NoFap

NoFap
Type of site
Private
Available inEnglish
URL
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedJune 20, 2011; 13 years ago (2011-06-20) (subreddit)
Current statusActive

NoFap is a website and community forum that serves as a support group for those who wish to give up pornography and masturbation.[1][2][3] Its name comes from the slang term fap, referring to male masturbation.[4][5] While reasons for this abstinence vary by individual, the main motivation cited is attempting to overcome addiction to pornography,[a][6][7] or other compulsive sexual behaviours.[8][9] Other reasons for abstinence include religious and moral reasons, self-improvement, and physical beliefs that are not supported by medical science.[10][11][12]

The group's views and efforts to combat pornography addiction have been criticized as simplistic,[12] outdated, and incorrect by neuroscientists, psychologists, and other medical professionals.[11][13][14] The purported science behind the group's activities is said to come from anti-porn activist Gary Wilson,[15][16] "an Oregon man with no scientific training or background, who has made a career peddling pseudoscience."[17]

As of January 6, 2024, the NoFap online community had more than 350,000 registered members.[18]

  1. ^ Cowell, Tom (September 17, 2013). "No fapping, please, it's making us ill". The Telegraph. London, England: Telegraph Media Group. Archived from the original on June 10, 2015. Retrieved May 22, 2015. So why are men doing it, and what happens when they do? 'Why' can be answered two ways: some see a medical problem in chronic masturbation, others a spiritual one.
  2. ^ McMahon, Tamsin (January 20, 2014). "Will quitting porn improve your life?: A growing 'NoFap' movement of young men are saying no to porn and masturbation". Maclean's. Toronto, Canada: Rogers Media. Archived from the original on May 2, 2015. Retrieved May 22, 2015. Despite the evangelical tone, NoFap is fundamentally different from traditional campaigns that view masturbation as an assault on religious values. Instead, it is developing as a secular movement popular among young men, many of whom identify as liberal and atheist. The majority of NoFap members are men in their teens and early 20s, though there are women, too, says Alexander Rhodes, the 23-year-old web developer from Pittsburgh who founded the movement two years ago. He estimates about 60 per cent are atheists; the site is also home to a fair number of Christians and some Muslims, all in broad agreement that porn is harmful.
  3. ^ Imhoff, Roland; Zimmer, Felix (April 30, 2020). "Men's Reasons to Abstain from Masturbation May Not Reflect the Conviction of 'reboot' Websites". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 49 (5): 1429–1430. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01722-x. ISSN 0004-0002. PMC 7300076. PMID 32356083. We recently published a paper titled 'Abstinence from Masturbation and Hypersexuality' (Zimmer & Imhoff, 2020) in which we tried to explore correlates of men's motivation to stay abstinent from masturbation. In motivating the study, we pointed to existing discourses around the topic and cited different protagonists within this debate (e.g., the Web sites 'nofap.org' and 'rebootnation.org').
  4. ^ Burnett, Scott (May 2021). Barber, Kristen; Bridges, Tristan; Nelson, Joseph Derrick (eds.). "The Battle for 'NoFap': Myths, Masculinity, and the Meaning of Masturbation Abstention". Men and Masculinities. 25 (3). SAGE Publications: 477–496. doi:10.1177/1097184X211018256. ISSN 1552-6828. LCCN 98659253. OCLC 321242407. S2CID 236603234.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference masters-of-their-domain was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Weir, Kirsten (April 2014). "Is pornography addictive?". Monitor on Psychology. 45 (4): 46. ISSN 1529-4978. OCLC 612512821. Archived from the original on April 5, 2014.
  7. ^ Allez, Glyn Hudson, ed. (June 4, 2014). "Chapter Ten. The pleasure, the power, and the perils of Internet pornography". Sexual Diversity and Sexual Offending: Research, Assessment, and Clinical Treatment in Psychosexual Therapy. Karnac Books. p. 161. ISBN 978-1-78181-368-3. Retrieved April 27, 2019.
  8. ^ "NoFap". Reddit. "About community" section. Retrieved May 16, 2021. A porn addiction and compulsive sexual behavior recovery peer support forum.
  9. ^ "NoFap Website". NoFap. Second line (after slogan). Retrieved May 16, 2021. NoFap™ is a secular community-centered sexual health platform designed to help you overcome porn addiction, porn overuse, and compulsive sexual behavior. We're here to help you quit or reduce porn use, improve your relationships, and reach your sexual health goals.
  10. ^ "What to know about the possible benefits of NoFap". Medical News Today. September 29, 2020.
  11. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference AbstinenceMasturbation was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference ley was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Coon, Dennis; Mitterer, John O. (2014). "11. Gender and Sexuality". Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior (14 ed.). Cengage Learning. p. 363. ISBN 978-1-305-54500-7. Archived from the original on June 14, 2020. Retrieved January 7, 2017. Is there any way that masturbation can cause harm? Seventy years ago, a child might have been told that masturbation would cause insanity, acne, sterility, or other such nonsense. 'Self-abuse,' as it was then called, has enjoyed a long and unfortunate history of religious and medical disapproval (Caroll, 2013). The modern view is that masturbation is a normal sexual behavior (Hogarth & Ingham, 2009). Enlightened parents are well aware of this fact. Still, many children are punished or made to feel guilty for touching their genitals. This is unfortunate because masturbation itself is harmless. Typically, its only negative effects are feelings of fear, guilt, or anxiety that arise from learning to think of masturbation as 'bad' or 'wrong.' In an age when people are urged to practice 'safer sex,' masturbation remains the safest sex of all.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference HuffPost was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Hartmann, Marlene (June 28, 2020). "The totalizing meritocracy of heterosex: Subjectivity in NoFap". Sexualities. 24 (3). SAGE Publications: 409–430. doi:10.1177/1363460720932387. ISSN 1363-4607. S2CID 225765798. The most influential account of the causal relationship between PMO and the emergence of masturbatory subjectivity, which I mainly refer to in the following, is given by Gary Wilson ... Nevertheless, Wilson's talk is of vital importance to NoFap.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hagen 2024 u416 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference BWatson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ "NoFap®". NoFap®. Retrieved January 6, 2024.


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