Gooning refers to the act of stimulating oneself sexually for a long period without coming to a climax to reach a trancelike state. The practice gained attention on social media sites in the late 2010s and into the 2020s before it saw a large spike of interest in 2024, with searches increasing by 314 percent from 2023.
Now people are talking about their "goon caves" and watching live-streamed content in which the streamers goon for hours in one of the more depraved trends of the modern era. The sudden craze has a lot of unfortunate internet users asking: "What is gooning?"
The term "goon" appeared in the Urban Dictionary as early as 2006. In addition to referring to the act of obsessively masturbating due to an addiction disorder, it also described the act as it's used today.
"Well-known slang term in sexual subculture of chronic and compulsive masturbators, used both as a verb and a noun," the entry reads. "Means achieving the trance-like blissful state reached when riding the edge of cumming for as long as possible, perhaps many minutes or even hours at a time."
The word "goon" or "gooning" can also refer to dull or unintelligent people, to low-level villains who mindlessly follow the orders of their bosses, or to German war prison guards in WWII. Older British individuals may have also heard it from the comedy radio series titled The Goon Show.
The very first use of this word in popular media may have been in Popeye the Sailor—a cartoon character who first appeared in a comic strip in 1929. The use of the word to mean a "stolid, dull, or stupid person" can be traced back to magazine articles from 1921.
In the current context, the earliest use of the term "gooning" appears to be in that 2006 Urban Dictionary entry. However, active discussion of the practice didn't show up on Reddit until 2019. Fans of this practice, similar to edging, would discuss techniques as well as their obsession with it and seem to have named it after the far-away, slack-jawed expression people get from the constant stimulation.
A goon cave is any room or other enclosed area in which the act of gooning takes place. As a sexual act, most practitioners prefer privacy while they're engaged in it, and may even put in effort to make a specific room more suited to sexual stimulation. Kind of like a man cave, but even more focused on masturbation.
The term "goon cave" reached a much wider audience when popular Twitter user Dril made one of his famous weird posts using the phrase.
"i have saved $53,000 by claiming the home office tax deduction on my Gooncave," he wrote.
As time has rolled on, fewer people are asking "what is gooning" and beginning to joke about it instead.
The increasing popularity of gooning may be related to a general imbalance of stimulation among the population, potentially related to constant consumption of online media. "Overstimulation videos" became a thing starting in the 2010s, consisting of multiple video feeds going at once and often catering to people with ADHD.
Gooning brings this into the sexual realm, stimulating one's body until you reach a trancelike or meditative state. Something similar has also been practiced in BDSM communities, but with a partner instead of alone. Instead of focusing on multiple external sources to counteract the understimulation of boredom, the individual creates so much singular stimulation that they enter an altered state of consciousness.
Of course, the increased attention around "gooning" as it enters public consciousness has led to memes.
Most memes about gooning exist around the concept of the "goon stare," which refers to the look people get on their faces when their in that trancelike state, gooned out of their minds. A copypasta has emerged that goes: "When a fakegooncel says something so pornphobic you gotta hit him with that true goon stare."
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