Aya Labanieh at the LARB:
If you’ve spent time on the internet, you’ve undoubtedly heard of “No Nut November” (NNN)—an annual Reddit-based challenge that dares young men to abstain from ejaculating (or “nutting”) for the full 30 days of the month. While NNN has gone viral as a tongue-in-cheek meme in its own right since 2017, its anti-ejaculatory ethos can be traced to the online “NoFap” community, whose adherents—almost entirely cisgender, heterosexual men—tout its near-magical self-help benefits. There, abstaining from masturbation is presented as a tool not only for quitting addictions to pornography but also for curing depression, finding a girlfriend, succeeding in one’s career, and generally regaining confidence, autonomy, and masculine power.
The movement was founded in 2011 by web developer Alexander Rhodes, who was inspired by a 2003 study claiming that men who did not masturbate for seven days experienced a 145.7 percent spike in testosterone levels.
more here.