I know on other forum software that you can get temporary bans from specific threads for periods of 1 day / 1 week etc... Not sure if XenForo has that function or not.
But that's usually from posting in that thread. You still need nerves of steel not to go in and look.
Being able to hide threads would be really useful. I did a quick search but nothing I found suggests this being a thing. (Someone offered the amazing amount of $100 to have such a plugin made, lol.)