Ask Lemmy

What does NNN and HP mean?

Don't. NNN is incel bullshit.

Masturbation is a healthy normal part of human existence and is to be celebrated.

NNN is at best a silly joke inspired by Seinfeld's "master of my domain". At my most generous, it can serve as a reminder of how great masturbation is because you never miss something as much as when you lose it.

At its worst, it is toxic manosphere incel poison.

Being a virgin means nothing. When you are ready and find a suitably ready partner it will happen. Nothing about you changes. You don't become a man. Equally staying a virgin is fine too, you always have masturbation! No need to mourn the loss of an experience you weren't ready for in the first place. It's really not a big deal. We build it up like its some holy grail but when most people finally do have sex, their reactions leans toward relief for ticking off a checkbox and disapointment that it wasn't more.

Don't. Just accept that it's normal and healthy to masturbate. When you stop feeling guilt about it, you stop thinking about it as much.

I always thought this no nut november not only silly but misguided.

Instead of complete celibacy for one month I would suggest to try to do the same without porn during this month. Only Imagination November, or Literature Nut November.

Maybe instead of NNN, do no porn November?

eat rice cereal /j

It may help if you have something engaging to do, especially if its something that requires some effort to quit too once you get started so its more of a bother to go masturbate.

Taking a break from masturbation mostly just builds the pressure / restores something so you get more out of it, there is no sense in trying to completely stop it or follow stupid trends that have no basis on anything useful.

Another thing you could do is try to lower the amount of times per day slowly. Like, lower it by one and keep it up. Once the current amount feels like you can handle it easily then lower it by one again until you are at acceptable (to you) levels.

Also try to do something physically draining. start going to gym, go to walks, do sports if you like them. Physical activity will help you feel better and maybe offset the dopamine addiction from masturbation. And it will keep you occupied.

I'm kind in similar position myself, though for me its less of an addiction and more coping mechanism for depression.. i think. But i'm not sure how much similar position im as you considering how you describe the issue. I can empathize at least.

Getting experience about sex has good chance of helping, though it wont remove the problem completely. But it will make things easier mentally to not feel like you are missing out / know how it is. Finding a girlfriend would also help, but i know that is almost like telling someone to go find holy grail to cure their ails. At least I know it would help me a lot.

Find a sex addiction help group like https://saa-recovery.org/

Little warning: You will have wet dreams if you abstain from it for long enough, unless youre like 35+

You'll usually find the no fap people on 4chan /fit/ and reddit where conservative Catholics who are ashamed of their own natural bodies participate in this weird puritan incel practice. You're not accomplishing anything healthy by doing it OP.

You should be open to the possibility that your habits are normal.

I don't know specifics. I don't really want to know specifics. But as long as you're not doing it in inappropriate settings, harming yourself, or harming your sex life with a partner/making it so you prefer masturbation to sex then you should be open to the possibility that you're a young man, and young men masturbate a lot.

Similarly you need to be open to the possibility that your ideas about masturbation are being influenced by people with ulterior motives. There are ties between far-right movements, manosphere content, and masturbation abstinence. Before you come to the conclusion that you are actually experiencing a problem, I think it's really important that you have considered these angles and how those are influencing your goals.

If all that has been considered and you're about to start masturbating on the train or something:

Start with small benchmarks, and be clinical about it. Don't beat yourself up if you don't make it, just adjust the goal. Start with a day if you have to, "On Tuesday I won't masturbate" - done. If you fail try again in a couple of days (while being kind to yourself about it, or at least neutral). As you do that you can expand that time to more of what you're hoping for as a healthy baseline (again, keep in mind that masturbation abstinence communities are not a good source for this). Slowly expand from one day of abstinence a month to once a week, etc. Don't tie it to gimmicks like NNN or go straight for a week or something, that's never a sustainable way to keep something under control. It just makes you crave it and can lead to binges when the time is up.

The goal is to prove to yourself you can control it. If you are actually addicted then this is closer to an addiction like food than something like heroin. It needs a healthy, reasonably sized spot in your life. Not for you to try and quit entirely.

