An Anthropology of Gooners

0:00Hello. Quick note before we begin this week, Search Engine does not particularly believe in content warnings. That said, this week, the show is a little racy. It involves pornography. Maybe you want to skip if you're with a kid. Or you're my mom. Or my father-in-law. Okay, the episode after these ads. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Toyota. When it comes to owning a car or truck these days, it's hard to beat a Toyota. From reliability to resale value, Toyota has the field covered. And as the official automotive partner of the NFL, The strength of Toyota is on full display.

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2:54I guess first things first, you want to just introduce yourself. Yes. Hi, I'm Daniel Kolitz and I'm a writer. and you've do you find it comfortable to talk about pornography difficult difficult no not at all really I mean I guess if I'm at a party I wouldn't bring it up but if someone wants to know about you know this kind of thing no I find that very easy to discuss and that is just how you are anyway or is it that you spend a bunch of time reporting and it is like naturalized you in the world I would say partly that I mean by the time I was finished reporting this piece it was hard for me to remember that any of this was unusual I started a point I was like are people going to find this strange?

3:32Because I was so inured to the crazy things I was looking at.

3:40If Daniel's a nerd to the more extreme parts of the online porn world, it's because he spent a year investigating a subculture most of us would prefer not to think much about. Gooners. It's a word you might have already run into, but just as a joke. If you're around teenagers, they really enjoy accusing each other of being gooners. But Gooners are also a real subculture online, with their own vocabulary and social hierarchy and strange behavioral codes. And if one of the missions of this show is to figure out what exactly the internet seems to be doing to everybody right now, both at its margins and in its mainstream, the time has come to try to understand the Gooners, whose story has lessons in it about how the internet affects all of us.

4:27Can you just explain what is gooning and what is a gooner? Sure. So gooning is a kind of ritualized form of prolonged masturbation. It involves basically trying to reach the goon state by masturbating for sometimes hours, sometimes days at a time. Goon state being a kind of masturbation nirvana, a flow state that most gooners claim is real and that you can tap into with practice. There's also a community component. Now, not every gooner is part of the gooning community. Most are. And that is a world of discords and Twitters. Sound like I'm 90 years old. That is a world online of people who masturbate together on camera, who play sort of gamified masturbation games, who are pornography enthusiasts and fans and oftentimes remixers of existing pornographic content.

5:29So the core belief of the community is that there is a place, like the same way people who take psychedelics talk about having some elevated experience of spirituality or people who go on like silent meditation talk about, you know, reaching something like enlightenment. These people are claiming that through kind of record-breaking masturbation sessions, they can get somewhere. Yes, that's their contention. And by the end of the process, I do believe them. I think it's real. Really? Kind of. I mean, just in the sense that I can see with enough stimulation, and also oftentimes drugs, which I didn't really mention in the article, but which a good number of them use, you can work yourself into a kind of, I'm not saying it's like, you know, some kind of you're tapping into a new realm or dimension of consciousness, but I can certainly see the world falling away and getting single-mindedly, you know, focused on your porn world.

6:28And what do you normally write about? Oh, all kinds of things. book reviews. I think the thing I published before this was about a neglected experimental novelist, short story writer rather. So similar terrain. Well, it's cultural criticism. Yes, cultural criticism. And then before we even like dive into your reporting journey to try to understand these people in this culture, one of the things that has confused me, like I've run into the concept of gooning a lot, either people making jokes about online or I'm helping to raise teenage boys and it's one of those words that they think I don't know and so they're constantly referring to like other people having goon caves and stuff like that I still feel like I struggle to just understand like how much the concept of gooning is a thing people do versus a thing people joke about or whether that's almost like a false distinction yeah I think right now sort of an online meme culture gooning is just kind of a synonym for masturbation you know it's a synonym for a porn addict or someone who, you know, spends a lot of time watching pornography.

7:34That is distinct from this kind of gooning culture. So there's two different strands at play here. But the gooner, I mean, often is just used as an insult now, I would say. Right. It's like perv or something. Yeah, exactly. Okay. And why did you want to understand this? Like, what was driving your curiosity? There were a few things going on. I mean, one was just sheer awe that any of this existed. I had first encountered it in the early pandemic period when these goon caves first started diffusing across social media. And I was stunned at the time. I'd forgotten about them for a few years. But then the goon caves subreddit was banned last year.

