The Case for Ethical Gooning

What we can learn from a niche internet sub-culture

This piece was inspired in some ways by David Kolitz’s “The Goon Squad”, which could be insightful to those unfamiliar with “gooning” or gooner culture. I do think, however, that it largely takes the archetypal gooner to be representative of the entire kink/culture. Put more plainly, I think that “The Goon Squad” does well illustrate the issues within the culture, but portrays those issues as widespread, concerning, and perhaps inescapable. “Healthy gooning, as any gooner can tell you, is an oxymoron”, Kolitz says.

I’m not interested in defending gooning per se; this piece will focus on the idea of “ethical gooning”, a more niche subculture / meme that has arisen alongside gooning. Suffice it to say that I simply find pieces like “The Goon Squad” to be a little too doomerist and moral panic-adjacent to put too much stock in them.

But what, you may ask, even is gooning? The definition is inherently broad, which I suspect is in large part due to the term being used ironically more often than seriously. I would personally define it as “a fetishization of frequent porn consumption and/or masturbation”. Putting it this way, I think, helps us understand it as yet another kink rather than the cult (or, bizarrely, political movement) that Kolitz seems to want to frame it as. Discussing the potential emergence of a “gooner congressmen” or “gooner news networks” should not be taken very seriously.

The potential harm of the kink is pretty clear on its face - regular porn consumption is not good for you, exactly. But kinks do not have to be “good for you” to be acceptable. A similar example would be intox, or intoxication kinks. Both kinks often focus on “damage” being done quite directly, on the idea that you’re frying your brain. And in both cases, there is nothing wrong with someone finding that idea hot. The issues lie in practice - in what behavior is truly damaging long-term. I will not deny that many, and perhaps even most, gooners are engaging with the kink in an unhealthy way. But that isn’t to say that the unhealthy aspects are unique to gooning, and ultimately, it isn’t really my business to police how often someone jerks off.

So - The Ethical Part?

What I find terribly ironic is that, in spite of the many obvious issues with gooner culture writ large, so-called “ethical gooning” comes much closer to a coherent and ethical understanding of humanity than many ideologies.

The particular tenants of ethical gooning are perhaps even looser than gooning itself, considering the term is mostly regulated to jokes. Broadly, there are two ideas I’ve seen floating around, usually focused on the drawn/animated side of gooning. One - the character must be of age, two - artists’ work should be respected.

The first point is rather obvious but can quickly get skimmed over when talking about fictional characters. Particularly with homogenized beauty standards and art styles, pornographic artwork of a 16 year-old character may look identical to artwork of a 28 year-old character. The recognition here is that while neither is necessarily CSAM, the former does contribute to a normalization of the sexualization of minors, and thus should be avoided. Personally, I would not argue that those former cases should be banned outright - Ophie Dokie has an excellent video on censorship to elaborate my feelings there. Bans on problematic fiction tend to repress extra works along with them, so until a work becomes full-on CSAM or similar, I believe that cultural push-back is the way to go.

Now, I don’t know anyone who would call themselves an ethical gooner. Perhaps they would be in favor of outright bans. But I doubt it. Gooners are quite familiar with censorship and generally quite against it. There are constant pushes to eliminate porn and sexual content from everywhere. Certain sites will become safe havens for adult content only to abruptly tear it out (think of Tumblr, or far more recently, Itch.io and Steam). These crackdowns accomplish little if anything in terms of safety or promoting healthy sex lives, and typically are accompanied by crackdowns on queer content, even “safe” queer content. To be an ethical gooner is to recognize that, at a certain point, fostering good community behavior is far more productive than top-down bans on content.

The second point can be interpreted pretty broadly. It encompasses a rejection of AI content, a preference for “homegrown” porn over that of major studios, and an imperative to financially support the people helping you jerk off. The degree to which people really follow these ideas vary, but I think they all emerge from the same place. From an understanding that humans are involved in a meaningful way, even in something as “base” as porn. It recognizes that AI content lacks that human input and that it is built upon the theft of real creatives’ work. It sees the people behind the porn videos, people who are often exploited by the industry and shunned from society because of their work.

The ethical gooning stance on sex work is, unfortunately, seemingly rather uncommon. Even within progressive circles, sex work is often seen as some terrible evil foisted upon people rather than yet another potential place for harm to emerge. The idea that people may regularly consume or create porn while being a good, functional human being seems alien to many. As with gooning culture, I will not dispute the harm present in the porn industry, but I am wholly uninterested in presenting such harm as uniquely evil or unique to porn. Plenty of people, like it or not, do enjoy having porn as their career or even as just a hobby.

The Main Point

To me, then, ethical gooning represents a recognition of what truly constitutes harm. The idea, of course, is a bit silly - taking a moral high-ground over jerking off. But that doesn’t make it less real. Our politics and ethics should apply everywhere, not just to the most public settings.

I will take an ethical gooner over some thoughtless progressive any day. What will the progressive’s thoughts be on gay people? On kink? On swinging or polyamory? On furries? On what you should be allowed to say or post?

If the conflation of those different identities/lifestyles/interests seems unwarranted, I must assure you it is not. All have, at one time or another, been considered strange, deviant, perverse, or wrong. And yet - none of them harm other people. Putting down the people involved, much less advocating for bans or similar action, is unjustified. It is a policing of human expression that has no further rationale than a bad gut feeling.

To an extent, I feel that the harm present within gooner culture is there because of our broader attitudes around sex and pornography. I mean, the kink is often pretty explicitly about the shame associated with it, about how what the gooner is doing is wrong and deviant. It is no surprise that ethical gooning is more of a joke than a wide practice - how can you convince someone to create/consume porn more ethically if porn itself is seen as unethical? If we detach ourselves from actual impacts, if particular types and forms of expression are seen as inherently wrong, then we lose any ability to make things better.

The problem with the porn industry is not that seeing someone naked online is evil. It’s sex workers having no support, it’s men reducing women to objects, it’s women being being pushed or forced into doing things they’d rather not do. None of these problems are solved by porn bans because none of these problems are fundamentally caused by porn. Human sexuality is a fact of life, and sometimes it can appear deviant, but what matters is whether it causes harm.

I am not concerned by someone who jerks off “too often” or someone who has a “weird” relationship, kink, identity, or hobby. Whatever goes on in someone else’s head is ultimately their business; I can only judge their actions. To that end, I am concerned by censorship, by arbitrary lines for what is deemed normal and acceptable.

The ethical gooner strides the line. They recognize that when it comes to fantasy, to expression, to kink, you must be willing to accept even the “deviant”, because what “deviant” means is subject to change. At the same time, they see the importance of ethics, of not allowing a tolerant attitude to mean that everything is permissible.

Be an ethical gooner. Crank it crazy style, live your life how you please. Just always with a mind for the consequences.