đšEarly to RISA đ§Anon makes some changes
AFK BRB Chocolate (CA version)I feel gross when I skip a shower for a day - I canât comprehend how Iâd feel after a month.
ORbituaryWhat must his teeth look like? And his breath smell like? Ugh.
cobysevCoffee is acidic. If youâre brushing right after coffee, you may be damaging the enamel of your teeth (acid + scrubbing is not a good combination). And it canât grow back; once youâve lost it, itâs gone forever.
MinnesotaGoddamExcuse me but I think the word you wanted to use there is figurative. Literal doesnât mean literal anymore.
:P
Itchy. Very itchy.
And sticky. If I go a few days I can feel my skin sticking more to my clothes.
I just have to shower daily in the summer. There is nothing worse than that feeling of sticky skin in bed. Rest of the year every 2 days is what I usually go with.
Iâm not the best guide for how often to shower, but every dermatologist-written guide Iâve read does indicate that a daily shower is unnecessary for most people and will (for most people) dry your skin. It can also damage your hair. This is true even in the absence of soap/detergent/shampoo.
That said, if you do anything that causes you to sweat, I think itâs prudent to do a quick rinse because you always smell worse to other people than your do to yourself due to olfactory saturation.
Every body is different, but generally for most people every 2-3 days tends to be the sweet spot for a full shower with shampoo, conditioner, etc.
Personally, I have greasy hair problems, and I ultimately found that showering less frequently made the biggest improvement of all of the changes I made. Iâll generally shower every 2-3 days, and if I do something that makes me sweaty Iâll hop in the shower and rinse off without using any product between those every other day showers
On the other hand, for OOP, theyâre making some big changes and probably need the consistency of every day to help maintain the habit theyâre building
Iâm an old guy and have been showering daily since I was young. I feel itchy when I go 48 hours without showering. Never had any significant skin issues.
But thereâs a pretty big difference between every three days and every month.
some people are so depressed that they kill themselves, being stinky is small potatoes
For sure - Iâm glad the guy in the OP seems to be getting to a better place. His prior state sounds pretty horrific.
Cold shower? There are no bonus points for effort. Just take a shower if you can.
Extra levels of suffering suck and donât add anything to the experience. Basic self care is a good start. Trying to prove something to a straw man in the mind is silly.
Probably got the idea from the manosphere. That being said, actually sticking to that particular habit is something to be proud of, and is completely harmless⌠when you are that low, anything you can be proud of is a win.
Kilgore Troutthe manosphere
What about Seneca? Stoicism? What do they have to do with âthe manosphereâ?
Cold showers feel great.
Youâre not wrong, but weâre talking about pond scum here. I doubt there was much Seneca involved
TheTechnician27There is some evidence that taking cold showers is materially beneficial. If you donât have some underlying heart condition and can handle them, theyâre not bad, and theyâll save on electricity/gas. The ânofapâ thing is what concerns me, since thatâs a very âmanosphereâ concept with no middle ground between healthy sexuality and a crippling masturbation addiction (IIRC the former sometimes comes with crazy, unsubstantiated benefits in the fiction of the manosphere).
Sexual shame is used to control people. Itâs always a big red flag
That article doesnât say âchild showers are good for you!â it says âwell, they arenât going to necessarily kill you, but watch out if you have these health conditions. I bet we can brainstorm some bullshit health benefits.â
I bet we can brainstorm some bullshit health benefits.
Dude, jesus christ. The Cleveland Clinic is a real, nonprofit medical institution. A professional writer consulted a (named, heâs right there) medical doctor for this. Thereâs compelling enough evidence elsewhere to support what this article is saying. Linked is a 2025 PLoS One systematic review and meta-analysis for cold-water immersion (CWI), including cold showers; more research is needed, but the authors at least make a conclusion in favor of CWIs, which says a lot for this type of paper.
Can you please get off your DunningâKruger high horse for five seconds and stop contributing to the science denialism thatâs unraveling society? I take scalding hot showers; not everything has to be an attack you have to defend against.
