“Gooning is a sort of modernized version of tantric sex/masturbation without the spiritual aspects that have been traditionally associated with it in the past,” says
Christfister, who
moderates two of
the many subreddits dedicated to the topic. “It’s an almost hypnotic, semi-meditative mental state a person can enter after prolonged masturbation.”
This, to be clear, is completely different from the regular ol’ wham-bam-thank-you-m’am whackoff you do when you’re mildly horny and trying to fall asleep. Edging, gooning’s close cousin, is a bit more time-consuming and involved, but it comes with the promise of a more powerful and gratifying ejaculation at the end. With gooning, however, the desire to orgasm “pretty much goes out the window,” Christfister explains. It’s like when a basketball player enters “the zone” and can’t miss a shot because their muscle memory and mental focus are locked in sync — except in this case, the goal is to
not shoot a damn thing.
Instead, a gooner remains “deeply in the bliss of masturbation,” Christfister continues, submitting themselves to an unrelenting cycle of tease and denial. Gone are thoughts of your workday or the national debt, he says, while your “inhibitions will have completely melted away and you are at one with your body.” Many gooners describe it as the state where your “mind merges with your cock.”
