What Is Gooning? Taking Your Time With a Wank
If “gooning” made you think of a silver bag of cheap wine, fair enough. Australia has already done plenty with that word. This time, though, we're talking about masturbation. The wine can sit this one out.
Gooning is slang for getting deeply absorbed in sexual arousal during a drawn-out masturbation session, often using edging to delay orgasm. The idea is to enjoy staying turned on instead of making a quick finish the whole plan.
So yes, the internet has given taking your time with a wank its own vocabulary. Here's what people mean, where edging fits in and which bits of the online chatter you can safely stop overthinking.
Gooning and edging: what's the difference?
Edging means approaching orgasm, then easing off or pausing before it happens. Gooning usually describes the longer, absorbed experience people may seek through that build-up. One describes delaying the orgasm; the other puts more emphasis on getting caught up in the arousal.
The words overlap, and people use them differently. You can enjoy a little edging without wanting to spend your afternoon thinking about absolutely nothing else.
Our guide to edging takes a closer look at deliberately delaying orgasm. Gooning adds a particular emphasis: being horny can be the bit someone wants to linger over, rather than something they're trying to get out of the way.
What about edging during sex?
Yes, edging can be part of sex with a partner. Deliberately slowing down or pausing before orgasm is still edging, even when somebody else is helping. It's the delay that gives the technique its name.
Gooning usually refers more specifically to becoming absorbed in prolonged masturbation. People use the slang loosely, but having a long shag or putting off an orgasm doesn't automatically make it gooning. And masturbation doesn't have to mean being alone: our guide to mutual masturbation covers sharing the experience.
If the two of you fancy edging, agree on the teasing first. The person waiting for an orgasm should be enjoying the idea too, not wondering why their partner has suddenly developed terrible timing.
Why would you put off an orgasm?
You might usually squeeze a wank in before a shower, somewhere between putting the washing on and remembering you need milk. Perfectly respectable use of a gap in the day.
For someone who enjoys gooning, that unhurried time is the point. The anticipation feels good in its own right. They want to enjoy being turned on, with their attention on their body rather than mentally assembling a shopping list. Milk can wait. For once, so can the orgasm.
If that sounds appealing, you can probably see why the idea has fans. If it sounds like repeatedly pausing a film just before the good bit, you can probably see why it isn't everyone's favourite. Nobody needs to make their wank more complicated to impress strangers on the internet.
What does a “goon state” actually mean?
People use this phrase for feeling intensely absorbed in arousal, sometimes describing themselves as zoned out or in a trance. Those are personal descriptions of an experience, not a medical term or a guaranteed result.
You might see exaggerated faces, noises or claims about switching your brain off. You don't need to copy any of that to enjoy yourself. A bedroom is a fairly silly place to start worrying that you're not pulling the correct face.
Nor does the word promise a bigger orgasm. Some people enjoy the prolonged build-up; others would quite like to finish and get on with their bloody day. Both make sense.
Do you need porn or sex toys?
The term is strongly associated with online porn communities, so porn appears in plenty of discussions about it. That doesn't mean you need a screen to enjoy taking your time with masturbation, or that watching porn automatically makes something gooning.
You don't need a sex toy to call it gooning. If you fancy one, buy it for a sensation you like. Somebody else's enormous toy collection does not make them better at enjoying their own body.
If you already like toys, look for something you'll enjoy holding and controlling. Our vibrators and masturbators offer different kinds of stimulation. The useful choice is what feels good to you, not whatever looks most impressive in somebody else's bedside drawer.
How long is a gooning session?
There's no agreed minimum time and no reason to chase somebody else's marathon. The word generally suggests a prolonged session, but the internet cannot tell you when your own body has had enough.
Lube can reduce friction; stop if you're sore, numb or uncomfortable. Longer isn't automatically better, and irritated skin is a shit souvenir.
If lube starts feeling tacky, our guide to why lube gets sticky explains what may be happening. Adding more time won't magically make an uncomfortable session enjoyable again.
And if masturbation or porn starts crowding out sleep, work or relationships, or feels hard to control, talk with a qualified health professional. That's about how it's affecting your life, not whether you've used the fashionable word for it.
You can finish whenever you fancy
Gooning describes a preference, not a rulebook. You can enjoy the anticipation and still decide you'd quite like an orgasm now. You can also stop without one.
The useful idea is giving yourself room to enjoy arousal without rushing. Keep that if you like it. And if somebody online insists your perfectly enjoyable wank doesn't count, let them be wrong. What a fucking odd thing to be competitive about.
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