Also:
That article doesnât say âcold showers are good for you!â
Motherfucker, the section header after the introductory paragraph literally reads: âWhy cold showers are good for youâ. Was your problem that they missed the exclamation point or something?
iâm more familiar with the cleveland clinic than you are. this is literally a bullshit article
iâm more familiar with the cleveland clinic than you are.
Good for you. Itâs hard to tell how much I need to explain to establish a baseline understanding when you act like such an insufferable, provably wrong dipshit.
They need to insufferable, itâs the only thing theyâve got going for them. Without that theyâre just a regular garden variety dipshit.
excuse me iâm only 80% garden variety dipshit. the other part fell off
iâm sorry, did YOU write the bullshit article? itâs so stupid.
Okay Iâm sorry for making fun of your stupid peer review failing shower research
i tried taking a cold shower but i just couldnât the health benefits
thethunderwolfWas wasnât the either I
FizzIts only 5 days. Thats a fine amount to not fap. The reason its pushed it cause these porn addicted cunts are fapping like 5 times a day.
I donât know why youâre being downvoted so heavily. I agree that five days isnât some brutal, or even abnormal, act of chastity. Itâs moreso that ânofapâ has connotations beyond just breaking an unhealthy masturbation addiction, and because everyoneâs healthy status quo is different, keeping track of a specific number of days since you jorked your pork isnât a great metric of how someoneâs dealing with addiction. Whatâs a lot more important is how youâre approaching it; are you being mindful in the moment, or are you just doing it for a quick hit?
Recovering drug addicts will treat number of days since their last hit as a metric for success, but usually, e.g. with alcohol or nicotine, there isnât a healthy upside to the object of their addiction like masturbation. âNofapâ basically does treat it like something strictly detrimental, and it stigmatizes something thatâs normal, ironically probably coming with some mental health implications of its own (in a similar way that religious stigma against it often does).
An ice plunge or rolling around in the snow bith feel great afterwards. Really gets the endorphins going. The same applies to cold showers, although I usually only do that only when I can get back into a 100°C immediately after. Thatâs double the endorphin rush.
I stick to hot shower + cold hair wash. Perfect for waking up and better for hair care. Win win.
rapcheeisnât cold water better for the skin? at least it feels like it, when i do it once ever few years
Hot water damages the skin barrier. While cold water is better, lukewarm is fine for most people, especially since cold water wonât be able to rinse shampoo and other products out of your hair properly.
www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/11/2/298
www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/11/2/298
You donât want to do a job interview while being backed up with five days of semen youâll come in your pants if the interviewer says something nice.
Twist: interviewer is Sharon Stone
ryannathansSpeaking from experience
Interviewer: So, you have an impressive resumeâŚ
Interviewee: OH NO⌠TRAIN IS LEAVING THE STATION
UH OH SPAGHETTIOS
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Sarah Valentine (she/her)The problem isnât masturbating.
Everything is a problem if youâre doing it compulsively or mask something else.
Masturbating can surprisingly help with restless leg syndrome but doing it in work might be a problem.
So you understand that the problem isnât doing the thing, itâs something else, and doing the thing is only bad because of that context. Then you ought to understand that treating the context is the solution, not insisting the person just not do the thing.
I get what youâre saying, but would you adopt the same stance for example for gambling or drinking alcohol? Theyâre not necessarily bad per se, itâs the compulsion and the trigger points it evokes for some people where I think itâs completely fine to just accept that for them not doing it at all - even if for a time - might be the correct move.
Comparing a natural behavior to dependency on addictive chemicals is a bit silly. Iâm not sure youâre taking this seriously. And before you come back with âmasturbation releases chemicals we can form a dependency onâ, literally SO many other mundane things have the same effect. Conservatives and fascists always care about this one in particular though, and thatâs the real reason weâre talking about it.
But thatâs exactly what I am saying, thereâs a wide variety of actions that - on their own - arenât really harmful if done in moderation. Sure gambling and drinking are more extreme examples, but you yourself agree that these actions ârelease chemicals we can form a dependency onâ. So does gambling, so does overeating, so does masturbation. If itâs an issue for the person and theyâre not doing it for a while then I also donât see the use in singling this out in the list of things here. If it helps the person get motivated/be proud and engage positive feedback loops to not do it, why single masturbation out as useless?