8:11And there was a news story about that somewhere. And I saw that. And it was like revelatory seeing it again. I was like, I completely forgot that these existed. What is a goon cave? Yes, I should definitely explain that. So a goon cave is kind of a porn consumption layer with an extremely elaborate audiovisual setup, often multiple screens, upwards of a dozen screens, often a projector blasting porn onto the ceiling. Quite often printed out and taped up pornographic pictures on the walls, sex toys, lube. And in each of these images, of course, the gooners' penises are foregrounded in the frame.

8:50So they'll take... They're proud. They're proud. They're proud. But it's an anonymous penis in a room that is decorated as like a shrine to pornographic consumption. Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah. So you want to understand something that is half real to some degree. How do you start trying to understand it? Where do you go? What do you do? It's a good question. So I am somewhat online in a kind of normal way. Not online in a kind of Discord, TikTok way. And so I tried to find out where the Gooners were. It was Discord, which was a platform that I had never used before. I typed Gooning into some kind of, you know, Discord server aggregator to see what was out there.

9:33I found the Goonverse. So it had 50 ,000 members. There's a lot of people. Clicked into it. And it really was like being transported into another. It felt like my laptop was alive. I never felt, not since like, honestly watching like, not that I would watch these on purpose, but like an ISIS beheading video. Basically, it was the equivalent of the sense that you're like, I thought I was ignored to whatever I would see on my laptop. So you get into the Goonverse, and there's a stream room, which is basically a Zoom call where you're all watching something together, but everyone is masturbating.

10:06Heads cut off at the neck, so it's just neck down. they're watching pornography that I had no reference point for. This kind of hyperkinetic montage of just penises going into vagina. Non-stop, crazy, one after the other. I would say not just humans, CGI-generated horsewomen, obviously a lot of hentai, things of that nature. And there's so much going on. I mean, they were kind of talking to each other. Some of them were kind of talking as if they were gamers. It's what I would, I mean, I'm not a gamer myself, but what I would imagine gamers sound like, sort of talking shit on each other. But just so I understand, it's like the thing you see, because Discord is more like a chat server.

10:48Like it's like you. Yeah, and there's a lot of chatting going on at these servers, I should say too. But you're seeing live streaming video where there's like a center screen that's just a super cut of the most kind of visceral or strange porn. and it's like montage. So it's just like very short clips, one after the other. And then around it, people are filming themselves masturbating without their faces. That's exactly right. Nailed it. Yeah. And the vibe is like, it's not, these are people who would probably think of themselves as straight. You know, I would say for the most part, at least the people that I then encountered and spoke to, but a lot of people are sort of, some are openly bi.

11:31It's a big community. It's a very large community. I would say most of the people that I end up talking to are people who identify as straight in real life and have had a weird kind of bi-curiosity unlocked in them by the rituals of the goon verse. Got it. But the tone of conversation, they're not talking to each other in sexy, come on ways. They're talking like boys being kind of jockish. That was what I experienced. I mean, this is going, there's so many of these rooms and your listeners can go visit right now. They're a quick click away. I don't know if you're at work listening to this, But, you know, it's free.

12:06There's so many of them. But, yeah, that was what I heard when I went in there. Okay. So that's the first thing you're seeing. This is this sort of, this is this strange new internet mediated thing that they're doing together. And then what, like, to the degree you can see, like, what is the view you're getting into, into, like, their lives? Like, you can see images of the rooms they're in. Yeah, I remember noticing like Spider-Man trinkets, you know, like little, like maybe they weren't Funko Pops specifically. That's just the term I'm familiar with. But like what you would expect, you know, sort of a nerd to own.

