Violence on Reddit Support Forums Unique to r/NoFap

Masturbation abstinence practices have returned to the USA in the form of semen retention communities.Followers on one of these male, antimasturbation 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.