Of course, ânever fappingâ and automagically being a good person is an absurd manosphere grift to push. But if they were following a specific diet which in itself also doesnât turn your life around but gets the ball rolling would you have the same stance? If itâs part of a process of change for a person I just donât see the sense in such strong antipathy for this single case, I suppose.
In other words, of the list of things here - cold showers, room tidying, brushing teeth, not eating like crap - itâs the masturbation this thread singles out and tells the person: no that thing, you should definitely continue doing that. Just seems unproductive to me.
no that thing, you should definitely continue doing that. Just seems unproductive to me.
Who brought that idea in? You just made that up.
Of course, ânever fappingâ and automagically being a good person is an absurd manosphere grift to push. But if they were following a specific diet which in itself also doesnât turn your life around but gets the ball rolling would you have the same stance?
What weâre really talking about is the equivalent of following fad diets because a fascist with an agenda is trying to bend vulnerable people to a cause they donât understand, using psychological knowledge and conditioning techniques. These people are not consulting licensed professionals, theyâre not talking to psychiatrists or therapists, theyâre listening to Joe Rogen podcasts and Facebook propaganda.
So while all these other things you talk about might have some merit to them, thatâs not what weâre really talking about, nor what the problem actually is. The problem is these men live in a society that simultaneously tells them their desires are bad, show unrealistic body images and other impossible standards, tells them they need to work on themselves in superficial ways, and all while forcing them to live as wage slaves while the ultra-rich laugh at the hoops theyâre getting people to jump through.
Figure it out.
Who brought that idea in? You just made that up.
Oh, thatâs what I understood from the thread starting with:
its ok to fap
But I agree with your points, in general.
I guess where I am talking past you (or âlisteningâ past you, as it were) is that my argument is focused on this specific instance of someone doing something and I understood people to react with discouragement. Youâre embedding the discussion into a wider societal angle. It still seems somewhat strange to bring it up in this instance as the original post also doesnât mention any of the points you touch on and the ideas thus seem similarly âmade upâ and brought in, for this case, to me.
But I definitely donât have an argument with the points themselves, they are well made.
Yeah but drinking is inherently bad for you. Whether you âhave a problemâ or not, everyone would be healthier not drinking.
I do understand that, perhaps more acutely than most as Iâve had countless destructive âhobbiesâ (my god hobby is the softest word I could find here) that I used to mask the underlying issue. Heck Iâm still not sure I know the underlying cause but I have translated those destructive things with positive ones but the goal is the same. This is all to say Iâm well versed in addiction, compulsions, and poor mental health.
With that in mind I would say that sometimes you have to stop the thing youâre doing, letâs say masturbating here, so you can get your body back to baseline before you can even begin to work with a therapist or do some introspection.
Iâm not saying we should demonise masturbation, just accept that for some people they may need to stop doing that for a period whilst they then fix the other shit they got going on.
Iâm in my forties and really never been happy and had a shit childhood that is still the cause of the way my mind bullies me to this very day. Iâve tried therapy before but when youâre in the midst of masking all your shit with other shit you really canât make any progress in my experience. What Iâve done now is spend several years working on myself and replacing negative addictions with positive ones. That afforded me the will power to begin to remove the substances and other coping strategies. Now I actually feel Iâm in a place where I might benefit from some EMDR or trauma therapy.
With that in mind I would say that sometimes you have to stop the thing youâre doing, letâs say masturbating here, so you can get your body back to baseline before you can even begin to work with a therapist or do some introspection.
Iâm not saying we should demonise masturbation, just accept that for some people they may need to stop doing that for a period whilst they then fix the other shit they got going on.
If you think this is what ânofapâ is about, you donât understand the issue. Nofap isnât a step toward therapy, nor does it avoid demonizing masturbation. Itâs manosphere propaganda aimed at lonely, frustrated men to manipulate them through shame and further deprivation. People who have a genuine problem with self control where masturbation is concerned are just catching strays in this war where nofap ideology is a weapon.