Straight dudes have begun to appropriate gooning but, of course, they’re doing it all wrong

A new Harpers Magazine article strips bare the terrifying truth about straight men, and we were not prepared. To be honest, it’s not really possible to be prepared to gaze into the maw of straight masculinity even in the best of times. But as the article makes clear, we may be currently living through the worst of times.

“This is never going to leave my brain,” explained TikToker Jason Pargin, “and if you read it, it’s never going to leave yours either.”

Daniel Kolitz’s article goes into great detail describing a prominent subculture of extremely online, mostly straight men engaged in “gooning,” i.e. a form of continuous edging.

How about we take this to the next level?

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The author classifies this practice as “a new kind of masturbation at the heart of an internet-based, pornography-obsessed, Gen Z–dominated subculture every bit as defined and vibrant as the hippies or punks in their prime.”

Describing the adult content-watching “shrines” that gooners have erected in their rooms, the writer goes into detail on the “international pornography cult” that’s taken over a certain segment of the population, and it’s deeply chilling. But it’s also, as the author notes, fairly predictable.

In a historical moment where the government is a clown show, the job market is failing young people, and technology is threatening to restrict our access to information rather than democratize it, it’s not too surprising to learn that young men are randier, and perhaps more self-destructive, than ever before. In a word, the straights are absolutely not okay, and we’ve known this for some time.

The article quickly went viral on social media, and it’s no wonder why. The gooner—what one commenter referred to as the “male loneliness final boss”—is a tragic figure who has loomed large in the cultural imagination for some time, but now we know exactly what their bedrooms, and their collections of unwashed dildos, look like.

Most of the gooners interviewed are straight, but there is, obviously, a queer side to the wide world of gooning, or as the author puts it, “a separate, equally vibrant, and by all accounts far less psychosexually muddled world of gay-porn gooning.”

This segment of gooning population might be less “psychosexually muddled,” but they are still legion, as evidenced by Grindr’s need to put out a 2024 guide to “gay gooning.” Just don’t mistake gay gooning for gay gooners, the name for LGBTQ+ fans of Arsenal football in the UK.

While Kolitz explains that most people in the Gooniverse are straight, he doesn’t want to erase the existence of the many “bisexuals in the community… nor the self-described femboys, nor the trans women of every sexual orientation. Squint very hard—to the point of risking permanent eye damage—and you can almost see in Goonworld the realization of the Nineties dream of the internet as an incorporeal, judgment-free, gender-fluid sexual playground.”

I mean… I guess? But the factor linking these people isn’t sexual identity—it’s loneliness, and a commitment to serving your own needs at home, to put it very, very mildly.

The reason? According to Kolitz, it’s not just that millenials and Gen Z had instant access to adult content growing up, as opposed to earlier generations who had to seek out paper materials that were highly gatekept. It’s also that the adult content these generations got access too were much, much filthier than any that came before.

And yeah, sounds pretty plausible. According to Kolitz’s research, the “median age of the sexually active gooner: twenty-seven. Median age of the non–sexually active gooner: twenty-three…It was this latter group that, in the Questionnaire, was likeliest to identify not merely as a gooner but also as a “pornosexual.”

There are many names for this: Gooning, a version of SLAA, or good old fashioned spicy content addiction. But whatever name you put on it, it’s a very sad state of affairs. Pray for the straight men in your lives.

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