12:40But you know, you're saying, I remember one person was masturbating on the toilet. So that was interesting. One really did look like they were masturbating in jail, which I'm presumably they weren't. But it had a kind of, I would say the vibe overall is sort of dark, seedy, abject, possibly on purpose. Yeah, yeah. I had a friend in college who had an anthropology assignment, which was to go somewhere that made him uncomfortable. And we were in Montreal, and I went with him to the porn theater, and it sounds like that. Yes, kind of bringing back the old Times Square, you know. Yeah. It's the seediest district of the internet, I think I can—well, that's probably not true, but it was a seediest district of the internet.

13:20that. And so then what happens? Like, tell me about just meeting these people. Sure. So basically, I just start reaching out at random. I'm dying to talk to these people. Once I got over my initial sort of shock, let's say, I was like, I got to figure out what's going on here. I was worried at first because I figured, you know, these people aren't going to want to talk to me. You know, I don't have an anti-masturbation agenda, but I think they would assume that a journalist was not coming in there to celebrate Gooning. But people were immediately so receptive. Oh, yeah. They were so happy to talk to me.

13:54Now, there was one person who said, I'm not talking to journalist scum, and I did want to say, you're a Gooner. Come on. You know, beyond that, everyone was just so eager to talk. So the task for me then became filtering out, just finding the right people to talk to, basically. And why did they want to talk to you? Like, what was your why? I mean, my sense of it now, one, is that Gooning is a hobby, like any other. And this is a hobby you can't really talk about with your friends, your colleagues. And, you know, it occupies so much of their lives. There's so many aspects of this community. I think they were just happy to have someone, you know, who wasn't involved directly in the community who could sort of sincerely listen.

14:33Yeah. And so there's one particular person you met who I wanted to ask you about. I just want to make sure I'm pronouncing his name right. Spishak? Yes. That's his username, yeah. So tell me about Spishak. Spishak is a 28-year-old pornosexual living in Los Angeles. And pornosexual. Right. You know, these terms are so familiar to me that I forget. This is not common language. Pornosexual is basically a voluntary celibate, Volcel, who is not having sex because they are completely content with pornography. And they just want to watch porn, and that is their sex life. Can you describe yourself on Twitter and on Discord as, like, pornosexual?

15:10Is that how you actually identify? I know some people sort of just say that, but that's not actually the case. I mean, do you feel that way? So before, no, but the more that I've gotten into the community, I feel that way, yes. And what does that mean to you? I mean, I kind of know, but how do you describe it? I prefer porn over having sex with a real person. I would just say that I would rather spend my time masturbating and watching porn versus having sex. I first came across him because this goon cave was really one of the most striking I'd seen. Can you just tell me your setup right now? Like, if you're doing it maximal, like, what does it look like?

15:53Okay, so I have two 2K monitors, so 1440p, which is going to be my center and my right. And then my left monitor is a 1920 by 1080p. Then I have eight Samsung A7 Lite tablets. And then I have a cheap$60 to$70 projector that I would use. Four monitors, eight tablets, over-eye projector, porn on the walls, sex toys, the whole setup. But what also is important to keep in mind to give a sense of the visuals here, each of these screens, it's not like there's four screens, each one is playing one pornographic film. It's four screens, each of which is playing like 30 pornographic films. And these pornographic films are themselves cycling in and out.

16:37So you're really looking at something like a thousand pornographic films in the course of, you know, a minute. You kind of like zone out. So you're seeing not everything, but you're just like, OK, I can look in the center screen. And if I happen to drift off, then maybe I naturally twist to the right or maybe I naturally twist to the left. Wherever you look, then there's something to keep you stimulated. So you were drawn to him because his goon cave was— Yes, elaborate goon cave. I didn't know anything about him when I reached out. Lives with his parents, so he has to basically build the goon cave when they go to sleep at midnight.

17:09He says midnight to 8 a.m. is his prime hours of gooning. And they have no—they don't know. You know, if they do know, I doubt they want to bring it up. I don't think that's a conversation they want to have with their adult son. Are you ever worried they're going to walk into the room or something? uh yes and no so i plan everything to where it's the least likely um so most people if they're able to you know get into the cave they'll go at whatever time but for me i have to wait until people are asleep so that's usually like the time to where it's like okay no one's gonna there's a low chance that someone's gonna bother me he said he always kind of had trouble talking to women He had female friends, but he said he was never able to really, he was always friend zone, as he put it.

