Why are some of us so turned on by someone making a silly face? Is gooning a kink? If it is, how does it affect the rest of our lives?

For most people “kink” means a specific element or practice makes us Cuckoo for Cocoa, it hijacks our headspace and makes us “lose it”. The kink bypasses our “public facing” persona and connects to the deep sensitive “animal” part of us. It acts like a shortcut into those deeper parts of us.

But, how do they come to exist? Instead of asking if something “is a kink”, it might be more useful to think about how they come to be. Who put the shortcuts there? Is this happening outside our control?

I’ll share my model of kink

but first we must talk about memes

Memes are not just funny pictures on the internet. First coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, a meme is the smallest piece of culture that can spread. It can be a cat pic, a pop song or a mathematical formula. Here comes the vital part: you will only share a meme if it resonates with you. Memes have to land in “pools” of other similar ideas, otherwise they are forgotten.

Now, let’s talk about kink!

Let’s consider two scenarios:

You “discover” a “new kink” that works for you. Someone put white socks on your face and you lost your marbles. You don’t know why this is happening to you but it certainly is. In that case, the socks are probably resonating with a previously formed “pool” of ideas in your mind. Since the effect is so strong, those ideas might be very emotionally charged, related to things like your identity or sense of self-worth.

You forge a new kink with your own two hands. This is classic conditioning: ring a bell everytime you give a dog a steak and before long the dog will salivate when it hears a bell, steak or no steak. Forging a new kink works the same way except you’re the dog and the bell is a dude making a dumb face. Maybe the first few times it’s “interesting” or even weird but over many good sessions you associate pleasure with practice and the shortcut slowly becomes more and more established in your brain. 

As you practice, you’re exposed to other ideas that resonate and the pool starts to grow. Between gooners, for example, you’ll often hear phrases such as “up and down your penis” or “get dumb on dong” which center your attention on the physical act of masturbation. Over time, just hearing these words can “ring the bell” and trigger you. As the pool of ideas grows the kink becomes more established, one bell triggers a cacophony of other bells that all ring together, the shortcut becomes a highway. 

A practice doesn’t have to adhere to a single pool of ideas. In this zine issue, for example, we explored the pleasure-based bator approach to “ballplay” as an alternative to the pain-and-humiliation-based BDSM practice of “Cock and Ball Torture”¹. During a Bator Community Radio² episode discussing gooning, we heard how different bators enter goonspace from different mental scenarios, some reach it through ideas of submission and humiliation while others reach it through empowerment or projection. 

Why am I talking about all this? 

It is my perception that when people talk about desire, they talk as if they were powerless against it. I am strongly opposed to this idea. If our inner pulses are built on smaller ideas, we have some say in them. While it can be freeing to submit to desire, it can also harm us. I have seen many express powerlessness and frustration as they struggle against their desire. 

Gooning is a great example. Ideas around powerlessness go amazingly well with gooning: if you’re “porn addicted” or a “chronic masturbator” you have no choice but to “give into the bate”. In a solo-bate scenario, these ideas help you fall into a mental space of submission that makes gooning easier.

When those ideas settle in, some other ideas might resonate with it. Ideas such as jerking off nonstop for over 10 hours or thinking that watching porn by yourself is the only true sex for you do very well in the “porn addicted chronic bator” pool. Many gooners have started expressing how their lives are negatively being affected by these ideas. Explaining they’re losing relationships and jobs, having troubles to connect with others or having severe performance anxiety. They don’t know where to go.

An attempt to rewire

Trying to stop cold-turkey rarely works. The gooning trance and the intense pleasure from the experience is the way many of us deal with the pressures of the world. I think something very similar happens with addiction. Trying to stop completely only builds more inner pressure that undoubtedly makes us fall back into our self soothing. I propose another way.

If we envision a kink like a room full of bells, instead of trying to shut down the door we can go to each one of the bells individually and take them down. Slowly, over time, examine each idea and take it apart. Don’t judge them as good or bad, instead find reasons to make it unappealing to you. While you do this slowly, bring in new ideas that resonate with a new approach. Over time, the overall sound of the bells will be completely different.

This is a slow process, and it is not easy. Be patient and generous with yourself. It is easier to go down a well trodden path than to make your way through the wilderness with a machete, it is easier to dance to your favorite song on a loudspeaker than to dance to the whisper of a new song. But keep on working and you can carve a new path, you can make the new song ring loud and clear.

If you’re struggling with porn gooning addiction and have never tried cam gooning I’d suggest you give it a try. Being a cam gooner, I’ve come to believe that the way forward from gooning to is gooning with: pivoting from passive object of consumption to an active participant. That is to say, to transition from consuming porn and submitting to it into finding bate buddies and “become each other’s porn”, and bond over it, making friends.

At least in my case, cam bating has connected me with a lot of incredible people, it has taught me to appreciate all sorts of body types, and accept my own body as it is. Understanding that just as I am enjoying my cam buddies, they are enjoying me even if I don’t look the way I’d like to. It has helped me accept and love my own body. It has slowly made me perceive porn and the tireless pursuit of a “perfect physique” as self-harm.

Through cam bating, I came to understand my sexual energy as a powerful tool for bonding with others, a way to take care of each other. I stopped engaging with images. It has made me feel happier and more fulfilled. 

Throughout these essays I’ve tried to explain my thoughts about gooning, as I didn’t see anyone talking about it in this way. In the next, and final, article I will focus on explaining my experiences with gooning, the things I have felt while doing it. Thanks for coming so far along with me, and I hope to see you next time.

If you’re immersed in bate culture, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you for reading and until next time!