Reading between the lines, this definitely sounds like a form of sex addiction that you're experiencing. Any kind of addiction is best tackled with professional help, and second best with the help of friends. I would strongly suggest in addition to seeking professional help, also talking to your friends saying "hey this is something I'm struggling with" and if they can be accountability buddies that's even better!

Any addictions I've kicked and lifestyle changes I've made have been most successful by slowly adjusting. Quitting cold turkey is the easiest way to fail. Unlike my changes which were kicking coffee/caffeine, and reducing screen time, yours is is a perfectly healthy process gone awry, so your goal may not be complete elimination, but just a reduction back to a healthy level. You seem reluctant to share your current baseline, and I won't push, but the easiest place to start is to say "I can wait another 20 minutes before I do that" and put it off a little, and just keep putting it off a little longer.

Maybe you might find doing a healthy habit every time you feel the urge to musturbate helps, such as doing 5 reps of a calisthenic exercise (excercise is also helpful in redirecting the blood that would otherwise be headed south!) or drinking some cold water (when I was quitting coffee I'd put my glass of cold water right next to my coffee. Every time I would reach for the coffee, I'd redirect my hand to the water and only go for the coffee if I still felt I needed it after the water, which most of the time I didn't!) or maybe you're just needing something to do with your hands and that's how you end up masturbating some of the time. In that case, have you tried investing in some kind of fidget toy? Maybe try keeping that in your lap so every time you find your hands going for something to fidget with you can move to the fidget box or whatever instead.

It's all about slowly shifting your normal, the same way that habits are formed just in reverse. It's not going to feel like you're making a big change at any point but tracking progress can help. Keeping a daily log of how many times you masturbated, when and for how long can help to see the trend. I would also suggest including the consumption of sexual content in that log. Just like masturbation it is perfectly healthy and fine for adults to consume sexual content, but too much of anything is going to be bad for you, and you'll probably want to figure out your current baseline and goal for that as well.

Small steps can make a big impact in the long term. Just being able to set a small goal each day of "I'll wait a couple more hours before I do that" or "maybe I'll tackle cleaning today's dishes before I rub one out" can add up faster than you might think. When I was quitting coffee, reducing from 64oz per day down to about 12oz per day only took a few weeks of active effort and was relatively easy with these methods, but eliminating down to zero took actual commitment. Reducing my screentime also took a few weeks to adjust the habits and baseline so that now I reach for a book or go work on a project instead of playing a video game for 4 hours. I haven't pushed it to zero and that's not my goal, so I'm close to where I want, I just have to keep this new baseline for a while so that it sticks

Trust me. Sex isnt that great as it is hyped up to be. But i feel you. I sadly got no advice than just: don't even get into the place where you masturbate. Aka keep away from that location or enviorment. Keep buisy

Edit: being a virgin is nothing bad. Dont define yourself by that. Dont feel shame. Its cool. Its fine :)

Thank you for sharing! Most of what I had to say has already been said, but among that, I would like to reiterate that quitting abruptly will statistically lead to failure, worse self-esteem and consequently worsen future endeavors to quit. I also would like to add, that it could help, which it did in my case, to find out what the underlying drive is: do you do it because it feels good and nothing else? Do you do it because it feels good and that's the only time you feel good at all? In my case, it is the latter, which means that I'm sort of "medicating" or coping with my underlying mental illness by doing it. If masturbating causes harm to you or your everyday life in such ways that you deem it necessary to stop as soon as possible, then make it a priority to stop by seeking professional help - start with your local physician or support groups. If stopping masturbating is not a priority, try tackling the underlying issue first, again, by seeking professional help.

Look into cognitive behavioral therapy. You don't necessarily need to see a therapist for this if you don't need to be held accountable.

Ideally, the goal is finding a pleasurably and healthy replacement behavior. A sport or hobby that distracts you and becomes important in your life.

I mean, if you feel like you're addicted, you should probably look into it. I wouldn't do this by asking random strangers, but rather search for medical sources. For example you could search for (legit) porn addiction questionaires and if it turns out you indeed score high there, what you can do about it.

What would you call "a reasonable amount" of masturbation?

And, what if you started out by trying to stick with that schedule instead of quitting could turkey for a whole month?

Why would you? Enjoy yourself.