So I've recently learned about this new popular buzzword that's been going around. I've read the tag description for it on this website and I've seen how it gets used. I just felt like I needed a place to rant a little about why it bothers me.

To me gooning basically sounds like a more involved form of masturbation, but with a massive dose of sexual shame attached to it. Even the word itself automatically comes with negative connotations. The descriptions for this word centers around the idea of being overly self-aware of how you must look or sound to others when you masturbate. The thing is, if you are masturbating, who cares what you look like or sound like? Presumably you would be doing this in private and as long as you aren't being super loud enough to disturb others, it shouldn't be an issue. It reminds me of how people would point out how people can make funny faces or sounds while having sex. Yeah, sex feels good and involves a lot of vulnerability that may not be dignified in polite society, but it's roundly accepted as a private thing.

I feel like there is a huge amount of sexual shame in this current age with younger generations, and it feels really apparent with this term. Sex is this negative, dirty, bad thing you should feel ashamed of wanting or perhaps even needing. Sure, there is something to be said if it is something that dominates your life or causes harm to others, but when this word gets used it is almost exclusively towards individuals acting in private.

i think the term originated in right wing, 4channy spaces and became more popular basically because of fetish porn centered around the term. i feel like the porn genre is basically like degradation porn but evolved for modern audiences because it revolves around onlyfans, porn, etc.
the term bothers me as well, especially when its used in a serious, nonfetish way. i feel like the origin of the term matters because it is sex negative, it cant really be used in a way which isnt sex negative, and theres other, better terms for the kinds of things people are using the word to refer to.

"Gooning" is an old term, but it went from obscure to well-known and meme-ish in recent years. Unfortunately, some people nowadays will use "gooning" to roughly mean "porn/masturbation addiction", where "porn/masturbation addiction" is generally either sex-negativity in disguise or a mental health problem where mindless dopamine-seeking is a symptom rather than the root cause. I do wish people would use the label "gooner" for "I love edging and consider masturbation to be a hobby" and not "I hate how much I masturbate", but I'm not the language police. Though, I did write the wiki on gooning for this site, which (for the purposes of this site) roughly comes down to "fetishizing a masturbation addiction". Ideally, this should be treated as a variant of a humiliation kink, and not an attempt to spread a sex-negative message or commentate on people with actual problematic sexual behaviors affecting their lives.

furward_thinker said:
i feel like the origin of the term matters because it is sex negative, it cant really be used in a way which isnt sex negative, and theres other, better terms for the kinds of things people are using the word to refer to.

crocogator said:
Unfortunately, some people nowadays will use "gooning" to roughly mean "porn/masturbation addiction", where "porn/masturbation addiction" is generally either sex-negativity in disguise or a mental health problem where mindless dopamine-seeking is a symptom rather than the root cause. I do wish people would use the label "gooner" for "I love edging and consider masturbation to be a hobby" and not "I hate how much I masturbate", but I'm not the language police.

I think this is the exact thing that bothers me the most right there, how it is almost exclusively used to express sex negativity. I can understand the arguments to bring awareness about people who would get that dopamine addiction like CrocoGator says, but the majority of the time that doesn't seem to be what people who use this term are going for.