17:57And sometime around the pandemic, he was in college at the time, he found himself in this community. And from there, really just dove headfirst into this, you know, universe of porn, started identifying as a pornosexual. But what I found interesting talking to him was one of his reasons for his pornosexuality. he could never know what was in another person's head he would never know what the other woman was thinking it's just more of a pros and cons game of okay yeah if I stick with this person the pro is I lose my virginity and I probably feel good but then I also have to worry about making sure that they feel good, making sure it lasts a decent time is everything okay is mood setting fine am I being weird am I being too forward, blah blah blah now I'm not good at reading signs so now I have to wonder okay do they like this, do they not Should I be doing something different?

18:51And that created so much anxiety that it almost wasn't worth doing. Huh. What? But that's the whole point of other people. No, I've had the same thought, yeah. I mean, I think these spaces, you know, the kinds of interactions you're having are so prescribed. You're sending each other your favorite pornography. You're sort of talking about a very specific set of things. it can be very easy to just kind of check out of the difficulties of adult-human relationships, which can be, I think, quite rewarding, you know, to get to know someone, to be scared, and to not know what someone's thinking, but trust them and learn how to trust people.

19:31And these skills, I think, not just in the porn addiction space, but maybe across society are being lost to some degree. And did he seem, I mean, it's interesting, you're describing somebody who, who, you know, he's 28 years old, he's living with his parents, he has an elaborate porn, like, dystopian theater that he's setting up and taking down every night. He also seems pretty self-aware about the sort of anxieties that have gotten to that place. Like, did he want to be different or did he feel like he'd found this was fulfilling him sexually and he felt like a person who has understood himself to be happy in life?

20:11That was the question I was always delicately tiptoeing around with the pornosexual crowd. Because I don't want to go out there and say, hey, how come you're not going on dates? You want to get out there? But I was curious. I mean, is this it? Are you content with this? In his case, for the time being, he said, yeah. I mean, the way he put it, it was easier to just fulfill his needs through, you know, the goon space and goon porn. And he was not at that time looking to change. and did you I mean like the fact that he's 28 and living with his parents who just like professionally things might not be going he does have a job a lot of these gooners are employed clocking in so I work 9 to 5 every day Monday through Friday it might seem like oh you know porn I'm basically just watching porn whenever I have time but usually it's if I have free time I can either split it between hanging out with my family or my sibling, or I could go to bed early and watch porn.

21:12And, you know, I haven't hung out with them in a while. Okay, let me hang out with them, you know, catch up, you know, make sure that I'm there. And then maybe instead of two hours, I'll have an hour to watch porn. And then if I'm physically, like, and I'm exhausted, then I'll push it off to maybe the next day. Yeah, makes sense. And I really want to be clear. He and many of these other people that I spoke to were totally sincere, totally self-aware. They knew that what they were doing was sort of strange, and that was honestly part of the appeal of the community is we're doing something that is, like, bizarre and transgressive.

21:44In that way, I mean, I think I say it in the article, I mean, it's kind of like punk or something in the sense that, you know, they're doing something that mainstream society, that really, I would say, 99.9 % of people who have ever lived would find utterly repellent. And there is something, I don't want to say cool about that, but it's, you know, certainly interesting.

22:11One of the strange facts that hovers over Daniel's reporting comes from this survey he conducted, which he got 107 Gooners to fill out. He found a data point that he hadn't expected. A surprising amount, 44 % of the Gooners, had had sex in real life with another person. But when he cross-referenced that number by age, his findings made more sense. The younger Gooners were unlikely to have had sex in real life. These were the young boys whose high school or college education had taken place during the pandemic. During the developmental stage where antisocial, awkward teenage boys typically find that their raging hormones force them to develop social skills, These boys had instead apparently developed deep relationships with their screens, with pornographic fantasies, and then ultimately online with each other.

23:03And those relationships with each other, the way gooners use and exchange porn, I had not seen relationships like this in my entire life, not even online. We're going to take a short break, and then we're going to examine what those relationships look like. How do two Gooners bond? After these ads, two words you won't find together in the Bible. Wank battling.

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