with limitations and without overstimulating yourself with all this content. You don't even need to access porn sites to find sexually arousing content and most of the times it's one of the kind of contents which companies and mainstream social media profits on because it makes us slaves to the screens
I don't understand why would you even purposely misunderstand the statement that destroying your life with porn and insane masturbation rythms is bad for your psychophysical health. The "90 days" are not a ritual, but the days most of the nofap users needed to actually get rid of the addiction and all its related effects and actually start a recovery journey. Also, we consider having actual sex a GOOD thing. NoFap is not about sexual abstinence, it's about ADDICTION RECOVERY
NoFap saved my life, I would probably still me as miserable as I was in my early teens if I've never discovered that community. You don't understand it because you either haven't tried it or just never been addicted.
You don't know the brain fog, the inability to even speak properly o to even make noarmal logical connections. You don't know the pain of always feeling the urge and feeling sleepy 24/7 and the heart fatigue related to it. NoFap increased my self esteem, my willpower and even fixed my sleeping schedule. Same for other people I know who have found themselves in the same situation
Always remember that a lot of these articles but be financed by porn companies, that's the only explanation. You don't need to be a genius to understand it
EDIT: Y'all are making a big deal over the term "addiction" and not over the issues that it brings
What the fuck
One University study suggests that primates have been masturbating for around 40 million years. I think it’s safe to say we’re probably ok beating our meat a little now and then (though obviously excessive masturbation can be an issue). Interestingly, prevalence of masturbation seems to go up with primates in captivity, which to me suggests it’s either a stress response (relieving tension), a reaction to the more limited activities available (boredom), and/or a reaction to the safer environment (more free time not worrying about getting killed).
This last sentence describes highschool.
But isn't the point of nofap that porn conditions our thoughts to imaginary situations that might be unlikely in real life? Like impossible body standards or performance standards or just unnatural interactions.
Even if that was their point it's not true. But nofap is no masturbation period. Not just against watching porn.
I know that anecdotes are bad quality evidence, but there’s a hell of a lot of anecdotal data that sex tastes have changed over the last 60 years. Are there alternative theories about what caused it?
Even if so, what is exactly the problem with sex tastes changing?
I’m not sure there is one, but it’s a sign that porn would be impacting us as a population.
Or it could be millions of other things. The biggest being less societal pressure on individual preferences and women gaining much more agency in society.
Maybe 🤷 I suspect porn’s role is non zero, but it’s not exactly easy to study without a population that doesn’t really use porn while allowing for individuality and personal rights.
Not much different from a lot of other social studies. You often have problems with covariables and control groups. You need good studies design and robust statistics.
Because things like choking someone almost to death, or getting choked are concerning expressions of a damaged psyche. Also unrealistic expectations can cause more frustration on both ends, were people feel unable to meet these expectations and people fail to realize their expectations to be unrealistic.
So in all we could see a development of people having less sex, having less enjoyable sex and using sex to cope with serious mental issues instead of getting help, while society is ignoring problematic soxietal developments by shoving them into sexuality and declaring it as just being liberated kinkyness.
None of these are absolutes and there is many positive changes happening too, but we need to understand sex tastes and sex behaviour to be a reflection of individuals and society, where problems will also show that we need to adress
I see you are a friend of bold claims with nothing to back them up. But I would encourage you to read Marquis de Sade if you think we are getting too Kinky. What I see is humans being less afraid to try out and live out their sexual fantasies and therefore having a more full filling sex life.
You misunderstood me then. Nowhere did i say it is bad or good. I said it needs to be understood as a mirror of people and their society and the underlying issues need to understood.
But yes there is limits to kinkyness. Some years back a guy got convicted because he strangled a woman to death during initially consensual SM sex. He claimed it easnt intentional. He tried to argue in court that sex and death belong together and they found more than 1000 porn videos in his computers with women being killed during sex. If we get to that, then it went too far.
Nowhere did i say it is bad or good.
If we get to that, then it went too far.
So wich one is it, did we go too far or is it neither good or bad?
There is no issue, people have Kinky fantasy, just read some older sex fiction. Even classics as Anaïs Nin can be rather dark. We are just less suppressed by societal norms and are able to share them more freely. And if someone has a problem of separating fiction, fantasy and reality - that is a whole other story, but Salinger is not responsible for Lennons death.
So wich one is it, did we go too far or is it neither good or bad?
The development in its entirety is neither good or bad, but it needs to be understood, as to why such fringe cases occur.
Is it so hard to understand that the world isnt just black or white?
The development in its entirety is neither good or bad, but it needs to be understood, as to why such fringe cases occur.
Sex related violence did not occure before? What development are you talking about? People being more open about their sexual fantasies?
Is it so hard to understand that the world isnt just black or white?
You are the one who is bringing judgment in - so why are you asking me?
Depends how deep down the rabbit hole you go. Some of them have sunk back down to the old Kellogg belief that any orgasm is harmful to ones health.
The damn communists can't have my bodily fluids! It's not even new.
I got a lot of downvotes on Reddit for pointing out that there's no scientific evidence supporting porn addiction. It's just the latest version of religious indoctrination. ISIS was using that as part of their recruitment process: men who are sexually repressed are easier for them to manipulate.
I guess it makes sense that the psychology community would push back against the claim that pornography fits a scientific definition of addiction. The same deal goes for sugar: many people talk about sugar being addictive, but it's pretty absurd to classify sugar as addictive substance, and the article raises this point very explicitly:
That isn’t to say that people can’t use pornography compulsively, as you may compulsively eat donuts or bacon every day against the best interests of your heart
And that's what most people usually mean when they're addicted to it. So I wouldn't say that it's indoctrination or "hive mind", it's just how people use the word "addiction" in day-to-day, non-scientifically-precise ways. You're absolutely right to point that out because people should not seek addiction treatment for porn consumption, but it's also understandable to seek treatment for compulsive consumption of whatever. Just like sugar and junk food, while the science doesn't say it's addiction, it also presents endless evidence on the negative effects of common patterns of consumption.
The scientific paper linked from the article, stating there's no evidence for porn addiction, in case anyone would like to read more and missed it.
The basic mechanism of psychological addiction is there: a behaviour that creates an immediate reward.
it’s unlikely that PornHub is going to change you from a liker of vanilla sex to a connoisseur of amputee gangbangs—and certainly not in real life.
Challenge accepted!
so I was always destined to be a degenerate, it isn’t the internet’s fault?
Just as god always intended, you degenerate
I'm struggling to understand stand the extreme takes on this thread. Is it not possible to acknowledge that NoFap can increase suicidality in many inspite the of how the community around it has been a source of mental health improvement for some? That it's possible for NoFap to not increase suicidality in some people inspite of it's impact on its participants as a whole?
I feel that we are dismissing the experiences of some people in this thread when we tell them that their experiences aren't real because the article says so.
I am also concerned about the tenor of some of the discussion here. Future posting about porn compulsions and related communities will be done with more care.
in my opinion those wo "celebrate" no-nut-november our whatever this idiotic "event" is called are harming themselves...
Masturbation is a healthy thing, good to relieve stress, good for your health, for you hearth, your prostate...forcing yourself to not relief yourself from time to time by following an internet "movement", is just plain stupid and without any useful result.
So stop doing stuff that you see on degenerated internet platforms like twitter, facebook, instagram or whatever they are called today...
And if you think I'm full of shit, good! Start thinking for yourself or ask people who know what they are talking about, like a freaking doctor...